Communication like between players in terms of the the mental and the physical adjustments you guys wanna make and even verbal, you know, adjustment.

You wanna make defensively?

It's a little bit everything.

Our communication are positioning.

We never really had a lot of practice time, so we're kind of learning on the fly.

Um, but, you know, I think communication is gonna help a lot.

Let out.

Um, just conference.

Constant effort.

Um, you know, we gotta be more active on the loose basketballs.

Do you really know a better job rebounding the basketball and then do a better job of just keeping our man in front of us?

Um, there's some aspects that we could get better on.

And, you know, if we do those things and you know, schemes and all the plays that you no way could figure that out later.

But the principles air those small things.

Four games, one sort of practice for you.

What does this feel out?

Process been like for you in terms of, you know, on the floor, facilitating for your new teammates versus looking for your your own shot.

What has that been like?

a little bit of mixture of both.

You know, I got to be aggressive, a little bit more aggressive, Uh, but I feel like we're getting open shots.

Honestly, Our problem is an offense like we scored 100 something 113 points tonight, and even last game was more than enough toe win the game.

I think defensively, we have to be more engaged and we have toe around us some more stops consecutively and that that will make our offense a lot better.

So offensively, we're not worried at all.

It's our defense.

Will you get Andrews with ESPN?

James Steve was talking about defense.

Is an effort issue as a pride issue?

Is it an on off switch for you guys, or do you think it's something we're game by game?

There are little tweaks that you could make them toe add up to something bigger.

Little tweaks, little tweaks, I think.

Just individual, though.

Just Gardner, man.

Small things like that.

Putting a body on a za shot goes up, putting a body on the man to gang rebound things like that that we can control.

And then the tweaks will go along with that.

And then, you know, as you add on games, games and, uh, you know, we put five guys in great defensive possession, so, um, you know, like I said, we'll take time.

But I think those small things individually, we can correct.

Um, starting tomorrow.

Christian Winfield with The New York Daily News.

James, obviously, you went those first couple of games playing with just Kevin.

What's it like learning to play with Kyrie and figuring that backcourt dynamic out us a process?

Obviously, we all know how great curry, you know, score.

He is, Um, But like I said, you know, for all of us, not just me, Katie and car, you know, it's all of us have to find a way to lock in and be engaged on the same page.

Whoever five guys are out there defensively, like, you know, as much as we could talk about scoring, you know, we're very good at scoring, you know, we gotta, you know, round up some stops, and once we get that going, then we'll be, you know, you know a lead on both ends of the ball.

But right now our problem is defense.

Back to Mallika.

with ESPN, James, Was there any difference for you in in starting in the front court?

No.

No.

Okay.

Steve Lichtenstein with W f A n.

Hi, James.

You talked about guarding your man, but is there anything that you can do?

Scheme wise, uh, to keep ball handlers out of the paint a little better.

We can.

We can.

But I think individually, you know, we watched film before games.

So, you know, we have to take upon the challenge to know who regarding they're a tendencies and what they like to do, you know?

And tonight what killed is they had maybe what point paints?

They had 72 points in the paint.

That's a lot of points in the paint.

Eso we just didn't do Ah, good job of guarding the ball and they got into the paint and, you know, offensive rebounds happened.

Layups happened.

And, you know, just not not good things doesn't happen when they bought into paint and tonight we allowed that too much.

Brian Lewis with The New York Post.

Hey, James, with the schedule being what it is, I mean, whatever systematic tweaks you guys would make, I mean, there's not a lot of time out of practice time to do that.

So is that just a matter of playing through that and having to come to an epiphany on the court tomorrow?

We got another chance to get better.

Eso, I'm sure.

Culture Housing, housing film for us.

Pregame Miami is another great team special in the Eastern Conference, and you know, we're gonna have to figure it out.

But I think if we're engaged and you know we have each other's back defensively, gang rebound uh, you know we'll have a chance in any game and last question.

Matt Brooks with Nets daily James.

We talked quite a bit about on ball defense.

Do you feel like there's anything with help?

Is it is it rotating over a little bit late as well?

Is there anything you've been able to diagnose from where you're at on the floor?

I think, Yeah, that's a good question.

I think just individually I think our communication, you know, from from the other four guys the guy that isn't going, the four guys aren't going.

The ball has to communicate and where the help is, where we're to send that to send the dribbler.

Just communicate, have each other's back, you know?

And I think What's our communication from?

All five guys are in sync.

Our defense will be that much better.

But it seems like we're on the island, you know, out there.

And we have to all do a better job, including myself of communicating and helping each other out defensively, which you know what happened.

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