D'Angelo Russell Reacts To Lakers GM1 vs Warriors | May 2, 2023

D'Angelo. Yo, right over here. Over here. This is a second straight series, you guys. It wasn't the first game. What's allowing you guys to do that and on the road? Just locking into the game plan. Obviously, getting off to a good start matters in the playoffs. Even in the regular season, when you get off to a good start, you give yourself a chance to hold it down throughout the game. Honestly, we just locked into the game plan and everybody was committed to it. Everybody from the bench to the starting unit, there was no let up. We were locked in for 48 minutes. It allowed us to get the win. D'Lo, with the noise in this arena, how difficult was it to communicate on the high picks at the three-point line to make sure that you guys were not surrendering uncontested three-point shots to Steph and Clay and Poole? It's not really that loud. For our group, it's all about the game plan. We know we got to be up. There's things that we know. So as far as yelling and screaming and losing your voice trying to do it, it's kind of irrelevant. We know we got to do so. Nobody needs to be told it, honestly. Yeah, D'Lo, how impressed have you been with AD? Big, huge, huge, huge performance. He's been dominating the playoffs. Gets a lot of hate from the media throughout the year. And I wasn't a part of it, but I don't know what you could say about the guy. He was on the court for almost the whole game. Last series, he dominated when he was out there. Never asked for a sub, never asked for a break. If he can play, he'll dominate the game. If he can't play, he can't play. D'Angelo, just wondering your familiarity with Golden State and kind of how they defend the spots that you're looking to get your shots in and how different that is from the Memphis series and this series. And what you see is kind of the keys to that part of the game. I mean, they're a good team defensive unit. They do a good job of selling out to their rotations, activating their scramble. They might run a guy off, and the next guy's there ready in rotation. They've been doing it for a while now. So I don't know. You just got to trust the pass against those guys. They make you go to your second and third option throughout the game. And you trust the pass. It could be a good night for anybody. If you go against it, it's kind of tough. D'Angelo, there's been a couple of games where you've had these spurts in scoring. Tonight was third quarter. What did you score? The first eight in the third, and you guys kind of needed that. What kind of gets you going, and what are you seeing in that moment? I mean, I don't know. Just it's an opportunity to be ready. You know they're a good third quarter team. We all knew that. So for us to get off to a good third quarter start, everybody was kind of coming out ready to be aggressive. And the game just allowed me to be the one to kind of take advantage of it at the time. But they're a good third quarter team. We know that. And we just wanted to handle that and be locked in as a group. Dennis, when they cut it from a 14 point deficit all the way. Did you call me? You said it is? No, I said Dennis is a deal of my bed. So I literally just talked to Dennis. When the Warriors cut it from 14 down to zero, obviously you guys were able to prevail and get the win. But what do you think you guys learned as a group from that sequence and apply it to the rest of the series? We were just locked in for 48 minutes from the start to the finish. That team's dangerous. They shoot a lot of threes. A lot of threes can get you back in the game when you're down by a few possessions. So knowing that they can explode at any time and get themselves back within one point or one possession game, whatever it may be, knowing that every possession matters. So Vando, Reeves, Dennis, all those guys were huge. Troy Brown, all those guys were huge. Things you don't see on the stat sheet. When we watched the game, they impacted winning to the fullest. D'Angelo, Golden State's coming off a seven game series. You just played a very physical Memphis team. Do you sense any advantage tonight as far as perhaps stamina is concerned? I know they made that run in the final six minutes. But do you sense anything from the other side as far as maybe an advantage you have when it comes to getting up and down? I mean, if you rebound the ball, I think both teams are dangerous. We get out in transition. We get dunks and threes. They get out in transition. They get a lot of threes. So if we can limit that, I think that's our advantage. Not really the previous series and things like that. Series can prepare you for the next one as far as physicality and things like that. But as far as the resting and the time off and all that extra, I don't think that really matters. I just think we locked in. Locked in for 48 minutes. Whatever we got to do with whoever is out there, everybody's ready to impact winning. Yep, thank you.