BRIAN KEEFE: Morning, everybody. Just wanted to start with first some gratitude for the opportunity that was given to me under some difficult circumstances. Those are tough things when changes happen, and I got thrown into it. But I have gratitude for the opportunity that was given to me, and really thankful for the work with Michael Winger and Will Dawkins and the support they showed and working with them on a daily basis to help build the culture that we're trying to build here. I really enjoyed that.
I also want to thank Ted and the ownership group for providing the resources that they do to us to do the job to the best of our abilities. I've been around a lot of organizations. This is truly a first-class organization, and really thankful for that.
To my staff and the support staff, tremendous gratitude for the amount of work that they did in pouring themselves into our guys and supporting them on a day-to-day basis.
Lastly, our players. The players bought in from day one when I was coaching them. They bought into the process of daily improvement. That's what we were looking for, to grow every day, and I commend our guys for sticking with that to the very end.
We fought, and we were in a lot of close games, and even yesterday we went right to the end.
Really thankful to them for that, and I guess we can open it up for questions.
Q. Now that the season is over, can you take us into that moment when you found out that you were going to be moving over and then taking over as the coach? What went through your mind? Did you have an idea of I know exactly how I'm going to hit the ground running?
BRIAN KEEFE: I obviously found out really that day. I was having to coach a game that night.
I think I've said it, my sole focus was to pour myself into the team, into the group, to give everything I could possibly have to help us improve and build the habits that were going to build something that were sustainable and repeat only. I just got lost in the process of doing that. I really enjoyed it. It was a lot of fun. But it was pretty quick. I just dove headfirst into it, and I think that was the best way to approach it for me and our staff, so that's how I looked at it.
Q. You talked about the group's competitiveness, more focused on defense. I wonder what you feel like would be the immediate next step for this team? I know there's so much work left to be done in the rebuild, but if you had two more weeks, another month, what would be the next step you think this roster needs to take?
BRIAN KEEFE: I think to me the most important thing was not skipping steps. You don't go from A to Z. You have to go A, B, C, D. You have to dig into the details. I thought that was what this group did, and I thought that's what we focused on, is that we weren't going to skip steps. We were going to build something that was going to lay the foundation for things that were going to grow over time. I think we saw that as the year went.
The defense got better. That improved. Our rebounding got better. We saw incremental gains, and that stuff didn't happen overnight, and I didn't think it was going to happen overnight, because that stuff doesn't last if it just happens that quick. It has to be something that's sustainable, and that's what we were looking for.
Q. As long as you've been in the game, anything surprise you about being the head coach? Anything that just popped up where you went, I didn't know this was part of the deal?
BRIAN KEEFE: I think you feel responsible. I always felt responsible as an assistant. I took my craft very seriously. But you feel responsible for the whole building because there's a trust that the people -- the decision makers that put you in that position to do, so you feel responsible for it to go well. I took that very seriously.
That was my approach, to bring that every day to our team, that this was something we were going to work at, that we were going to pour ourselves into, and that was my thought process.
Q. With these players who come from winning programs, when they're not winning, what surprised you about them and their work ethic when things weren't going well?
BRIAN KEEFE: I was really impressed with our resiliency and how that grew. We obviously are competitors. Everybody wants to win here. Some of that stuff didn't always translate to winning.
But you never felt that in our locker room. We'd come the next day, we'd come to work, came to get better, whether it was on the court or on the film, and our guys did that day after day after day. That's not easy to do when you're not always getting the results.
I've got tremendous pride for our group for doing that, and they showed great character and revealed who they were under tough circumstances. I think sometimes character can be revealed when you're tested, and our guys showed what they were. That was impressive.
Q. At what points along the way did you see the results where you felt like things were really coming to fruition the way you wanted to see it?
BRIAN KEEFE: Obviously we had some good wins mixed in there. A couple winning streaks. Winning down in Miami against a really good team, beating Milwaukee with some low numbers and players, going into Chicago a couple guys down. I think there were some moments where we had some success, and we celebrated those moments because those guys deserved it. So that was part of the growth.
We didn't have some wins early when we started, but then you started seeing, okay, we started finishing some of those games. We learned the lessons. There were things that we were practicing that we were now executing in games. So there was transfer that happened.
We know we have a lot more work to do, but there was growth there for sure.
Q. What role are you having or have you had in terms of developing players' off-season plans and what they need to work on?
BRIAN KEEFE: I've been right involved. That's always been something that is number one in this organization is our player development program, so that's something -- those things have been happening all season. We are always focused on our internal growth of our own players, and I've always been involved in that from day one. That's what we're gearing today as part of. Today is part of helping our guys' process into that next step for their off-season and how we can improve there.
Q. In terms of the coaching search, what will be your approach to your part of it in terms of how you'll prepare for any sort of interview you may have, et cetera?
BRIAN KEEFE: As you probably will know my answer already to this, the season just ended. We played less than 24 hours ago. I have not turned to myself yet. My focus is still on our players and the growth of them. We're still in the exit interview process today, which you guys will see all of our guys today. So I'm still deep in the process with that and helping them get into an off-season.
I'm sure there will be conversations at some point. That would be for another day. But today is about our players and putting them in positions to have a successful summer, and that's been my whole focus the whole time, and that will be continued today.
Q. Looking at the totality of the injuries you guys dealt with since you took over specifically, if you maybe have one or two of those guys or none of them dealing with injuries, how much do you think with the process and the progress you've made in this short time would have been even more steps forward if you had the entirety of the roster to see what it really looked like?
BRIAN KEEFE: I think injuries are a part of the process of the NBA. You look at teams, teams have guys who go down.
I think actually we saw a lot of growth because it gave opportunities for other players. So I was able to discover guys on our roster, what they could do, strengths and weaknesses. We saw the use of the Go-Go and what that meant, guys transitioning from there and playing with us, a guy like Tristan who came in late in the season. Maybe if some of those guys were healthy, maybe he doesn't get as much opportunity.
To me, I look at it on the other side like we saw great growth, great opportunity for guys to establish themselves, also for us to evaluate who they are so we can help them get better.
I thought there was a great discovery mode even though we did have some injuries at the end.
Q. How much did you also kind of lean on the guys who were injured on the bench in huddles, in meetings to see what they're seeing with the growth on the court, what they might be seeing that you or your staff may not have seen or noticed about how a team was defending you or how you guys could take advantage of them? How much did you lean on them for their viewpoints, as well?
BRIAN KEEFE: Those guys were tremendous. They were totally engaged in the game. They were totally engaged in the process of everything. They were in all of our film sessions, at all of our practices. Great mentorship there from some of our veteran guys to some of our younger guys, and even last night three or four minutes to go in the game, those guys are in there helping me coach them until the very end. To me I was very thankful for those guys but also showed great character and growth within our organization.
Q. When you look over as head coach, what did you have to tinker to get this team running smoothly again?
BRIAN KEEFE: I think it was all about we had seen some individual growth a little bit at the beginning of the year, but how can we be better as a unit collectively, and how can we get better as our process on a day-to-day basis, so that was my challenge to the players. It was my challenge to myself and my staff. How can we focus on the task at hand, and how can we get better on a day-to-day basis. That was the challenge, and we just dug ourselves into that, and I thought the guys did pretty good in accepting that challenge.
Q. You mentioned culture; how important is culture, establishing culture early on in the rebuild?
BRIAN KEEFE: I think it's critical. You want to establish how you do your things. That was something we talked quite a bit about as a team. How we approach things, our mindset, our day-to-day basis of how we do our work, because that's how you build a foundation. It's in the work, loving the work, enjoying that part, and this group really showed that.
Q. Again on the growth topic, I know you're a guy who likes to shout out the group and the collective effort, but are there any specific players who really took a big step up this year?
BRIAN KEEFE: I could probably go down the roster and probably say each guy how much they improved, and that would probably take too long for all of us to do right now. But I think if you look at some of these guys, a lot of these guys had career years. I'm not going to get into specific stats and specific players, but there was a lot of growth.
Now we're looking for collective growth. Good individual growth at the end, more cohesion as a group. I think we're starting a good basis for a foundation for something to jump start us off into the off-season.
Q. Is there anything else in the off-season -- looking forward to September and October, what kind of steps would you like the players to continue to make regarding their growth, either as an individual or as a group?
BRIAN KEEFE: I think it's the commitment that we already started. We have a longer off-season than we would probably like, but let's take advantage of it. Let's really get in the gym. Let's work on our craft. Let's work on our bodies. Let's work on our connectedness as a group so when we come back and reconvene when camp starts in the fall that this team is ready to go from jump street.
Q. Have you in your coaching years have been part of a team that really looks at a holistic approach to a player, not just the development in regards to the game action but the mental, the emotional, the physical, and putting together a team for each player that focuses on that and then executes it?
BRIAN KEEFE: I have been part of something like that. Yes, I have seen that. But I think that we might be taking this to an even higher level here. Our player development program is going to be the basis of our organization and how we build it and the buy-in from our players.
I think you guys know we take a very holistic view to that, and we take that very seriously, and we want to help our players in all areas so they can continue to grow on the court and off the court translate to us reaching our sustainable success that we want to have.
Kudos to our players for really buying into what we presented to them this year, and I think it really helped in their development.
Q. I wanted to ask about the pairing of Jordan and Tyus. Given that they're not the tallest backcourt, what can a coach do to scheme in a way that allows them to be on the court simultaneously but have an effective defense?
BRIAN KEEFE: I think you can play with those guys, and we've obviously shown that we can play with those guys. Those guys have unique skill sets where they can both play on the court offensively, and I do think over time you saw the growth of both of them defensively as a unit. That improved as we went along the second half of the year.
I think they complement each other. We began to stagger them a little bit so we could have Jordan with the ball a little bit more to make more lead guard decision making skills, but then we would have those guys in at the end of the games to finish because of their decision making, their ball handling skills, and their ability to make reads in the game.
I was impressed with the adjustment that we had to make when we switched the unit but also when they were back together on the court, they were connected.
Thank you to everybody here. Really enjoyed getting to know everybody. I know you guys also have a tough job, too, so just wanted to thank you in getting to know everybody in here. It was a pleasure working with you, and look forward to seeing you all soon. Thanks.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports