Q. Not to intrude too much on the personal routine, but there are road cities where you and your assistants can walk and talk about things. Are you able to do that in New York? How collaborative have the last couple of days been?
MITCH JOHNSON: With my staff?
Q. Yes.
MITCH JOHNSON: Same routine as we've had throughout the Playoffs. You dig into the film. You argue, beat yourself up. You give each other feedback, figure out how to help the guys for the next game.
Have not got out and gone on a walk yet. There's the answer for that.
Just trying to improve on things that we know we have to be better at and settle into the series and try to continue to get better.
Q. In some ways tomorrow is going to be different. Haven't had the Finals here in a long time. How do you balance the way you talk about that, if at all, versus you played at Oklahoma City, which is a great home court, every time it's a big game there? How do you treat tomorrow?
MITCH JOHNSON: Like a Finals game. I think there's enough at stake that we'll treat it appropriately.
I think there will obviously be a ton of excitement around the game. This arena's like no other. The added circumstances will be on top of that.
We've been fortunate to play some games in this arena recently that have been, again, not Finals, but Christmas game. Again, I just think added attention around Victor and being in this arena a few times, we've experienced that. I would expect tomorrow will be more than that.
It will be a fun environment.
Q. You guys have had a lot of transition opportunities in this series. You obviously had a couple big ones down the stretch the other night. The efficiency hasn't been there. What have you seen in your transition game and why it's not been quite as good as previous rounds?
MITCH JOHNSON: Yeah, some of that is, you know, more in a vacuum, I think, in terms of not same things happening over and over. Sometimes the result cannot be as consistent as you want.
What I mean by that is we've had a few turnovers in transition that are not as common throughout the season. It really hasn't been a real clear theme of why that is, other than not making the right play or not finishing those advantages out as we have throughout the season.
It is a huge part of the game for us when we are at our best. We have to take advantage of those. We've got to find some of those, have an advantage, turned over, actually going from looking like we're probably getting a bucket to giving up a bucket. Those are big swings in this game when you start talking about the margin of error at this level.
Q. How do you get the team to raise its overall level for this next game?
MITCH JOHNSON: Yeah, I mean, we're at a stage now where the next game is going to be the biggest game until we're not playing. We have to continue to execute and compete and finish plays and move on to the next play, understand that there is going to be circumstances, there's going to be outcomes throughout a game that may not go your way. We have to continue to be better at the things we can control and be better at the things we can influence.
Q. You guys did a lot of good in that fourth quarter. I'm wondering how you look at it down the stretch? What are some things you could have done differently?
MITCH JOHNSON: Yeah, I think when you break down the 96 minutes of the two games, the fourth quarter, as you said, we've done some things well. We have not played to our standard. New York has played very well. They have something to do with that. We have to be better at some of those things. We got them late clock a ton. We fouled Anunoby on a three. Baseline out of bounds, Brunson gets a quick pass to a layup without any resistance. Then obviously loose ball foul there at the end, like you said.
We've put ourselves in position at times to make them miss. We have to clean up the rebound and finish possessions out. We have to be better, again, at taking advantage of when we put ourselves in good starting spots to take advantage of the things that we are doing well.
I think that's probably been, if there's a thematic thing, the biggest thing is we've put in some good, hard work at times, and have not taken advantage of that hard work. That's been partially some undisciplined things of us, partially also New York has stepped up and made some plays at the end of clock and finished out possessions.
Q. From a psychological approach, interested to know your approach with a young team to keep them encouraged after losing two games in a row at home and knowing what's ahead?
MITCH JOHNSON: We got one game tomorrow night at 8:30 in Madison Square Garden. It's the only game that matters. We got to come in here ready to win it.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports