“I thought they were ready, for one. I thought, No. 2, Kevin (Garnett), was the key to it. The problem when you have three scorers is somebody is always going to get less. Two guys are probably going to get the same or a little less and one guy is going to get a lot less. You can look at Miami, it was (Chris) Bosh. With us, at times it was Ray (Allen), at times it was KG, but I thought KG was key because early on he literally gave up his offensive game. He just said ‘I’ll be the defensive captain, you guys do all the scoring.’ KG still scored, but I thought that helped me as a coach because it allowed us to have our movement. When you have three perimeter players doing that, it’s a little harder, it’s just gonna take time. You can see they’re all trying to do the right thing … and that may be the problem. They all are, you can see them. Last night watching them, guys were making passes and I was like ‘he would have shot that last year.’ They’re trying to make room for each other and it’s just hard. It’ll come and usually it’ll come when all three decide they’re just gonna play.”

On the challenge as a coach with three scorers, particularly isolation-heavy players …

“You want to get the ball to one of those guys (because) when they get it they’re good enough to iso. So it’s a fine line. Again, I think they’ll figure it out, I know they will, but it just takes time. It really does. The one thing I keep saying when you watch them is you know they want to get it right. Sometimes you’ll watch a team and they’re fighting trying to be the guy. None of that is going on. They’re all doing the right thing. Watching them on tape – I’m an expert now, I’ve watched them four games – one thing I told our guys is they’re gonna be fine. They’re gonna get it and it’s gonna click. We just want to try to delay it one more night. I wouldn’t worry about them.”

On defensive success being encouraging as a coach when the offense is struggling …