NBA FINALS: PISTONS v SPURS

June 11, 2005

Gregg Popovich

COACH GREGG POPOVICH: You think I would tell you that? (Laughter).

COACH GREGG POPOVICH: No. I mean, teams, you know, you play 82 games, and no matter who the opponent, if you're guarding Manu or Tracy McGrady or Yao Ming or whatever, all of those guys have seen a variety of things, you know, clog the lane or playing one-on-one, drop out and make him shoot all the time, get up on him and make him a driver and send him help; there's all kind of things people basically try to do to each other, but there's not going to be a magic way to play one individual in the league. It's about teams playing defense, and I think that in Manu's case, we're figuring out what we want to do with Rasheed or Rip Hamilton, you hope the team responds well, because one guy doesn't get it done in the league. So the team defenses are what are really important.

COACH GREGG POPOVICH: It was wonderful. Besides the college, Pomona-Pitzer being a wonderful place to work, you can do whatever you wanted to do, experiment-wise, it gave you a real breath of experience because nobody wanted to carry 3.4 people in each game and if you wanted to press for 40 minutes or you wanted to zone for 40 minutes or concoct a 1-4 zone and see how it goes for three or four years, nobody would notice that's what you were doing. (Laughter). So in that sense, it was a great experience factor to be able to do that and obviously you're dealing with kids that are non-scholarship, so it's not the greatest players in the world. Plays that you might put together that look great on paper, you really find out if they are any good. You run one play that has Tim Duncan or somebody like that, it makes the play look a little bit better, but if you get five guys who are not exactly highly recruited, plays give you a little bit of confidence, pretty solid basketball-wise. It was a great learning ground, great experience, something I never really thought about leaving. That's what I thought I would always do it.

COACH GREGG POPOVICH: It was probably the greatest thrill that any of my players had for eight years, and it was great fun for me. I can remember being in a time-out and we actually were in the game for a while, and then because we were close and Larry got angry and he pressed us, and then it was over in about two minutes. But it was a time-out and the guys were looking at me for strategy and they wanted answers and "you're our coach and you're supposed to help us. You're supposed to have the answers," and I looked at them and said, "What the hell you guys thinking?" I said, "stop, stand up." I said, "Turnaround, do a 360. We're at Allen Fieldhouse. Division III teams don't play at Allen Fieldhouse," and they all did a 360. I said, "Is this great or what? We're going to get our ass kicked. I don't care, you don't care and we're going to enjoy the hell out of this and Larry is going to take us out to dinner after this, so have a great time and go play." We just had a ball, and that's the honest to God's truth.

COACH GREGG POPOVICH: What did he have, 25 points or something. He had a hell of a game. We couldn't stop him. The guy, he played great. I really didn't think anybody noticed. He had a heck of a game. He played Tony tough, he didn't let Tony get off at all, and at the offensive end he was great, I don't know what else to say, but you're correct.

COACH GREGG POPOVICH: He's one of our main priorities and it didn't work out very well in Game 1. Luckily some other things happened in the game that worked well for us, but Chauncey wasn't one of them, he was a big problem.

COACH GREGG POPOVICH: The first part of the question, in a general sense, his leadership is exhibited most in the fact that he practices every day. He practices as hard as anybody any day, now some practices I'll boot him after a while and have him go get a rehab or whatever it is. He practices every day, runs whatever we're doing. You know, offense, defense, sprints, does it with his teammates and expects them to do the same thing. Secondly, since David's (Robinson) retirement the last couple of years, he's become more vocal. As you know he's not a real extroverted, vocal individual, he's more private and he's learned that, you know, him touching players and talking to them, you'll see him now when time-outs are called, he'll be walking to the bench talking to one or two guys and while the coaches are out there standing, acting like we're exchanging ideas and everything, the players are on the bench and Timmy is going to be the guy going to them and talking to them and saying, "Hey, we're doing this on the pick-and-roll, what are you guys doing?" That's where his leadership comes in, in those types of situations.

COACH GREGG POPOVICH: He's done a good job because he has been out for so long and he has not played in a long time. I'm sure he figured his season was over and probably thinking about, somebody is going to pick him up next season. Totally unexpected on his part, I'm sure. When we brought him in, he was totally out of shape and we didn't know what we were going to get, either. I depended on Donnie Newman, one of my assistants who was with him in Milwaukee who had a really high regard for him. He convinced me to bring him in. And from day one, very honestly, he did things I didn't think he was going to try to do. He did defensive drills, little high school drills and all the baloney we do and he jumped in and tried to do it and show he could be part of this and he knew if we didn't, we were just going to get rid of him. He's smart enough to know if he does well, he's on a pretty good team and maybe somebody will notice and he'll have a contract here or elsewhere and he dove right in. His mom passed away unfortunately and as he was getting into shape, he kind of lost that and then he came back and missed the whole Phoenix series because it was in the middle, and I didn't have time to get him back involved. So now he's been gearing up again, those eight days we had, trying to get back in shape and trying to get ready for Detroit and lo and behold, he gave us some good minutes in Game 1. That was totally unexpected. I didn't plan on playing him a lick.

COACH GREGG POPOVICH: They are good guys, and they are very empathetic people who are going to give anybody a break, as long as the guy accepts what they accept, they are going to give anybody a break. They don't care who it is and they did a real good job of accepting him. I had him set up pretty good, I think. They were expecting a black hole, you know, somebody, as soon as he caught it was gone, never see the ball again and couldn't find it. I said, "I want you guys to make sure that you give an opportunity to learn defense and all of that, but trust me, all he's going to do is shoot it." Every time he touches it, you're going to have be to be very patient. We had him set up that way and from day one, he's smart. He came in, it might have taken him, you know, shoot, five minutes before he shot and he took the whole five minutes. In that five minutes they saw him try to play D, so they accepted it.

COACH GREGG POPOVICH: Bruce sets the tone for our team defensively. You know, obviously Timmy with his rebounding and blocked shots and his individual D, he does a great job. We try to play pretty good team D, but Bruce Bowen sets the tone because he takes such pride in it and all of our guys count on him locking up on somebody every night and doing the best job he can. You know, that doesn't mean some nights, somebody is going to go off anyway. There's a lot of great players in the league. But when you count all of the games and the number of times Bruce goes out and does the same thing every night, our guys really respect it, count on it and it's part of their personality. And from that, everything flows defensively.