NBA FINALS: PISTONS v SPURS

June 18, 2005

Manu Ginobili

MANU GINOBILI: Well, probably the same as Tim and the rest of our teammates. We are not the kind of team that we feel like somebody's got to step up to play better; we all feel that responsibility. We all know that we all are struggling. We didn't play well at all in Games 3 and 4, and that we've really got to step up. And it's not a matter of getting it going on the offense and scoring or making more shots. I think it's a matter of playing more aggressively, more determination, passing the ball and do the little things to make your team better. So I don't think it's a matter of Tony scoring 25 or me scoring 25, something like that.

MANU GINOBILI: I don't know, I never had to talk about that. I don't know, I just think that you've got to be in the right spot mainly, then if you -- it's not about flopping on -- it's probably more exaggerating a little bit, the call. But, you know, you caught me off-guard. (Laughter) I didn't expect to be answering about this. I just play the way I feel. I try to be in the right spot to draw a charge or something like that.

MANU GINOBILI: I really don't know. You got me. I don't know. (Laughter).

MANU GINOBILI: Well, yeah, of course, Tim is our main guy. Everybody knows that. But I'm not so sure that it starts only with him. I think it starts with him, with me, with Tony, with Bruce, with Nazr and everybody. This is a team. Nobody is more guilty because, you know, score less points or didn't play so well. We all got to help each other and the responsibility is with us. It's a good thing that the leader of this team takes so much responsibility and takes it so seriously, but we all know that it's a matter of everybody. And, yeah, about the two days off, it helps. It helps. I played pretty comfortable in Game 4. It doesn't hurt me so much. Game 3 was worse. So my thigh is getting better, doing treatments and it's not going to be a problem for Game 5 at all.

MANU GINOBILI: Well, it's not easy to find a couple of big guys that are both long and athletic. Usually one is slow or doesn't jump so high or well and you've got all three of them, because when McDyess comes from the bench he does it, too. That's probably what makes them a great defensive team. If you see one by one their personnel, it is not that they are the all-time best defensive team, but when you go by the first line, then you've got to meet one of those guys, and they are, as I said before, very long, athletic, and so they make things harder.

MANU GINOBILI: I think it's limited in the scoring because he didn't play well the last two games. I don't think that any of the big men in this league can really limit him to ten or 14 points. I mean, if he's coming into a game, he's going to score. So, I'm not so worried about that because I know that he's going to step up. But it's hard for us of course, when we are used to, during most of the season, to give him the ball and draw double-teams and things like that. But I think we did try to stop it in 1 and 2, but we moved the ball better anyway, and we were able to go to the hole better, things that we usually do and that we didn't do in the last two games. I'm not so convinced that it's only Tim's responsibility. It's about Tim, Tony, me and everybody.

MANU GINOBILI: Move the ball better. It's way easier to penetrate when the ball has moved from one side to the other than when somebody is holding the ball and waiting to penetrate. If we put the ball inside, even if it's not in the paint, when it comes up and you revert the ball, when you create movement, it's always easier. So that's where we have been making mistakes. We hold the ball too much off the dribble, on a pick-and-roll, and we forgot to move the ball, and we are much better when we do.

MANU GINOBILI: It's kind of hard. I really can't think of something that we did as planned. We played well for a couple of minutes and then we stopped; another two or three minutes and then we stopped, I think one of the good things I saw was Devin came back, played well, and confidently, and we needed him. But besides that, I don't think we played good in any aspect of the game. Probably the five-on-five when they stopped, we guarded pretty well, but we let them run too much, offensively, second-chance balls and things like that. So I can't think of anything, no.

MANU GINOBILI: Sorry?

MANU GINOBILI: It was really the opposite thing. In the first two games I was able to go to the basket more, draw some attention and keep the ball and I've been committing too many turnovers in these two games. As I said before, that was one of the main mistakes that the team did. But besides that, I think I was kind of, you know, kicking our heels like the whole team did. Their pressure limited us, and we stopped. We cannot stop playing, so we've just got to be very aggressive, keep moving the ball and attacking the same we we did in the first two games.