NBA WESTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: SPURS v SUNS

May 22, 2005

Brent Barry

BRENT BARRY: It was good. Seattle series mentally was very difficult for me just trying to find a rhythm, and tonight just had some open opportunities and knocked them down. That's what I am here to do and the rest of our bench is here to do. You can't win a Championship without a good bench.

BRENT BARRY: It's all predicated on Tim, no down in the blocks scoring, just causing problems. So much focus on him down there, when they double team it just it leaves avenues for open opportunities, and you try your best to knock things down.

BRENT BARRY: I am pretty much over that series now. It's time to move on. I am not going to really waste a lot of time or effort thinking about it. We're on to a new series, playing Phoenix, we have a chance to win the west, that's where all the focus should be at right now.

BRENT BARRY: A smattering of applause. It was like a golf clap.

BRENT BARRY: No. They were all sitting down. Everybody was tired.

BRENT BARRY: I mean, just in the fourth quarter having a couple of opportunities, basically around the same location on the floor that provides good rhythm. And that's something in the Seattle series that we just didn't have a lot of opportunities. We didn't get a lot of open three point shots, didn't get a lot of things in transition, but tonight some of those things were there for us.

BRENT BARRY: Well, to win this series it's going to be the team that consistently defends because no lead is safe, whether the Suns are up 12 or we're up 12, with the way they scored they can get right back in ball games. And sometimes if the shooting goes cold as an opponent you can get yourself back in the game if you play steady. That's what is going to make it very exciting, it is going to be kind of the grinded out type of series for whatever is going to win.

BRENT BARRY: I think we have done that at times this year. We have shown that we can get up and down the court and be athletic and stretch the floor a bit. It's not the style that San Antonio is known for. I guess it's nice for a coaching staff to be able to go two ways.

BRENT BARRY: I think in the first half we did a good job. Came in at halftime, just talked about the opportunity that was in front of us. We felt like we had played decent in the first half and if we can keep the pressure on them there might be an opportunity to sneak away with the game. We were fortunate today to do that.

BRENT BARRY: Absolutely. I think it was weighing heavily on a lot of our minds the fact that Tim's other ankle had been swollen and strained, but a lot of us also thought maybe it would get himself back on balance, he sprained the left one then the right one maybe it would get himself back together. He had a huge effort for us this afternoon.

BRENT BARRY: The thing we have to do with the three pointers that we shoot, we have to shoot high percentage shots. We can't get into a run and gun game where we're just jacking up a lot of three pointers and allowing them to run and get back in transition. So we have to be very selective in this series with whatever long range opportunities we get and tonight we were able to knock a good percentage of them down.

BRENT BARRY: Pretty impressive but there have been other times where we have really moved the ball and got ourselves easier opportunities than what we were able to do tonight. Those guys were pushing and shoving. It was physical down inside and again, it's just nice I think for our team to understand that we can play a couple of different ways. We can play big and slow and methodical and we can also run and compete with the best team in the West, and that's Phoenix.