NBA WESTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: SPURS v SUNS

May 24, 2005

Manu Ginobili

MANU GINOBILI: What was it?

MANU GINOBILI: I didn't try to make him go crazy or anything like that. I just saw or thought that was the best opportunity for me. They were very concerned on not giving me the left hand, so I just tried to go back to my right. It's not what I feel more comfortable doing, but I think I can and that's what I tried to do.

MANU GINOBILI: He didn't say anything in particular. He's been trusting me a lot in the last games when the game is down the stretch and the last minute or two minutes he's trusting me a lot. So I am trying to use those opportunities as well as I can. I am very happy that I gave that confidence back to him and that I could make those couple of shots or couple of passes. And help my team to win. But he didn't tell me anything in particular, just try to find the best shot.

MANU GINOBILI: Well, that means that we can still improve. Coming here I never thought that if they shot 52, 53 percent in both games combined we're going to win both games. It's not us. We usually keep our opponents in 40% and they are shooting more than 50. It's strange.

We feel somehow awkward winning like this, but of course we're very good, glad, but keep working on it because we got to keep them under 45 if it's possible.

MANU GINOBILI: Maybe we have been together more time, we know each other better. But I don't think it was a matter of experience. They are just a great team. They couldn't knock down a couple of shots. We did. Defensively in the last 8 minutes in both games we did very well, so that's always the big difference here. Playoff games, the game is so close, just a couple of mistakes and you lose the game. So we didn't do it.

MANU GINOBILI: I don't think it was designed for that. I think he's taking credit when he shouldn't, Pop. Probably he told Robert (Horry), Robert told me. Robert came to my ear, told me that he was going to be open in the corner so -- but I didn't hear it in the timeout. I shouldn't say it probably. (Laughter.) He told me that he was going to be open there and I just look for him. We know how good he is down the stretch taking those shots, so we just trust him.

MANU GINOBILI: No. That's something we don't do. Coach Popovich doesn't like it. We prefer to make them take a contested shot. I think that was the difference. We almost double-teamed him, instead of shooting wide open 3. If he makes that shot, we just -- we died or we go to overtime doing is what we do. So we just take it.

MANU GINOBILI: I think moving the ball, playing pick and rolls and making them adjust or chase us is a big key. They don't like playing D so much. They want the ball in their hands to run and take threes, that kind of game. So sometimes we hurry up a lot, but as long as we keep playing those pick and rolls, moving the ball, make them work on defense, we're going to be fine. We're going to take open shots. But sometimes it's so hard because they get in rhythm, you get a little crazy out of rhythm, and they always got a 10-0 streak or a 15-2 or whatever. So we've got to be very conscious about that knowing that it may happen at any time.

MANU GINOBILI: Totally. Of course it's a whole different thing for me. But I knew it was going to be like that. I didn't expect coming to the NBA to a great Championship team and pretend to have the ball in my hands all the time or create for the others. I knew I had to earn confidence slowly doing little things, getting steals, drawing a charge, getting important rebounds. So slowly I started improving, the whole team started to trust me more. It's a matter of that.