NBA WESTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: SPURS v SUNS

May 30, 2005

Mike D'Antoni

COACH D'ANTONI: That's a loaded question (laughter.) Which one got through? (Laughs.) Obviously not a lot of them. Paul, I thought we were buddies.

COACH D'ANTONI: (Laughs.) I don't know about which one. We have to play better defense. We know that. It's funny, you know, we're right there. We just got to put our defense on. We have got to play for 48 minutes. There's a lot of stretches we played pretty good defense. We have done it all year. And, again, you are talking about four, five possessions either way determining games. It's never as bleak as you think it is, never as great as it is. Tonight we're going to have to turn the screws on and we're going to have to try to be more fundamentally sound for 48 minutes, and we haven't done that. And to their credit. If you done do that for 48 minutes, you don't beat these guys. These guys are playing at a great level and we will see, you know, that's the message. Hopefully we can do that tonight.

COACH D'ANTONI: Oh, good.

COACH D'ANTONI: I don't think so. I don't believe that. It will be something that maybe in the middle of the summer you say, well, we had a great year, let's build on this and go on. And I think that's the obvious thing to do. But coming into this series, coming into tonight, we still think we can beat these guys and still think we have got a chance and still going out there to play 48 minutes. If we play a very, very, very good game we will win. I don't think there's any letdown. I don't think that they said, oh, we got here.

COACH D'ANTONI: That's how you got to look at it. Any time you -- you overachieve and then you come to a mountain, and this is the mountain we're trying to climb right now, then we got to figure out, okay, this is not working, what do we have to do to get better? I think it's a process you go through. Hopefully we will build on it tonight. If we can get us a game tonight and then we go on from there, what happens happens. But as a team, a young team being together, you just figure out, okay, we got to get better, and there's a lot of room for improvement. We have some great talent on the team, we're just -- right now showed some liabilities, but there's no reason why we can't keep going on and become better and better. Even if we win on the series and go on next season, you try and get better.

COACH D'ANTONI: I wish you hadn't told me that. I didn't know that (laughs). I was feeling pretty good. Well, couple combinations. The other team has dominated you for three. They are the better team usually. Other one is you might have some guys just mail it in because they reached stats too and maybe everybody has told them the last 48 hours you have no chance to win a 7-game series. I really believe our guys aren't going to buy into it. We will see. We'll get on the floor, we will compete and we're going to need a couple breaks or whatever. But we have the capability of winning this game. That's all we're worried about today. You can't look past this. I know it's easy for me to say, but we're trying to win one game. If we do that, then we'll worry about Game 5. We're going to lay it on the line tonight. I have got to believe the guys in the locker room are going to do the same thing. We even got a record of it too.

COACH D'ANTONI: You mean even from the jump ball, got a dunk on the first jump ball.

COACH D'ANTONI: During the National Anthem we're going to be on guard (laughter).

COACH D'ANTONI: Honestly, I just don't think that -- we might have underestimated how good they are. There are just times that I can't explain it, we haven't really gotten back on defense, kind of watched, there goes Parker and watched him go. That happens two or three times. Just seems like it's, oh, these guys are good, to kick in. Or we are down 15 and going, guys, and then we start playing. And you got to give them credit, they are jumping on us real quick and we are slow to respond. That's something we have tried to drum in their heads the last -- even starting Game 1, definitely last 48 hours. And for us to have a great chance tonight, we need to come out in the first quarter, first five minutes, opening tap, and have a different mindset. That's what we're going to try to do tonight.

COACH D'ANTONI: Obvious, things of what he ended up last four games over 30, over 10, two or three players that have done that. I think its mind boggling to think that he had had a series -- not a series, but a Playoff as well as -- talking about Jerry West, put a lot of names out there, that really takes you back a little bit. I didn't know that he can do that. When Joe (Johnson) went down, he's gone 46, 44 minutes of, you know, carrying us and that's put a big toll on him and I think that's the thing that's surprising, his leadership, being a winner, how he puts the team first, I don't think that's surprising that's why we went after him. They knew him before in Phoenix and he's just, but I think his ability to be able to score and dish and play at the level he's plays, it's kind of, I don't want to say surprising, but it's mind boggling.

COACH D'ANTONI: Well, the only thing that -- it's funny, it's a good question, I mean, everybody in this room probably picked us and I will give you the benefit of the doubt maybe make the playoffs, that's the benefit of the doubt, a lot of people didn't pick us to make the playoffs. So we take a team that had the best record in the league and you produce three all-star NBA players and most valuable player and we sold out about 20 straight games and people have been talking about the way you play, it's like we get to the Conference Finals and we did lose Joe Johnson but that's not -- excuses aside, it's like it doesn't work? My God, it works. I mean, you know, and I am like stunned that certain people would say it doesn't work. We have right now have run into San Antonio playing at a higher level, we have got to get better. This system can get a lot better. We can play defense. Nothing in the running that says, oh, the run, you can't play defense. That's not written anywhere, so we can get a lot better at it. We can add pieces. Our pieces -- we have guys 22, 23, 25 years of age -- can get a lot better. We just got to keep Steve Nash on ice for a few years and make sure we squeeze every drop of blood that he has. I told Steve -- he didn't know he was going to play this many minutes, he's earned his money this year. We have got to keep him healthy, but the rest of these guys have got to get better. And as a team we're going to be a lot better. So it's just mind boggling, I get stunned every time I hear it or even if in the close inner circle, not you guys, it's -- it's stuns me sometimes, but I guess that's the way life is sometimes.

COACH D'ANTONI: They are good at it. That's why they are always a championship quality team, starts with Tim Duncan who fundamentally is so sound that he rarely makes mistakes defensively, offensively, he's always in the right spot, never really fouls, he keep his hands up, you never see him -- you know, Tim, you really hacked that guy, it starts with him. But Ginobili is probably -- somebody is going to have to say someplace, he's one of best players on the planet. Guy has got to go mental, he's coming in, won a Championship already, if I am not mistaken, third year, and somebody is going to say this guy is not bad. I keep reading other stuff. Everybody says he's pretty good. He's really good. And Tony Parker is playing at a high level. You got very intelligent hard players playing and they play fundamentally sound and it's going to take an unbelievable effort from us to beat them and whoever beats them, but they are doing a great job. Maybe their team is better, I don't know just because I haven't been in this situation with them, but they are pretty good.

COACH D'ANTONI: Yeah and convincing players that you have got to convince them to run but they like to so it's not really convincing. It wasn't real hard this year to convince them to win 62 games and dunk up and down and have highlights every night and being talked about. It's not -- having the athletes and having the players and having the Shawn Marions that can go from a 3 to 4 and be so effective and be All-Star at the 4 level and having's Amare (Stoudemire) going to the 5 and create so many miss-matches and Nash looks over the whole thing and it's altogether. It takes special people and we're pleased with that. Hopefully we will keep getting better at it and seed what happens.