NBA ALL-STAR WEEKEND

February 20, 2005

Kobe Bryant

Tim Duncan

TIM DUNCAN: There's definitely a difference there. You'd love to have him on your team, but I thought all in all, we did a pretty decent job without him. Unfortunately we lost the game, but all in all, he didn't -- I don't think he killed us, but it's fun having him on this side. It's fun playing with him once a year and having him around in the locker room. So that part of it I missed, that's the part I missed the most.

TIM DUNCAN: Actually, I really enjoyed it. It was nice. It's nice getting around and seeing some different places. My family got around a bunch, walked up and down and so it was a very nice city. I really enjoyed myself this weekend.

TIM DUNCAN: No, it just was kind of understood before that that I would not play a whole lot of minutes. That's kind of a sacrifice I was willing to make. It's always a tough thing balancing the minutes with everybody and trying to keep everybody happy and everything. I took a hit on that part and partially because of that, partially because I'm still a little bit hurt, so just wanted to kind of, as much as possible, stay off my feet. So it worked out very well. Again, unfortunately we didn't win the game, but all in all, I thought everything worked out well.

KOBE BRYANT: Oh, it was an incredible performance. I mean, everybody knows about his mental toughness and tenacity and you know he's a heck of a player and he had a great game tonight. He's having a big year down in Philadelphia and hopefully he can stay healthy and continue to have a big year.

KOBE BRYANT: None. Simple answer.

KOBE BRYANT: No.

KOBE BRYANT: You know, I'm really not going to make this weekend about myself and Shaquille. That's just not fair. That's not basketball. You know, it's a great weekend with a lot of great basketball being played. I obviously respect Shaquille tremendously for what he can do on the basketball floor and vice versa.

So, I mean, even when we played together, we weren't the best of buddies, but we won three titles, so I think everybody has to just kind of leave that in the past and move on from it.

KOBE BRYANT: Yeah, a couple turnovers, key turnovers down the stretch and they were able to get a lot of easy run-outs, get in transition and get easy buckets. We got some pretty good lucks down the stretch; they didn't go for us. They came away with the win.

KOBE BRYANT: You know, it feels great, being I'm one of the older guys now and to be able to come here to All-Star Weekend and just blend in and just have a good time and just play basketball. That's what we all enjoy doing the most and, you know, the best time of the weekend is going out and competing against so many great players.

KOBE BRYANT: Blame it on the altitude. I know my chest was burning.

KOBE BRYANT: I don't really know. I mean in the past when we've played, we've gone into him several times but most of the time it's in transition, being the point guard, we had so many straight shooters, we were just clicking from Dirk to Peja to Ray, to all of these other guys, Tim in the post. When you have Tim and Shaq in the post, Tim on one block and Shaq on the other block, it's a wrap.

KOBE BRYANT: You know what, Popovich just reeled me in. It was such a tremendous honor for me to play for Popovich and he's such a great coach. I always, you know, view Popovich as being one of the best coaches ever, and to play for him, I realize how great he is. I just enjoyed playing for the man.