NBA WESTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: SPURS v SUNS

May 22, 2005

Steve Nash

STEVE NASH: I think he's right. I think we maybe let that -- I just think that we kind of let fatigue affect us mentally. I think we lost our concentration. I think we lost our fight just for enough stretches to lose the game. We did an incredible job of gaining it in the third quarter and getting a lead. And then I thought when things got a little hard we kind of didn't quite dig deep enough. It's tough. It was a tough situation, but these are the situations I think that we have to learn our lessons through and realize what it does take to make the difference between being a contender and a champion.

STEVE NASH: I think that was a big part of the loss, defense. I mean, Tim put so much pressure on our defense, whether it's in the box score or not he really puts a ton of pressure on our defense. That's going to be the case the rest of the series. So we can't make mental mistakes, we can't not get loose balls, we got to try and limit as many offensive rebounds as we can. Do all the other things so that the pressure he puts on us isn't insurmountable.

STEVE NASH: Yeah, I think it was Brent that hit a few threes and, I mean, that's why they are a terrific team. Tim putting all the pressure on you all of a sudden he gets open and knocks them in. Terrific balance. They certainly did go on a good run there at the end. I think it's again, we allowed that fatigue to sink in mentally, lost our concentration a bit, and I think that that was the key. I mean, it was defensive breakdowns more than anything. I think we scored enough points to win and played well enough offensively.

STEVE NASH: Ideally we'll have him get his averages every night. We scored 114 points, so that wasn't the difference in the game. Jimmy scored, Amare scored a bunch, so we were right there offensively. We just didn't get enough defensively. Obviously, we're used to Shawn being a bigger part of the game. He didn't get as many attempts tonight. Still scored enough points tonight, we just didn't guard them as well as we need to.

STEVE NASH: We just look at the tape, we just try to make some adjustments. It's not a huge difference in the outcome of a ballgame. There's three or four, five plays here or there that really kind of make determine the outcome. If we can get a handle on some of the things that they are doing that are hurting us and limit that and make adjustments on both ends of the floor, that can give us the advantage of four or five more plays. That's all we're trying to do. We'll look at the tape and make some adjustments.

STEVE NASH: Certainly not the end of the world. I think that we're more than capable of winning on the road, so it's not the end of the world for us to lose at home. Obviously it's not the end of the world for us. Obviously we really want to win the next game, but our team is a young team that, you know, is learning some lessons and improving as we go. I think it's just very important for us to keep trying to improve. If we do that we're going to win more games than we're going to lose because we have got a lot of talent and resilience. I am looking for those two things to be a key factors in Game 2.