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NBA WESTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: JAZZ v SPURS

May 21, 2007

Derek Fisher

SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS: Practice Day

Q. You erased something from Spurs history?
DEREK FISHER: His shot was more difficult, more amazing than my shot with Shaq all over the top of him. That was one of Shaq's best plays. We have to figure out a way to hit that shot. Tim and I joked about that. Actually, I think the next game he complimented me on my shot and told me it was a great shot.
He said, Man, I had to top the shot he just made and the shot he made was phenomenal before that.

Q. Can you feel the support from basketball fans, just people in general with what you and your family have gone through the last couple of weeks because it has been so miserable?
DEREK FISHER: Yeah. I think it is palpable in terms of what I and my family are experiencing with the feeling in terms of love and support and prayers. It is a comforting feeling because I think I, as well as my wife and our family, realize we are not alone in this even though it is our experience literally in terms of kind of carrying the emotional load of it and everything that comes with it. We have a lot of shoulders to lean on, not just ours. It helps.

Q. Robert Horry has had some struggles, some family things going on and he has said that that's made it easier to play basketball and hitting big shots and play big moments. Are you experiencing that? Are you seeing that?
DEREK FISHER: I think for Robert as well as myself, and probably any other person in the profession that has a loving spouse or a loved one or family members and people around them that help them with so many things, that's the same for me. We can't do our jobs without the support and love of people around us. Our teammates, coaches, the people in the organization. Obviously it is an extended family.
A lot of times we will provide our own and take a lot of credit for things we do but we also have to pass that credit around.

Q. The Spurs have something like 830 playoff games experience, you guys have about 300. Talk about how that experience plays in a series like this and how it is not really a big factor for you guys?
DEREK FISHER: I think experience at times, it allows you to be yourself and I am thinking in playoff situations as the pressure rises and gets down to the situations like now where we are in the Western Conference Finals, experience allows you to be who you are. You are not out there trying to do too much. It is not overwhelming in terms of the pace you have to do to win and be successful.
Obviously with the collective experience that the Spurs have, they can be the Spurs, they don't have to try and play at a higher level or come up with a different game plan. They know how to get it done.
I think for us, my experience has helped, but I think that at the same time some of our inexperience has allowed us to really approach each game with a brand new attitude. It is almost like we don't have playoff disappointments from the past that weigh us down. We are just here to play and try to win.

Q. That might actually work in your favor tomorrow?
DEREK FISHER: It seems to me it has because I think, you know, in the first round against the Rockets after going down 0-2, had we been an experienced team that felt that before, maybe we would have carried it over to Game 3 and not been able to work ourselves out of that funk. The fact that most of our guys have never been there before, we've just got to take it one game at a time and work our way back into it.
The same thing doesn't necessarily have to happen but hopefully going into tomorrow's game, it is just kind of like another game. We are down 0-1, but a lot of our guys don't really -- not that they don't care but it is just going to be another game tomorrow.

End of FastScripts

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