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NBA FINALS: CAVALIERS v SPURS

June 12, 2007

Tim Duncan

CLEVELAND, OHIO: Game Three

Q. The horrible shooting tonight by a team that was at home, 3-of-19 from three-point range, how much of that was just their shot not going or was it your defense and the way you guys were playing?
TIM DUNCAN: I'd like to hope we had something to do with it. Like you said, they just didn't shoot the ball well. I thought they got some pretty decent looks. They hit some shots down the stretch there. We were up eight, ten points and they started making some shots. So the first stretch they started making some shots.
Defensively I thought we were pretty solid. There weren't a whole lot of free throws on our end. There weren't a whole lot of easy looks on our end. But we kind of stuck with it. And the same with them, we made everything tough for them.

Q. They made another round of adjustments putting Gibson in the starting line-up tonight. Could you guys feel you can counter everything they've thrown at you this series?
TIM DUNCAN: We figured they were going to do something to change something. Gibson had been playing 30 something odd minutes anyway, so we've seen enough of him that we didn't have to make much of an adjustment. We didn't change a whole lot of what we did. We understood the kind of shooter that he was, and outside of that, we stuck with our same game plan.

Q. Could you please talk about Bruce Bowen's contribution?
TIM DUNCAN: Brucey was unbelievable tonight. He did everything for us. He sat down and defended for 44 minutes out there. He made some big shots for us, rebounded the ball, just an unbelievable effort on his part. You can't say enough about him. He'll get it done, and it doesn't matter if he gets one shot or eight shots. He's going to be in the same place at the same time. He's going to do the same thing. That's what defines our team, what he does.

Q. After three games we've seen your defensive approach with LeBron. We know doubles are coming, we know kind of what you guys are trying to do. Do you guys feel as if he is sometimes trying to impose his will, or do you feel as if he is going at it and thinking you guys are playing very tough D and I'm going to make the smart pass?
TIM DUNCAN: I think he's doing a little bit of both. I think he's starting with the approach that he's going to make the right pass, he's going to make the right play. I think they count on him enough that in crunch time he feels like he has to make plays. But whether it be the starting play of the game or at crunch time, we're doing the same thing. I think we changed one time towards the end there where we went at him on a double-team and they hit a three, and then we kind of went back. Everything else was the same, so we're going to make him make decisions, make him make shots over the top of us, and for a while there, as I said before, he did a good job of penetrating. He got a couple of great back doors, but we're going to make it as tough as possible for him.

Q. Are you surprised that he hasn't tried to impose his will more?
TIM DUNCAN: I think he's trying. I think he's definitely trying. We're a pretty good defensive team. We're not bad (laughter). We can stay in front of people and we can challenge shots, and we do pretty good with sticking with our game plan. It's worked so far, and we're not going to change a whole lot. Whether he tries to impose his will or not, we're going to be standing in front of him.

Q. Tell us about going into the mentality Thursday night, chance to close out a team, and how tough is it closing out a team?
TIM DUNCAN: You know, in my experience the Game 3 is usually the toughest game possible, and Game 4 brings a whole other challenge. It's a little bit of desperation, it's a little bit of laying it all on the line, and it's about really sustaining, because if you can sustain with people early on, they make runs, they use their energy, the crowd is behind them, and you can sustain over a half or three or four quarters, that's what it's all about. We're going to play that way. We're going to come out knowing that they're going to have their foot on the pedal and be pushing and LeBron is going to try to get to the rack and make plays and carry his team, and guys will be trying to make plays the same way. As I said, we're going to do the same exact thing. We're going to try to stay in the game and give ourselves a chance to win when it's crunch time.

Q. Tony Parker took three threes tonight, something he doesn't do during the regular season. Can you tell us what was going through your mind on the third one, the one that went in, and what that says about a guy who hasn't really played well in The Finals to do it now in this stage?
TIM DUNCAN: Tony has been unbelievable. He's been great. As you said, he's not really a three-point shooter (smiling), and I think the coach has said I had kind of a weird look on my face when he shot that third one. But it went down, and I'm happy about that.
You know what, he's so confident right now, he's feeling so good about his jump shot. They've been allowing him to shoot the jump shot, trying to keep him out of the paint, and when you do that, you basically warm somebody up. They're able to step into shots, able to take shots, and I think they've done that for him. That was a huge shot for us to give us a bit of a cushion, and I probably was questioning it on the release, but I was happy with the results (laughter).

Q. It seems to be a consensus among national media if they took a vote today he might get the MVP, yet 70 percent of San Antonio fans back in San Antonio said Tim Duncan is the MVP. Would you vote for him?
TIM DUNCAN: Sure. As long as we get to four that's all that matters.

Q. Being the leader and star of your team, how much pressure is on your back?
TIM DUNCAN: It's a lot of pressure, especially in this situation with the Finals. But at the same time it's a lot of fun. It's playing on the biggest stage, it's playing the game that you love to play, and it's playing for the biggest prize. So it's a lot of fun.

End of FastScripts

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