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NBA FINALS: CAVALIERS v SPURS

June 14, 2007

Manu Ginobili

CLEVELAND, OHIO: Game Four

Q. Talk about winning again and talk about your friend Tony Parker winning the MVP.
MANU GINOBILI: Well, I think it's well-deserved. The way he played in all four games was just unbelievable. He really showed us the way, especially in some games where TD and me were not playing that good. He kind of maintained the rhythm and made some big buckets, and he was just a presence inside the court. As I said before, it's really well-deserved.

Q. In the fourth quarter after the very slow start in the quarter, was this one of the moments when you took it upon yourself to start making things happen for the Spurs?
MANU GINOBILI: Yes, I knew I was not going to play like Game 3. I thought a lot about it, and I was determined to be more aggressive and try to make it to the rim more often.
Then I got kind of satisfied with taking shots and stopped being as aggressive as before. But overall, I felt way, way better than the previous game, I think, and everybody did, too.

Q. Could you express some of your thoughts about the big plays that Fabricio made down the stretch, the rebounds and --
MANU GINOBILI: He was great. Those boards meant a lot, his and Tim's. Very, very important plays to have extra possessions, to have more time of possession, and then he made a couple of great buckets. Even the free throw was huge.
As I said before, I'm very proud of him. And besides that, I'm very happy for him because he's a hard worker and you always feel good when hard workers get rewarded.

Q. Just talk about your fourth quarter. You seemed determined that not only were you going to get to the basket, if you had an open shot you were going to take it, just your determination in that fourth quarter.
MANU GINOBILI: Of course I was feeling good and confident. As I said before, sometimes I settle too much for the outside shot. I should have driven more, but in the last couple minutes I started doing it better and made a big three, then a big lay-up, so everything changed then.
But as I said before, I wasn't that happy because of not being as aggressive and taking too many outside shots.

Q. Can you just talk about the urgency of finishing them off and not letting them get one game to get the sweep?
MANU GINOBILI: Well, of course, it was huge. Every time you got an opportunity to finish a team, you've got to take it. You never have to think that if you don't win today, in three days you're going to have another one, and if not you go home. That is not good at all. We knew today we had a great opportunity, that if we kept the game close around to the fourth quarter, we were going to have a great chance, and that's what happened. We showed our experience in the last five minutes, we made great plays, good defensive possessions, so very, very happy for that.

Q. I know you were hurting last year after what happened at the end of the Dallas game. Does this make up for that, make you feel better, that you can finally put it behind you?
MANU GINOBILI: Yeah, yeah, of course. Every time you don't -- especially playing in a franchise like this, every time you don't finish with a win, you're going to feel upset. The same thing happened when we lost to the Lakers my second season, against the Mavericks last year, so there's only one team that's going to finish with a smile. It wasn't our turn last year, but we came up strong in this playoff series, and that's why we are so happy. But you're not going to win every year.

Q. For all this past week you didn't want to talk about winning a fourth ring. Will you now talk about what it means to be a part of one of the very special franchises in NBA history?
MANU GINOBILI: Of course you feel very proud and honored to be an important part of this franchise. I've been and I am so lucky of being chosen by the Spurs and having the opportunity to play my fifth season here, winning a third championship. It's just great. We know we are probably the best team the last ten, eight years, and it feels really good because it shows the hard work we've done, the way we played and other stuff, so it feels great.

Q. What is it about the poise on this team, the fact that you never get rattled, and no matter what happens you have a big run and you still come out on top? That no matter what happens in the game you find yourselves in the winning column?
MANU GINOBILI: I think that's mainly experience, because leading by ten going into the fourth quarter and seeing the other team make a run like that and going up two, I think it was, or even up three, I'm not sure, we kept our emotions down and we kept playing. We made a couple big plays. Once we were up three, four again, we knew it was going to be ours.
The experience today was a great advantage.

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