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NBA WESTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: SPURS v LAKERSMay 22, 2008Gregg PopovichLOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: Practice Day Q. What preparation do you have after last night's game? COACH POPOVICH: More than anything, we just want to let that game go and realize it is one game. We had a great opportunity and they do not take advantage of it. They were great in the fourth quarter defensively. Did a wonderful job. They are up 1-0. The important thing for us is not to linger but to just move forward and play the game on Friday with the same energy and hopefully a little bit more decision-making. Q. You don't want it to linger, but you guys still a little upset, a little mad. Is that maybe a good thing going into Game 2? COACH POPOVICH: Sure, sure. You don't want to be complacent about it and act like it didn't happen. We want to be angry about the way we played in the fourth quarter and the way we gave up the lead. So part of it is because they played as well as they did and they deserve credit for that. But we don't want to take it lightly and act like we gave something away. The Lakers took it back in the fourth quarter. We have to bring it again on Friday. Q. Can you talk about the come-back. COACH POPOVICH: Sometimes people don't make shots and Michael will be fine. He is like any other player. Some nights you shoot well. Some nights you don't. It is not a big deal. Q. How concerned are you about Manu and his health? Or is it something he will have to work through? COACH POPOVICH: There's no concern for the one reason that there is no time to be concerned. Nobody cares and it is play-off time so you go play. Q. How did you feel about the Bryant-Gasol pick-and-roll they were running last night? COACH POPOVICH: We were very pleased overall defensively with what we did. You are not going to keep a team to 60 points or something. Considering what they have been scoring and seeing what we were able to do defensively, I thought we did a good job. We can do some things better. But for us, we have to have that same defensive effort to have an opportunity tomorrow night. That's where it all begins for us. Hopefully we will make better decisions, shoot better and react to the pressure better as the game progresses. Q. Manu said he was kind of increasingly frustrated because you guys had some similar situations in that New Orleans series as far as bad decisions, mental let-downs. He said we're supposed to be the experienced team. Last night you didn't look experienced. You just look old. Can you explain how this happens just in basketball? COACH POPOVICH: I am going to help you not fall into that trite assessment that when we win, we are the experienced team and when we lose we are older than dirt. That's just silly. You win or you lose. People have to have reasons why, I guess. But rather than too old or too young or whatever, you know, in our losses, we've shot the ball poorly. 3-21 isn't great. You might even be able to live with that because the defense was decent, but the bad shooting was exacerbated with five turnovers in the fourth quarter. So that combination is a killer. Same killer we had in New Orleans when those two things happened. Q. Do you think you have to do anything mentally for your team coming off of Games 1 and 2 in New Orleans? Was it analogous to this in any way? COACH POPOVICH: We just take it as we see it. We are very honest. No smoke is blown. We just talk about what we did well, what we did poorly, what we want to do better in the next contest and then we go play. It is real simple because it is basketball. Q. (Question regarding defending Kobe and going to the rim when drives.) COACH POPOVICH: Well, Pau is a great player and he makes a lot of things work with their team obviously. But Kobe is the greatest player on the planet. He can do what he did last night. Our problem was we had to keep scoring and then we didn't do it. Q. What kind of wine do you drink after a game like that? COACH POPOVICH: We ordered Flowers Chardonnay and -- what was the Pinot? It doesn't matter because they were out of both of them. (Laughter). Q. Bad night overall. COACH POPOVICH: That was worse than having us sit on the airplane, let me tell you. We had wine on the airplane. End of FastScripts |
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