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NBA FINALS: MAGIC v LAKERS

June 3, 2009

Pau Gasol

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: Practice Day

Q. Pau, yesterday you talked a little bit about your conditioning regimen. Can you elaborate on what you did during the regular season and how much better you feel than you did last year.
PAU GASOL: I just tried to work with discipline and steady work in the weight room throughout the year, so my body is ready to compete, especially at this stage. I think last year I fell a little short, especially down the stretch, and this year I just tried to stay strong and tried to stay toned to be able to be physical and be able to compete.

Q. How much better prepared as a result of that for this year's Finals as a team than you were last year?
PAU GASOL: I think we're in a better place this year overall. I think that our run to the playoffs this year has helped us to be a tougher team. It brought us together as a team, as a group, and it made us -- really made us appreciate where we are and how hard we worked to get here, and the experience obviously of last year throughout the playoffs and especially losing The Finals I think also made us grow as a team.
Overall I think we're in a good place. We like our chances. Obviously Orlando is playing extremely well, and they deserve and earned a spot in The Finals and a chance to fight for the championship. But obviously we'll contemplate our options and try and figure out what can we do to beat them.

Q. As far as your match-up defensively it would appear that you would play some post defense against Dwight and also be responsible for running out in the perimeter some chasing Lewis. How would you describe that as far as it seeming like kind of a difficult role for you?
PAU GASOL: It's going to be a lot of work. It's going to take a big focus on my part to be able to flip the switch every time I change match-ups and I change players, coverages. But it's a big challenge, no doubt about it, to guard either player, because they're both really good players and they present so many different looks to you. It's going to be hard, but I look forward to getting it done and being effective against them and helping our team. That's all I want to do.

Q. You guys won 65 games this year and you put the West away early. In the middle of the playoffs was there some sense of, we're not the team we were, and we'd better get it back quick?
PAU GASOL: Well, in the series against Houston it was tough. I think we realized that by showing up we're not just going to win. We're going to have to play extremely hard and give our best to beat a team that they might be shorthanded but they're competing as good as anybody, that's competing extremely hard, especially at their place. We were totally unable to get into those games and give ourselves a chance even, those games in Houston the last two games.
I think that that was kind of a wake-up call for us, that we had to change things up and really focus on what we needed to do as a team.

Q. Obviously Game 4 wasn't a real good effort, but Game 6 seemed like you guys did give it an effort and they beat you pretty good anyway. Was that even more humbling?
PAU GASOL: Yeah, I mean, it's playoff basketball, and teams that you face are high quality teams. Even though you give your best effort, sometimes a team is still going to beat you. It's just the way it is. But at least you know inside of you that you gave it yourself and you gave yourself a shot, that you didn't just give it up.
It was two different games, you're right about that, and the mentality was a little different. We were expecting to win that Game 4 easily because Yao went down and we expected them to fold and they didn't. They came even harder than they did before.
It was definitely a learning experience, and that's why I think today we are where we are and we'll learn from it, and hopefully it'll be useful until the end of the playoffs.

Q. What have you guys learned about losing to Boston last year that helped you get back to this point?
PAU GASOL: I think what we learned the most is that you can't just go out there and see what happens, you know, get a feel from The Finals. You've got to be really aggressive and go get it. You've just got to go get it. Don't expect anything, just play hard and hustle and give your best. You just can't expect to see what's going on and see how we get to the halftime and see if we have a chance at the end of the game because we're on the road, and we weren't really aggressive. We weren't like, we've got to win this first game today. That's why we were just trailing pretty much the whole series.

Q. Does losing that series, that championship motivate this team this year, this whole season?
PAU GASOL: I think it definitely made us hungry. Obviously we're mad. We're upset about losing in The Finals, especially the way we lost. Also the last game, we just felt that we could have given it a better shot than we did. But it didn't happen, and now we're here again and we can give it a much better shot and really get it done. You know, we've got to live in the present and remember what happened in the past and learn from it. But really, you know, make the best out of the present.

Q. How concerned are you guys about Jameer Nelson possibly returning to their lineup, even if he's not 100 percent healthy?
PAU GASOL: It's always tough for a guy that has been out for a while to come back at this time. It's a pretty big challenge, I think, for a player and as a team, too, because they have been playing without him for this long and they have been doing pretty good. But he's definitely a great player. He was having an amazing year, an All-Star year, and helping them a lot. He's really a very good point guard.
So I don't know exactly what stage he's going to be or find himself if he does return for this series. I'm just not sure. It's kind of a question mark.
Q. On a daily basis how does Kobe contribute to this team getting tougher this season? I know that was like his mission this summer. How does that happen on a daily basis in practice?
PAU GASOL: Well, he's always pretty vocal, especially now. Now obviously he wants everybody to be focused on what we need to do as a team, as a group, as individuals to have a better chance to win. Obviously he wants to win this as much as anybody, and I think we definitely can count on him doing his part because he's a great leader and great competitor. But we all have to step up and we all have to do our job and play our best and do what we're supposed to do out there.
He's been vocal and he's been doing what he's supposed to do, and it's everybody's turn to do that, too.

Q. With Dwight Howard in this postseason, what have you learned about defending him?
PAU GASOL: It's tough. We played him twice this year. Haven't played him much. He had a very good game -- maybe both games very good against us, big numbers. But he's developing a pretty good post game, I think. He's confident. They go more to him. I think since that game against Boston that he demanded the ball a little more and there was that controversy, he's getting more looks and more touches and being more effective with it. So you've got to continue to go with what's effective. They've been doing that quite a bit, especially in the Cleveland series.
We've just got to be really aggressive, make it tough for him, make him shoots those looks farther out in the lane, limit his dunks and offensive rebounds, limit his breaks because he runs to the heart of the lane and they look for him a lot there because of his size advantage -- not just his size but his strength advantage, I guess, and athleticism. You've got your work cut out with him. You have to be aggressive, be quick, don't always go body to body, move your feet, and you give yourself a chance.

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