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NBA WESTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: THUNDER v SPURSMay 28, 2012Stephen JacksonSAN ANTONIO, TEXAS: Practice Day Q. Talk about how the fans helped last night. STEPHEN JACKSON: The crowd actually got us going. I think that the disappointing first half, they were still into it. We made some plays and kind of fed off their energy, so it was good to have great fans. Q. What are you trying to do when you're on Durant? STEPHEN JACKSON: Just try to make it difficult. Can't stop him. I don't think we even came into this game trying to stop him, because it's impossible to stop him. Just want to make it difficult, not let him go in the direction he wants to go. Let him know we're there on his shots. He's 6'10", so you can't block it. Just got to make it difficult for him and be a little physical. He doesn't get rattled. He keeps his composure. He's sort of like Tim Duncan like that. But I'm going to make it difficult and play as hard as I can. Q. What do you look for in Manu in a fourth quarter like that? STEPHEN JACKSON: A little bit of everything. Might get a steal here and there, a couple big threes. He's getting to the basket real good. That definitely helped us at the end of the game. But it's what we expect. He's had a couple of bad games. He hasn't been himself. He's been injured a lot this season. But we expect him to play like that because we know he can burst out in any game. Q. How is your role different this time around with this team? STEPHEN JACKSON: I'm Steve Smith. Danny Ferry, Steve Kerr, and me and Manu are those guys now. And Danny Green and Kawhi Leonard are those guys coming in. My job is to be a veteran, a lead, come in there and give good minutes and knock down shots if I can. I think when I was here last time, I was getting 12 to 14 shots a game.  But this time my job is to help us win and be as solid as I can as a veteran when I do get in the game and bring a little energy whenever I come in. Q. You compared yourself to Steve Kerr. Are you the voice of reason? STEPHEN JACKSON: Not that. I've never been the voice of reason. That's not me. But as far as being that veteran leadership and to have that experience, I've always been a great teammate. So I support the young guys. Just keep everybody in tune to the big goal. We won one game, but that's not where we want to be. We want to be NBA champions and keep everybody's focused. Q. You play nasty? STEPHEN JACKSON: I like nasty. Nasty is how I like to play. Of if you don't like to get bumped or knocked down or get a little blood in this game, you're not having fun. This is the Western Conference finals, so this is what it's about. A lot of people would die to be here. I'm going to give 110%. If I've got to bleed to win a game, I'm willing to do that. Q. Did anybody have guts to give Pop a little grief over the comments that went viral? STEPHEN JACKSON: I don't think anybody in this organization has the power to give Pop any grief over anything he does. He has free reign to do whatever. We have to respect it. Q. Is it fair to say that that was pretty tame? STEPHEN JACKSON: I mean, that shows his different ways of coaching. Pop is a guy who is good at getting guys ready to play as far as game planning and as far as intensity. But sometimes he might go outside the circle and say some things that you won't expect him to say. Being nasty, I think a lot of people took it a lot of different ways, but we know exactly what he meant. We have to play hard and be more confident in ourselves and we took to it. Q. Are you just happy there were no F‑bombs in that sound bite? STEPHEN JACKSON: Y'all got to watch Pop. He's good at turning that mic on and off. You know what I'm saying? You don't hear some of the stuff he says. But in the midst of the game, sometimes emotions go and you might say a lot of things. But at the end of the day, we know everything he says is to get us to play well and play harder. Q. You guys are like 31‑2 since you came on board. What's it like to be part of that? STEPHEN JACKSON: I can't even remember that, because if we lose tomorrow, then all that goes down the drain. We're focused, man. I think we're 1‑0 in this series. I'm not thinking about when I first came here, because none of that matters now. I think that's good what Pop does keeping us focused on that. What we've done to this point doesn't matter. We have to be ready to win Game 2 and keep our home court advantage. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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