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NBA WESTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: THUNDER v SPURSMay 29, 2012Tony ParkerSAN ANTONIO, TEXAS: Game Two San Antonio – 120 Q. Tony, I guess last night it was Manu, and tonight it was you. Did you just feel it? TONY PARKER: I don't know. It was just one of those nights. I felt in a good rhythm early on. I was making my outside shots and just trying to be aggressive. The first game after I didn't play for a week, I was a little too much in a hurry. So this game, I took my time and waited for my moment, especially on the pick‑and‑rolls when they doubled me and tried to do the first easy pass, that's why my mindset in this game was do the first easy pass and we'll see what happens. Q. In the fourth quarter of Game 1, we saw a lot of Stephen Jackson. Tonight it was Kawhi Leonard guarding big shots and coming through. What's it say about his ability to come through in a big moment like this in the Western Conference finals? TONY PARKER: Kawhi has been playing great all season long for us. Every round he's been playing great, guarding the best guy on the other team. I'm not very surprised. He's been performing at a high level all season. Q. Why is this team so precise in passing the ball and so good at passing the ball? TONY PARKER: When you have Coach Pop screaming at you every day, it will make you pass the ball. He is always big on you have to find a better shot. Always trying to find the better shot, the better shot all season long, extra pass. You know, we have great shooters on the team. We have guys who can penetrate and find open guys, so we like to play for each other. We like to play like that. That's the way we play. It's not just one guy on our team. It can come from everywhere. Q. Were you surprised by their rally when you guys got up 80‑58? TONY PARKER: Not at all. OKC is a very, very good team. They came back very strong on us. They had a huge end of the third quarter, fourth quarter, and we knew they were going to make a run. We just tried to hold on. They're a very good team. It's going to be tough over there. Q. Talk about the offense and what happened in the fourth quarter when they did make their run? TONY PARKER: You know, NBA games, people are going to make runs. In the third quarter, everything went our way and ball movement was great. In the fourth quarter, they played better defense. They made stops, and they just came at us one‑on‑one, full speed, our transition defense was not very good in the fourth quarter. So there is a lot of stuff we can watch in film tomorrow because we're going to have to do better. They played a lot better in the second half, and we know we're going to have to do a lot better if we want to try to win over there. Q. You talked about making the simple pass against the pick‑and‑roll.  Pops calls this your best season overall. Has that been the key to this? Have you let the game become simpler? TONY PARKER: Yeah, it's always been a battle my whole career when you're a scoring point guard, and Pop wants you to score then he wants you to pass, and he wants you to score, and he wants you to pass. You go back and forth. It's always been the biggest room for me to improve is to find that happy middle between scoring and passing, and find that good balance. I think over the years I got better at it, and finding my spots, when to score and when to pass the ball. Q. In the third quarter, the Thunder started (No microphone). TONY PARKER: Yeah, a little bit. That's the reason you do it is to kill the rhythm. I think it got us out of our rhythm and got OKC back in the game. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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