NBA WESTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: GRIZZLIES v SPURS

May 19, 2013

Lionel Hollins

Q.  As well as these two teams know each other you haven\'t played each other with these rosters as they\'re constituted being healthy all season.  Change things for you at all?

LIONEL HOLLINS:  No, we still know each other and it\'s still going to be a battle.  You\'ve got one of the top defensive teams, one of the top offensive teams, they\'ve got multiple weapons offensively and they play at a real good pace and it\'s going to be a challenge to get them slowed down and into a half‑court team.

Q.  Who do you anticipate Tony Allen starting off on defensively?

LIONEL HOLLINS:  Green.  They\'re just going to play straight across the board to start out with.  I don\'t know how long it will last in the game.  But things may change on their own, but we\'re going to play straight across the board.

Q.  How important is it for you to stop their ball movement?

LIONEL HOLLINS:  I don\'t know if you can stop ball movement.  You can\'t even limit it.  I think what you have to do is get back on defense and have all five guys back and all five guys guarding their own men.  That\'s what you have to do.  That stops some ball movement, but if we\'re a man down or man and a half down and they\'re putting the ball on the floor and you\'ve got to help and they\'re moving the ball from side to side and getting in the paint, close‑outs are going to be premium.  Be disciplined to close out and not go for pump fakes and have other guys get back in the paint.  That\'s more important than trying to stop their ball movement.

Q.  What kind of strain does it put on your defense that they\'re willing to go 20 seconds into the shot clock?

LIONEL HOLLINS:  That\'s why we\'re left.  That means we\'re playing pretty good defense.  That\'s one of the reasons our numbers are as low as they are from an offensive perspective is because we force teams to play the third, fourth option, fifth option, and the shot clock is running down, and then when we get it, we run it and try to get the ball in the post and we do things before we get the ball in the post and when we finally get in the post the shot clock is down.  If you really break down and look at how we play, that\'s why we don\'t score as much as other teams.  The possessions are just limited.

Q.  It\'s not hard to maintain that energy, though, the full 24 seconds?

LIONEL HOLLINS:  Well, we\'ve done it all year.  That\'s what we\'ve done.  As I told the players, we have to go out and do what we do, and it doesn\'t matter the stage, it doesn\'t matter all the hoopla that surrounds them, we still have to be who we are, and just because a lot of the national media is giving us more attention now, we\'re still the same people and the same team now that we were before they were giving us attention, so we can\'t change anything.

Q.  How are they handling all the hoopla?

LIONEL HOLLINS:  I don\'t know.  We\'ll find out once we start, but seems to be okay.  It started last round, too.  After a while you don\'t really want to talk about what you\'re going to do, you just want to go do it.  You don\'t want to talk about who you are and where you go eat and all that stuff.  You just want to go play, and it\'s distracting and annoying, but it\'s part of the game and it\'s part of what you have to learn to do, and there\'s distractions all season, as well, that we have to deal with with the travel and delays of planes and whatever is going on.  That\'s part of being a professional.

Q.  Have you noticed that anybody in particular in the locker room has stepped up and been a more vocal leader the last couple days?

LIONEL HOLLINS:  No.  If they weren\'t before, they\'re not going to be now.

Q.  Are they sharing experiences with Tayshaun or Tony?

LIONEL HOLLINS:  They do that all year long.  They talk basketball.  Telling somebody something and have them go out and experience it for themselves, if you\'re a parent you know that, that you can tell your kids all you want but they sometimes got to go out there and bump their head against the wall before they realize what you say means what you say.  It\'s the same way in basketball.  All the experiences and all this here, it\'s great for the person that\'s been there, but it doesn\'t really help the guys that haven\'t been there.  They\'ve got to go do it and experience it and see what it\'s all about and learn from it.

Q.  Is it a key for Jerryd Bayless in this series to play more with a mind for possessions being at a premium or to stay aggressive?

LIONEL HOLLINS:  We always have him be aggressive.  I don\'t know why we would not let him be aggressive.  We want to be aggressive as a team.  Possessions at a premium, what does that mean?

Q.  Taking care of the ball.

LIONEL HOLLINS:  Even when he\'s aggressive we want him to take care of the ball.  If we can go and average 10 turnovers like we did the last series and 11 or 12 like we did in the first series, come on, it\'s not like we weren\'t aggressive, it\'s not like he wasn\'t aggressive.  It\'s just making the right decisions if you want a different way of putting it.

Q.  Any message for those watching back in Memphis?

LIONEL HOLLINS:  Go Grizzlies.

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