|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
NBA WESTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: THUNDER v SPURSMay 19, 2014Tony ParkerSAN ANTONIO, TEXAS: Game One San Antonio – 122 Q. Early in the game you were really passing more than looking to score it seemed like. Were you being cautious with your hamstring or just‑‑ TONY PARKER: Yeah, that's what they were giving me. I guess in the first two series, they were giving me the shot, and this series they double teamed. They came hard on the pick‑and‑rolls, and Timmy was open, Tiago was open, so I was just trying to do what they were giving me. Q. You guys kind of threw a bunch of people at Westbrook, but in the fourth quarter you seemed to do a pretty good job of staying in front of him. Is that something that you really wanted to focus on, trying to keep him out of the paint and help Timmy and Tiago? TONY PARKER: Definitely. We did a good job in the first half. In the third quarter he got away a little bit in transition, went to the basket a couple times, and we need to work on our transition D. We have to do a better job. In the fourth quarter we went back to it and we did better. Q. Did you expect to have that many points in the paint with Ibaka being out? Was that number surprising? TONY PARKER: Well, Timmy was rolling. They came there hard on the pick‑and‑rolls and Timmy got two, three lay‑ups to start the game, got his confidence going, and we were looking for him, and he played great tonight. Q. How much of a fact that he wasn't in there did you look to get in the paint and do some damage yourself? TONY PARKER: Well, we always want to try to penetrate, we always want ‑‑ our ball movement, that's how we play, kick and pitch and stuff like that. You know, obviously it's a little bit better with him not being in the paint, but we're still going to try to penetrate and make stuff happen. Q. Do you just feel freer when you don't have that feeling that Serge may be flying in from nowhere? And your hamstring, how do you feel right now? TONY PARKER: I feel okay. I came out okay. I think I'll be even better for Game 2. And obviously it makes a huge difference when Ibaka is not there. He's one of the best defenders in the NBA. Q. Pop said you guys were just taking what they gave you, but looking from the outside in, how wide open was it down under the basket? TONY PARKER: Like I said, they were showing hard on the pick‑and‑rolls, and Timmy got going very early with that bounce pass. He had two, three lay‑ups and got some nice transition baskets, too. Kawhi was running, everybody was running, and we got some pretty good, easy baskets, and that's good for the confidence. Q. Russell and Reggie combined for I think 38 but still took a lot of shots to get there. Do you guys feel defensively like you did better on them than maybe those regular‑season games? TONY PARKER: Yeah, I think we did a lot better than the regular‑season games, but you're not going to stop them. What we try to do is try to contain them like every other team in the NBA and just try to make every shot hard. I think overall we did a pretty good job, first half, in the fourth quarter. Third quarter I'm sure there's a lot of stuff we'll watch on film and we can do better. Q. Manu kind of struggled somewhat against Portland. How important is it for him to come out like this in Game 1? TONY PARKER: It's huge, huge for us. For whatever reason against Portland he didn't shoot the ball well, but tonight he looked very confident and went to the basket, got easy lay‑ups in the third quarter. I think he got his confidence going for the fourth quarter, and he made some shots, made a couple threes. It was big for us. Q. This is the last team that beat you all in the Western Conference. Is this the match‑up you guys wanted, and is it personal and does it feel like a rivalry at all? TONY PARKER: No, it doesn't feel personal. We just respect them. They're a great team. They have the MVP and they have one of the best point guards. We know that we have to play our best game to compete against them, and I think it's great to have an appropriate fear. They played great against us in 2012, and we know that we have to be perfect. They're younger than us and more athletic, and so we have to be more perfect. Q. When they go small, how big is Boris kind of counteracting that, posting up their smaller guys? TONY PARKER: Boris is big for us if they're going to go small. I think we can use that match‑up as an advantage for us, and tonight he made some key baskets in the fourth quarter. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
About ASAP Sports •
FastScripts Archive •
Recent Interviews •
Captioning •
Upcoming Events •
Contact Us
FastScripts | Events Covered | Our Clients | Other Services | ASAP in the News | Site Map | Job Opportunities | Links |
|
ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297
|