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NBA WESTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: THUNDER v SPURSMay 25, 2014Manu GinobiliOKLAHOMA CITY, OKLAHOMA: Game Three Oklahoma City – 106 Q. First of all, could you give us a report on your foot or injury, whatever it was you had? MANU GINOBILI: No, I'm just sore on my left foot. It's been going on for a while. There are some games that I'm worse, some others that I'm okay. Don't be concerned, though, it's not something new. Q. First half can you talk about what Pop called the worst defense that y'all have played in this playoff run? MANU GINOBILI: Yeah, we were pretty bad. Sometimes the opponent scores because they are talented and because it can happen. They are good players, they are very talented, but the amount of mistakes that we made in the first half were way too many for a Conference Finals. So we really didn't bring the concentration and the aggressiveness today, and they made us pay. They are not a team that if you just give them a half or if you just trot down the court, they're going to let it go. We know that to beat them, and especially here, we've got to bring our "A"game, play really hard for 48 minutes and be really mentally prepared, and today we were a little lagging. Q. Durant and Westbrook had said before this game that they needed to play better. They seemed to play a lot better on both ends of the court. Do you feel like that was them? Did Ibaka free them up? What did you see out of them? MANU GINOBILI: It was a combination of things. They really needed this game. They knew that nobody came back from a 3‑0, and they brought all the emotion. I think we took the first hit pretty well. Going into the half we were tied or down two and not playing well. We were okay. We took the hit fine. We just couldn't sustain it. We didn't bring the aggressiveness that they brought. They killed us at the boards. That was a huge difference, and we, as I said before, we were always a little slower. We didn't find the teammates open outside as we did in the previous two games. So there were too many mistakes that combined gave us this result. Q. Can you talk about Serge Ibaka's impact as you saw it out there? MANU GINOBILI: He was incredible. For having sat for a while and being considered out, he started the game hot. He made a few jumpers, we had to adjust. But again, as I just said before, we took the hit well, considering the emotion that he brought to the game because of his absence in the first two, they were making the first shots, but we sustained it. We were tied. So for sure he's a great player, and he provided them with a lot of things, not only mid‑range shots but defense. No, he really helped them. Q. How do you think you pick up the pieces after this one? What is it going to take? MANU GINOBILI: Well, hopefully we realize that if we're not intense, if we're not very sharp and we hustle like crazy, we're not going to win here. There are a few things that we've got to do better. Maybe we thought that it was okay and we were going to win here playing so‑so. It's not going to happen. They showed us the reality, and hopefully we react for Game 4 and we play a much better game. Q. Reggie Jackson was in the starting lineup tonight and played more than he usually has. What difference does he make when he's able to play 30, 35 minutes? MANU GINOBILI: Usually if you are a bench player, it's hard to play 30 plus minutes because you usually miss the first six minutes of every half and then you can sit for a minute. So that's what, I guess, Brooks tried to do, just bring more scoring ability to the starting lineup, and I guess it worked. He did well, but again, I think that the difference in intensity was the biggest key, not Xs and Os particularly. When you see 52‑35 I think at the boards and every loose ball was theirs and our lagging defensively, lack of aggressiveness was a big difference. I don't think that the change‑‑ maybe Ibaka really helped them, but bottom line is that we played bad, and they played with a lot of emotion because they knew that they had to win this game. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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