NBA FINALS: PISTONS v SPURS

June 11, 2005

Tim Duncan

TIM DUNCAN: He's the key to everything that we do. We count on him bringing that energy, bringing the leadership on that end of the floor, and really bothering and sometimes even taking people out of the game. So we rely on him tremendously. He understands that, and he brings that energy every night, so it's not something that won't be there one night or another because of the effort. He's going to bring that effort every night, sometimes guys will hit shots, but he'll play through everything, which is the great thing about him.

TIM DUNCAN: I had to learn. I had to learn. You know, it was just a great situation for me to be in. I wasn't asked to be a leader early on in my career. I was allowed to learn through time, and just in watching the guys around me and in front of me. So it's not something that came natural, but something that came with time, but it was just a great situation for me to learn.

TIM DUNCAN: I think it's a place of position. I've been here the longest, it automatically kind of makes me a leader in that respect. You just want to go out there and you want to put forth the effort, of course, and things are going wrong, you step up and you say something, whatever it may be. Leaders are defined in so many different ways, I don't think there's only one way to do it. Every guy on our team that's willing to step up and say something or contribute is a leader in their own way.

TIM DUNCAN: Yeah, it's been that way since the beginning. He's real easy to get along with. Before I was drafted -- actually it was after I was drafted, he came down to St. Croix when I was there and we had a chance to sit down and talk and it's been great ever since the start.

TIM DUNCAN: Yeah, I guess so.

TIM DUNCAN: Yeah, I think it makes this team a lot different from years past. We can adapt to a lot of different situations, although we are most comfortable in this situation where we have a little more control, we also have that explosiveness offensively, and we're able to do that. So it's a good mixture for us. It's a great mixture for us. We have Tony and Manu, who love to run out and get out on the open floor, but we also have the ability to sit on the halfcourt and execute and play with a 24-second clock. It's more this than it was last year's series. We're more comfortable in this than we were last series.

TIM DUNCAN: He's very talented. When he gets his opportunity, he's going to be very effective. I just have to do the best I can to contest every shot that he takes and not give him the open ones because the open ones are the ones that are going to build his confidence and really get him rolling. If I can just stay in front of him and make sure that every look that he gets, if he does make it, it's over a hand or it's a difficult make and everything else will just kind of flow from there.

TIM DUNCAN: I think they are going to approach this game like they have every other loss of the playoffs. They are going to come out with tremendous energy and they are going to exert on the defensive end. They are going to really jump and try to get in the passing lanes and cause turnovers. They are going to be very aggressive on the offensive end. I think their aggressiveness to that they are going to take it up another level and we're going to have to match that and match it early.

TIM DUNCAN: Yeah, you need to talk to Manu about him, because when Manu first got here, Manu was in the starting lineup, so Manu, whenever we played in practice would be the guy that Bruce would guard and it started from then. You need to ask Manu about that because it was not pleasant for him.

TIM DUNCAN: I didn't know right away. I had fun being around him. I thought he was very approachable, easy to talk to and he had an opportunity to talk to my dad, of course, and some of my friends and go to dinner and just kind of start to get to know each other, start that process. There's no way to know somebody fully in that first meeting, but the way he approached it, the way he started, I thought was a great way.

TIM DUNCAN: I think our focus is a lot different here. I think Pop gets us ready to the point, to the extent that we understand the game plan and everybody is out there to execute the game plan and I think it's just another level of focus for us. I'm not saying it can never happen or whatever that may be, but we make a lot less mistakes in this situation for whatever reason. I think preparation is there. I think understanding of the importance is there, and people make just a lot less mistakes.

TIM DUNCAN: Why? Because he's unbelievably athletic, he's long, and his length, he uses every bit of his length with his shot, he gets the ball so high over his head, all you can do is basically contest is because there's no way to really stop it and basically you have to hope that he doesn't make the shot. That's why it's so effective. It's basically unguardable.