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NBA FINALS: CAVALIERS v SPURSJune 8, 2007Tim DuncanSAN ANTONIO, TEXAS: Practice Day Q. You've been with Tony a while now. What was your view of him as a really young, inexperienced point guard, and how do you view him now in light of what happened last night? TIM DUNCAN: It's night and day. I honestly didn't know what to expect with him coming in here. I knew he was incredibly young, I knew he had some quickness to him. I had no idea he'd become the player he is right now. Now he's, for lack of a better term, been through hell and back. He's been through every situation, every level of competition possible, and he's as much of that as anybody else at 25, 26 or 24, I don't know. Q. There was a play in the third quarter last night where Tony threw a high lob like maybe he mistook you for James White and you were kind of joking with him running down the court afterwards. What were you saying to him? TIM DUNCAN: Oh, I think we both -- he actually didn't see the play. He threw the ball and bumped into Varejao, went down on the ground, and when he got up, he was walking by me, and he kind of looked at me, and he was like, "Did you make that?" He's like, "You missed?" I'm like, "Yeah, sorry about that." But nothing more than that. Q. A couple of your teammates said after the game last night that in the fourth quarter they saw a little bit of slippage off the first three quarters. I don't know if you expressed that specifically after the game, but I was wondering if you felt that way? And if so, what specifically do you think you guys need to work on? It probably doesn't seem like much. TIM DUNCAN: I did see that, and we gave up 27 points in that fourth quarter, a couple more than we want to in a situation like that. We kind of let them back into the game a little bit. I think they only got it to nine or something like that, but striking distance at least. They got a couple easy things. Of course LeBron hit those two threes in a row, which were great shots, but they got a lay-up or two and they got a wide-open shot or two. Those are just things we've got to clean up. I think they started to figure some stuff out, and so it's just about getting back that focus that we had in those first three quarters. I don't know that we specifically need to change much of anything, but we just need to make some adjustments and make sure that we're not giving those easy shots up in the beginning of the game this next one. Q. Do you think it's more attributable to a loss of focus or maybe just flow-of-the-game stuff? TIM DUNCAN: A little bit of loss of focus. They're smart basketball players, they're a smart team. It took them that long to figure out what we were doing, and maybe they have. I figure it's a little bit of lost focus, maybe they figured some stuff out. And the whole Finals, the series, every series is about a little bit of adjustments, and they'll make some adjustments and we'll have to do the same. Q. What does Tony Parker do better than any other point guard in the NBA? TIM DUNCAN: What does he do better than anyone? He gets it in the lane and gets to the basket. He gets shots right up to the rim. They have arguments all the time about who's the fastest in the NBA, and I don't know if he's the fastest, but he will get around just about anybody and he'll get in that lane. For his size, he has just a great ability to make shots over people, and I think also his ability to stop on a dime, to shoot a floater or go right to the basket. It's so hard for a defender to stop and stay in front of that with all those options. So if it's one thing, I think it's just finishing at the basket, getting there and finishing. Q. You go back to 2003 and Tony had some trouble closing out some of those later games in The Finals and you guys turned to Speedy, but each year he's starting to get more and more consistent. Do you attribute that to maturity, or what are some of the factors that have brought him to where he is now? TIM DUNCAN: I think the team played well yesterday. I thought we played well yesterday. But those guys are going to make adjustments. Doing what we did last night is a promise those guys are going to be better defensively. They're going to change their game plan so Tony can't get in the lane as easily. And in years past it's been just that; teams have come out, we've played a good Game 1, Tony has played a good Game 1, myself, and they've made adjustments and things have changed a little bit. I think he's more adept now to being aware of those adjustments and being able to adjust on the fly. So that's something we're going to have to do anyway; we're going to have to be ready for what they're going to bring to us. They're not going to allow us to get to the basket as easily as we did. They're not going to allow us to get some of the shots that we did. They're going to make their adjustments and we're going to have to make ours. Q. When you guys were recruiting Jason Kidd a few years ago, did you see a scenario where Jason and Tony would be able to play together, or did you think it was eventually going to be one or the other, maybe Tony would have been moved out of here? TIM DUNCAN: That never happened, so I'm happy about that and I'm happy that Tony is playing. Let's just leave it at that. End of FastScripts |
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