San Antonio Spurs (116) vs. Portland Trail Blazers (105) April 7, 2018 Spurs Postgame Quotes Spurs Head Coach Gregg Popovich: (On Manu Ginobili’s performance…) “It was a pretty exciting time, but Manu has done that over the years. It was great. But overall, I thought our team defense was good: tough cover, I thought our big guys were at the rim the way they needed to be, our smalls chased really well, so, I thought our team defense gave us the opportunity to win the basketball game.” (On if he was happy with Rudy Gay’s performance…) “There’s really no happy in basketball. You execute or you don’t and you play harder than the other team or you don’t. I thought Rudy was very aggressive offensively and he made some good defensive plays too. He had a steal that was important at a certain time in the fourth quarter there and he gave us a lot.” Spurs Guard Dejounte Murray : (On the difference in the team between playing on the road and at home …) “It’s tough because if you look at the games we play on the road we have good leads and end up blowing them from turning the ball over, transition D [defense]. I can’t really speak on it, but I feel like we’ll get better at it as time goes on with different lineups, everything's different. We’re trying to figure out one another and coach is trying to figure out everything too.” (On appreciating Manu Ginobili’s performance in the fourth quarter …) “If you saw me I was cheering, cheering, cheering. He’s forty years old, I mean what do you want from him? He already paid his dues, he's a future Hall of Famer, he’s won championships, so that's just a bonus for us. Manu could be with his family and kids but he’s showing the love and passion he has for the game and he’s here with us.” Spurs Guard Manu Ginobili: (On the sequence of his 8-0 run…) “I truly don’t know. I just feeling good, a couple shots went in and I was feeling that type of rush and that type of excitement, ‘flow’, they call it. So, I was trying to use it. At a point I saw Rudy [Gay] wide open next to me and ‘no,” I said, ‘not this time, I go,’ because I was feeling really well. I’m very happy that happened again today in an important moment, it made me feel good and helped the team get a lead and the rest of the guys that were there the last five minutes were amazing both defensively and offensively, so very solid game. (On playing as if it's the Playoffs…) “No, it is the Playoffs, it's exactly the same. If we would have lost today we’re pretty close to being out, especially with what happened today. So it’s huge and we are playing, especially at home, as if there’s no tomorrow. It's a similar feeling to the Playoffs and it's great to see the team bounce like that, not being down, but angry and hungry so it's good to see we can bounce back that way.” Trail Blazers Head Coach Terry Stotts : (On the game…) “Well it was a tough loss. I thought we were pretty competitive for the most part. The game meant a lot to San Antonio and they played like it. We had some lapses that they took advantage of. [Manu] Ginobili did what Ginobili does – he made clutch shots. [Patty] Mills’ three in the corner with three on the shot clock was a big play – they made big plays.” (On the competitiveness of the game…) “I don’t want to say it was a playoff game, but it was a playoff tune-up. I think they’re healthy, they competed and it meant a lot to them – they still haven’t qualified for The Playoffs so it was a very high-level game.” (On different lapses late in the game…) “I’d have to watch but I thought we fouled a little bit too much, obviously Patty Mills’ corner three was a big play for them. Eight-point game, we could be going the other way, I forget what time was on the clock, how much time was left in the game. That was a tough play. Like I said, [Manu] Ginobili made big momentum plays. For not giving up any offensive rebounds in the first half, we gave up a few in the second half. It’s just a little here and there, I was glad we were able to score. We keep track of how many times we get three stops in a row and we only did that once and that might be the lowest, certainly of the season. To do that you have to string together some consistent defensive possessions.” Trail Blazers Guard Damian Lillard: (On how he felt tonight…) “I felt pretty good. I thought we did a great job with our performance. Just making the decisions over the last couple of days to just get healthy and to getting stronger in the right amount of treatment and exercises. To the point where I can play normal minutes and get out there and play, so I felt pretty good. ” (On if he can feel how tight the playoff picture is…) “I think the one thing we have going for ourselves is we’re the three seed right now. We’re out of reach for a lot of teams based on tiebreakers and then on how many wins they can come up with. We have two games left, one at home and then one on the road. One gives us home court for sure, and if we win the last two, it’s 50 wins and the three seed. I guess it is getting tight because we still have things that we can still get done, but for us, it’s more about how we’re playing. Coach has been talking about the kind of basketball we want to be playing, more so than worrying about we should have this seed or that. I think we’re doing some good things, and then we just have moments where we have lapses on the defensive end, giving up some second and third possessions. I think as a group, as a whole, we feel good. We are just working our way. We knew that we were going to come across teams that are fighting for their playoff lives, no game is going to be easy.” Trail Blazers Guard Shabazz Napier : (On how he would describe the game…) “I thought we played well in the first half. The second half, mainly the fourth quarter, especially when [Manu] Ginobili went on a run himself, eight points. When you give the Spurs that much of a lead in the fourth it’s always tough to come back. I thought we played well, we were trying to defend LaMarcus [Aldridge] as well as we can, but he's an elite player and he had to make a lot of tough shots. It came down to that fourth quarter where Ginobili made a lot of plays for them. It sucks, but the guys over there know what they're doing. We’ll go back to the drawing board and figure it out.” (On if he liked what he saw out of Damian Lillard…) “For sure, I felt like he was getting fouled a lot. He was making a lot of tough shots, doing what he does best. I thought he distributed the ball well. I thought he did everything possible for us to get the win, as he always does.”
