Manu Ginobili
Manu Ginobili
Emanuel David "Manu" Ginóbili Maccariis an Argentine professional basketball player for the San Antonio Spurs of the National Basketball Association. Coming from a family of professional basketball players, he is a member of the Argentine men's national basketball team and the San Antonio Spurs in the National Basketball Association. Hailed as one of the finest international players to grace the NBA, he plays a high-tempo and intense game. He is one of only two players, along with Bill Bradley, to...
ProfessionBasketball Player
Date of Birth28 July 1977
CityBuenos Aires, Argentina
We played the whole playoff thinking they were not shooters.
I was playing like my head wasn't ready after what happened on Friday.
It felt like yesterday we were playing in the Finals, ... I didn't think it was so long ago. We had all the plays fresh in our minds.
We know that these two teams ... you can't stop playing for four or five minutes. It's a big mistake.
We are feeling good about ourselves. But the playoffs are a whole different thing. The atmosphere changes in one second.
There is a big difference playing with or without Shaq.
They are more physical. We are going to use (this game) to know them better. The last time that we played was a long time ago. So it's going to be good to know them if we really play them.
The crazy thing is, we shot 57 percent and beat them in rebounds (40-30) and we still were so close. They are playing great. We really got to respect them and think about playing even better than today.
They got really close. It could have gone for them, but we had a couple of great plays down the stretch.
They are playing really well, so we are looking forward to playing them. We have the first- and second-best records in the Western Conference, so it is going to be a great game.
Of course they miss a great player in Ron tonight because of his defense, but we scored a lot of points, too. I made the shots that I could in the offense. We move the ball and we really don't care who scores.
It has happened so many times that teams without their best player really step up and start playing better. It doesn't mean that it was automatic with Steve not playing that we were going to blow them out.
I played more aggressively tonight with more pace and that was helpful to our effort. We moved the ball very well and attacked the basket very hard. It was similar to Game 1, but we finished at the rim. They are playing great basketball and we really have to respect them going into the next game.
I learned how to play against players better than me.