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
I try play the same all the time. I'll play hard if I play five minutes or five seconds. If I start or come off the bench. I will play hard. I will play tough and I will play aggressively. I try to get my rhythm going immediately.
It's important for me to start but even more important is that I feel the same way as a backup coming off the bench. You have to contribute any way you can. I try to do the best I can for the team and bring energy.
Our season is starting in a couple of days. The last 10 games, you just wanted the regular season to finish and get ready for the excitement. The atmosphere changes in one second.
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.
Probably if Ron is there, I score less points. But then somebody else is going to go off, like Tony (Parker) did in Game 1. We're confident in our scoring. We know how to move the ball and find the open man.
We played the whole playoff thinking they were not shooters.
That's three great shooters that can change the game in couple of minutes. We're going to be dangerous. It's going to be good as long as we are smart, we keep the aggressiveness for 48 minutes and everybody thinks for the better of the team.
I was playing like my head wasn't ready after what happened on Friday.
I was trying to get it to the rim before, but I just couldn't make a shot. In the fourth quarter, I started with the dunk, and the whole game changed for me in those couple of minutes.
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.
I struggled in the first quarter. I don't know if I was nervous or rusty. I didn't play well. . . . I was very upset at halftime. I tried to clam down and play a little slower and things started to go better.
I struggled in the first half. I was very upset, I just tried to play with more energy.
We know that these two teams ... you can't stop playing for four or five minutes. It's a big mistake.
The ankle felt good, but it took a while to get going. The more important thing is how it feels (Sunday). I was a little tentative out there because I was worrying about stepping on somebody's foot.