Pau Gasol
Pau Gasol
Pau Gasol Sáezis a Spanish professional basketball player for the San Antonio Spurs of the National Basketball Association. He is a six-time NBA All-Star, and a four-time All-NBA selection, twice on the second team and twice on the third team. He has won two NBA championships, both with the Los Angeles Lakers. He was the NBA Rookie of the Year in 2002 with the Memphis Grizzlies, one of only two non-American NBA players to win that award. He is the...
NationalitySpanish
ProfessionBasketball Player
Date of Birth6 July 1980
CityBarcelona, Spain
CountrySpain
I see happy people on this team, who are excited to come to work and be a part of this team, working together to get somewhere. I don't see selfish guys, who are worrying about themselves and their situations. We have guys happy to share and doing whatever it takes to win. That is what we've lacked in previous years.
I had to take this game on my shoulders. The last few games that we were right there, I didn't produce down the last five minutes. I had to be a little more aggressive and luckily thinks worked out well.
I haven't felt any (pain) today and that's what I was looking for. We were looking for release from a lot of the fatigue and all that soreness that I had, and it's worked pretty well.
It was frustrating. We were turning the ball over without making them work for it. It was really an intense game for a while, and we had a very good chance to be right there. We lost it for a few minutes, and we paid for it.
The last few games were tough because I didn't produce in the last five minutes. Tonight it was time to step up, be a little more aggressive and produce. Luckily I was aggressive and things worked out well.
The turnovers cause you to lose control of the game. It was frustrating. We were turning the ball over and giving them the ball back without making them work for it.
That was the play we wanted to run. It's worked out well in the past and it worked out perfectly again.
We're a good defensive team. We've just got to stop them earlier. We've got to figure out a way to get them out of their rhythm and their plays. We've got to make them take tough shots and force turnovers. I'm really excited about Game 3 being a different story.
We are trying hard to bounce out of this funk. That's the only way we are going to do it. We have to win one or two games, loosen up, and play with confidence.
We had a lot of characters and maybe they were too much for him in the end.
We had to release all of that frustration. It was rewarding to see each one of us working so hard to get that reward of a win.
We wanted to jump on them quick because when you get hit first it's hard to jump back up. It'll be great if we're able to keep this up and go into the playoffs with this confidence we're playing with.
This was a good lesson for us. It lets us find out what's in store for us in the playoffs. Perhaps we have to step it up one notch.
Most of the guys were watching the NCAA Tournament (with Connecticut losing to George Mason). It was weird for a while. We didn't know what would happen.