On if he felt optimistic at half time being down only eight despite poor play - “I was concerned. The only thing I was optimistic about was that we played pretty good defense. Nick (Van Exel) hit some pretty tough shots that were contested. I think there were four threes and three of them were contested really well. We felt we played pretty good defense, but we were concerned about the turnovers, I think we had ten at half. Turnovers and free throws were always a problem for us, so we were concerned about the turnovers. We thought Dallas did a good job defensively; we didn’t score for a pretty good period. It was five minutes at least, maybe longer.”

On the free throws - “When you get down to the last four teams. They are all pretty mature and experienced teams. They understand the next game is important and don’t look ahead.”

On playing the Mavs different - “They are a very dangerous, very tough team and we’re going to play the same way whether he’s (Nowitzki) out there or not.”

On if the play of Tony Parker in the third quarter opened things up for him – “Absolutely, he was great; hitting his shots, being aggressive in the open court. We talked about it at halftime; those guys defended well in the second quarter, and then they pushed it right back at us. If we did get a stop or if they scored, we walked it back up the court. We want to be a lot more aggressive coming back at them if we did get a stop; making them pay for trying to get a quick basket and being spread out. Tony took it upon himself to push it back up the court and make them pay for it.”

On the free throws - "We didn’t work on it any more that usual. Everybody knows the importance of making free throws. The last game we missed sixteen; that was a game we should have had. We don’t want to be in that situation again."

On the Loss of Nowitzki – “It will hurt them, but they have a lot of great guys on their team."

On coach Pop making Tony more aggressive – “At the beginning (of the season) he tried to make me become a John Stockton. I think now he understands I’m more like Isaiah Thomas. He’s just going to let me play my game now. More as a scoring point guard."

On Dirk Nowitzki - "The news on Dirk Nowitkzi is not good. His knee is very sore. He twisted it somehow and it is a strain. He will get a MRI tomorrow and I wouldn’t expect that he would play the next game and I wouldn’t be sure that he would play in the series. I am not a doctor, but I don’t think we should take a gamble or a chance on Nowitzki. I told Dirk he must feel 100% for me to play him again in the series. From the looks of him tonight, that is probably not going to happen and I am not going to jeopardize Dirk Nowitzki’s career."

On Tim Duncan - “Tim Duncan gets the game ball. We could not control him. We were blitzing, double-teaming the screen and rolls, trying to get the balls out of his hands. He found ways to make us pay with the pass and the shot. He was sensational.”

“From what I saw of the confrontation with the ref and Nelly, I think he was right in his argument. The refs had to set the tone. They let the coaches and players know they weren’t taking anything."

On mindset after the loss - "We’re fine mentally. Our mindset to get two games would have been great, but to get one is okay. It’s up to us to go home and play the way we’re capable of playing. We haven’t played a great game yet.”

On mental state - “It’s a bad break but we’ll just have to see how it feels tomorrow. I’m going to get an MRI tomorrow. This series is still a long ways from being over.”

On Tony Paker in the 3rd Quarter - “He did a great job of using the pick-n-roll. He waited for our big men to clear out of there and then he used the big men to get into the paint and then when he got into the paint, he has a lot of good up fakes. He was able to get our guards into the air and created space for himself to get his little shot up and it worked tremendously for him in the second half.”