Quotes: Spurs vs. Kings: October 31, 2009

When asked if he was horrified when he saw Manu pick up the bat - “The drummer that he marches too sometimes is a little bit different. He never ceases to amaze me and he just did it again. The legend grows. It’s incredible on Halloween night. You would call someone a liar if they told you that story.”

On Richard Jefferson finding his role - “We’ve only had three games. After 15 or 20 games he’ll feel more comfortable then how he feels now. He’ll know what people do and they’ll know what his skills are on the court. I’ll know how they fit also. I thought that tonight he was much more aggressive and more decisive about the things he did on the offensive end and defensively he has taken pride in it. He’s trying to improve his game in that area and he’s trying to get it back to where it used to be. Where he’s a heck of a defender and he’ll do that again.”

On tonight’s game - “We played better today than we did in Chicago. The defense wasn’t as sharp today as we wanted it to be. But it’s only three games into the season; there is a long way to go.”

On Richard Jefferson’s game - “He had a great first two games, he just didn’t have the opportunity to score. He was patient and was great today. He never forced bad shots. When you want to win a championship, you have to have a team that doesn’t care about points. Some nights he will score 20 and other nights he’ll score zero. We all know he can do it.”

On the game - “We played better tonight after a tough loss to Chicago. We came out tonight with a lot of energy and it made a big difference. “

On Richard Jefferson - “He was very good tonight - he was very aggressive and getting to the free throw line really helped his confidence on the offensive end. “

On team effort - “I would call tonight a bad effort. We had trouble guarding the Spurs but when your hustling you can’t call it a bad effort. We aren’t the only team that hasn’t been able to keep Tony Parker out of the paint or guard Manu Ginobili. I give my team the credit because we were trying.”

On team play - “I don’t think anybody played exceptionally well for us tonight. We got out worked by the Spurs in every category that matters. “

On the performance in the second half that lead to the wide deficit - “I think they‘re just unselfish on both ends. On defense, if one goes to help they all slide to the back and on offense, if they have a good shot they pass it until they get a better shot. If they don‘t have a better shot they pass it for a great shot. So over the course of the game it was just repetition of that and when you do those things, good things usually happen.”

On his performance off the bench tonight - “Yeah, I had been frustrated for a minute but through talking to the coaches before the game they told me not to press hard on myself to score and from that standpoint to just go out there and help the team do what the team needs to do. So that‘s what I went out and tried to do in tonight‘s game.”

On lessons to learn being a young team - “You have to learn to really execute especially when they put some stuff on the scouting report. The coaching staff had warned us and we have to be ready for it.”

On the Spurs defense in the second half - “We were just playing sloppy, that was on us. When they’re not playing up to their maximum potential, you have to take advantage of that and we didn’t.”

On Tony Parker's performance tonight - “Yeah Tony is always the league leader with points in the paint. He was just comfortable tonight and as a team you just can’t have that.”