One thing that we're working on is team defense. They work hard, communicate and get everybody involved. It kind of looks like a storm out there sometimes.

He sets the standard of hard work, that hard-hat mentality the Spurs have, with his defense. He never gets the headlines or stories because he doesn't score a lot of points, but the Spurs would suffer without him.

We've been around long enough to know that defense gives you a shot to win any game. We've done a pretty good job of almost demanding it from everyone else this year.

Last year, there were some nights we'd play defense, then some nights we would let our offense just do it.

We just realized we had to pick up the defense. Talk more and help out.

We started working the ball, not getting in a rush, pinning them on defense, making them work on the defensive end. We got what we wanted. We got a lot of open shots and inside play.