The only thing on my mind right now is trying to win the whole thing.
I have short goals - to get better every day, to help my teammates every day - but my only ultimate goal is to win an NBA championship. It's all that matters. I dream about it. I dream about it all the time, how it would look, how it would feel. It would be so amazing.
I just bring the determination to win.
I hate letting my teammates down. I know I'm not going to make every shot. Sometimes I try to make the right play, and if it results in a loss, I feel awful. I don't feel awful because I have to answer questions about it. I feel awful in that locker room because I could have done something more to help my teammates win.
To be honest, the play that was drawn up, I scratched it. I just told coach, 'Give me the ball.' We're either going to go to overtime or I'm going to win it for us. It was that simple.
Once you get on the playing field it's not about whether you're liked or not liked. All that matters is to play at a high level and do whatever it takes to help your team win. That's what it's about.
I took Hedo (Turkoglu) in the first game and Rashard (Lewis) hit the winning shot. I took Rashard in the second game and Hedo hit the shot. If I could clone myself, we'd be all right. But I can't.
But put my body through a lot, you know, but it's the price for your body feeling this way for winning. Did I win? I didn't win a championship, but I've done a lot of good things in this first year back, and hopefully I can continue it.
I've given these guys the blueprint on how to win a premiership, now I just have to be patient until they're ready.
Teams make it tough on us, we make it tough on them. When you have two well coached teams that wanna win, it's going to be a competitive game.
He reminds me of Michael Jordan. "You look and they have similar games where they want to lead their team to victory, no matter if they have to shoot the ball every time or if they have to rebound or pass, they're going to find a way to win." I've always said that Kobe Bryant is the best scorer in our game today and he's definitely proving himself.
I wouldn't feel good about it at all. At the end of the day I'm here to win a team prize, and that's to win a championship, not an individual prize.
Well, I mean, to me, I think my ultimate - my ultimate goal is winning championships and - and I understand that me going down as one of the greats will not happen until I, you know, win a championship.
I don't let individual statistics make me a focus or more of a focus. I just tried to come out and attack early and get a big lead. We were able to take it in overtime and win.
We were playing every game to win, we just happened to win 27 in a row. Our motto was to try and go out and win every game, but there's nothing really to talk about.
I was so used to going out and winning state championships and playing in the postseason.
If it wasn't for the determination and the will power we have in each other, we wouldn't have pulled through and got this win. Much respect to Spain, but the U.S. is back on top again.
We lost one (Finals), we won two and we lost another one. (We'll) take 50 percent in four years in championships any day. Obviously, we want to win all of them, but that's just the nature of the game. Not proud of the way we played (in this series).
I expect us to win. I expect us to get better every day.
And winning is a huge thing for me.
We want to win it all. The only reason we play this game is to win championships.
I won at every level - all the way since I started playing the game of basketball at nine. I've won at every level, won championships at every level. And, you know, it won't be fulfilled until I win at the highest level.
There's no reason to play in the NBA if you don't believe you can win it all.
It all depends on how you want to define what an MVP is. I've been fortunate to win the trophy four times, but I've been the MVP of my team for a long time - just because of the way I lead and the way I approach us being professionals off the floor.
I learn from winning, because it's much easier to point out things when you lose. But I think the alternate competitors can point out a lot of things when you win.
