Tony, unfortunately, the playoffs are over now after falling 99-91 vs Memphis…
It’s a huge frustration. It hurts to leave the playoffs in the 1st round. But sports is tough. We played a very good Memphis. We got to give them credit, they did a very good series. Zach Randolph’s been very impressive again tonight.

5 minutes to go, you’re leading 80-79 and you could have taken over the game.
I really thought we could. We know how to deal with these situations, our playoffs experience should have make the difference and give us the advantage. But Zach Randolph took over the game and got impossible shots. Congrats to them.

For the time since 2001, you’re on vacation in April…
It feels really weird, especially when you’re leading the Western Conference. You can only hope to reach the Conference finals after such a season. Now I’m going to be off for 2 or 3 weeks. I need to rest both physically and mentally. Then, I’ll go back to work out to be ready for the French National team. But three months to wait it’s a long time.

Even though it’s too soon to think about the future, how do you see next season ?It’s gonna be hard to improve the team, especially because we have the 29th position at the draft. We’ll have to strike hard like we did with Gary Neal. Then, I guess the staff will work on it very soon.

Tony, thanks to this victory over Memphis, San Antonio is still alive…
It was hell of a game, a real ball game, a game in which the players didn’t want to die. Just crazy with many turnarounds. A struggle for 2 and a half hours! It’s even bigger that Memphis was leading 15sec before the end. A real crazy night with Manu’s shoot 15sec before time expires and then OT thanks to Gary Neal’s 3-pointer. It’s the magic of basketball.

And at that moment you took over the game…
What happened in these 5 minutes was really important to me. I wasn’t that good since the series started, nothing was going the way I wanted. I didn’t let go even though it was hard to live and understand. But the tables turned, I scored when I had to. It felt so good.

So one can easily think confidence is back for Game 6 on Friday.
I can now tell you for sure we’re going there as warriors. Memphis caused us big problems. There’s a good reason they’re leading the series. But tonight confidence is back. We can turn the situation around and win on the road.

Tony Parker : « What’s happening is weird. I was far from thinking we would be in this situation. Memphis is having a perfect series while we’re playing our worst basket of the season. How could we lose Game 4 by 20 points while we lost the game before and  thus knew winning was mandatory ? It’s pretty unexplainable. Now we’re just one game away from elimination and we have no choice. We have to use our experience to reverse the trend. And it requires a victory on Wednesday if we still want a chance. Now it’s simple, it’s a do or die situation. »

After the announcement, last night, Tony was on the Staples Senter court, ready for the evening challenge against the Lakers. Winning at the buzzer on Antonio McDyess’ beating tip (89-88), the Spurs continue their way, alone, in the standings with now 7 victories ahead of Los Angeles and Dallas. With 21 points, including 17 in the second half, Tony ends up top scorer of the match. « It’s a nice and great win. The All Star Game is behind me. The most important thing to me is taking San Antonio closer to another Championship and Conference title. And it requires a victory tonight in Sacramento. »