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I think when you're a very good defensive team - it's very rare a team wins a championship when you're not a very good defensive team.
I trust my teammates and their ability to be there when they have to be there. I'm going to be there when I have to be there for them.
I'd take the Defensive Player of the Year any day over an All-Star selection. There's only one of these in the whole league every year.
I just try to make the right play, stay aggressive and defensively just do what I do. I make sure I talk to everyone and control the paint.
When someone throws an alley-oop and you finish, everyone's happy, the one who makes the pass and the one with the dunks. It's a great play.
Everyone sees me as a defensive-minded guy, but both sides of the court are important. If you want to win, you have to be good on both sides.
I always love to help the community, to interact with the kids, with the fans. It doesn't matter who I am on the court, to me it's important.
For years now, I've used gaming to unwind and relax during the season. It's also how I manage to keep up with my friends when I'm on the road.
My goal is to protect the basket. Most of the time, I won't block the shot but I'm going to affect the shot or I'm going to affect the way they think.
In the playoffs, it's not going to be pretty. There's going to be some games where you don't score. But are you going to take a charge for a teammate?
It's a tremendous amount of fans in France that love basketball, that follow it every day even though the games are at like two or three in the morning.
I mean, defense to me is something that when you watch a game you don't really pay attention to defense unless you're very - unless you're a specialist.
I think when you're a very good defensive team you give yourself a chance every night, on the road, at home, it's a big factor and something to build on.
All the coaches preach about defense. Every day they talk about defense, they talk about how important it is to get stops in order to win basketball games.
Some games I'm going to get more blocks or they're going to do more mistakes and give up more baskets but some games I get zero blocks and I affect 20 shots.
The Defensive Player of the Year is the guy that makes his team better. Not only gets stats - it's the guy that also has an impact on his teammates and leadership.
When I started to do it with precision, I realized how much setting good screens made us better as a team offensively. It made things easy for me and my teammates.
You don't want your opponent to score. You don't want your guy to score and once you get better at it, you get used to it, it becomes a mindset. You just try to do it every game.
This is basketball. It's All-Star and all that stuff. That's not what it's really about. It's about making a difference and impacting the kids and helping people in need. That's what it's about.
Sometimes, I see the guys driving and they don't even look at the rim, they just dribble out so it's as good as a block or even better because I'm kind of laughing when I see that. That's what it's about.
Even though I didn't have a lot of material things, I had the love and education and all together a lot of kids don't have the same chances, so the goal is to give some chances to the kids that don't have it.
There are a lot of people that never thought I was going to be the guy that I am now. Now when I see them, it's fun to see how people are. I don't think they're being fake. I think now they just see me from a different eye.
It's not just about doing things in Utah or in France. It's about doing things everywhere and having an impact everywhere. There are a lot of charities that do a remarkable job that just don't have much light and much support.
Obviously I think offensively, spacing for me as a guy that puts a lot of pressure on the rim is going to make it harder on a defense. They're going to have to make tougher decisions, and space is going to be way more open for all the guards, too.
I did some bad stuff. I don't remember what in particular, but I did some bad stuff. So the morning of Christmas, I wake up and my brother is there, my sister, my mom, everyone's got gifts and I can't find my gifts. No gifts. They acted like Santa didn't' bring me anything because I wasn't good.