Spurs quotes after their 95-93 overtime win against the Pelicans

Courtesy of Nakia Hogan

Spurs Head Coach Gregg Popovich:

(On Tim Duncan passing Walt Bellamy for 10^thall-time in career rebounds...)

"Timmy passed Walt Bellamy tonight in rebounds (for 10^th in NBA history). He's an incredible, incredible specimen. When I say specimen, I don't mean physical, I mean just mental toughness. His spirit and his professionalism are just unparalleled."

(On Tim Duncan passing Karl Malone for fifth place all-time in career double-doubles...)

"If he's fortunate enough to break the record, I'll probably say that he broke the record. It's our team and my player, and I'll probably announce that when it happens, but tying doesn't do much. We don't care about ties. If he breaks the record, we'll announce it."

(On Manu Ginobili...)

"Manu's a competitor. That's the way he plays every game."

(On if the Spurs plan in overtime was to limit Anthony Davis...)

"I thought we played good defense on (Anthony Davis) all night long. I thought Matty [Bonner] and Boris [Diaw] did everything they could to try to limit a great player."

(On if he'll try to forget this year's December schedule...)

"I think I'll remember it. I mean, I still remember [Derek] Fisher's 0.4. Some things are just indelible, you never forget them. Some good ones, some bad ones, but that's part of the deal. I'm just really proud of the guys. I can't imagine a better group to have done what they did this month. The 18 games and seven back-to-backs, and the quality of opponents is ridiculous. I don't think that anybody else is playing 10 or 11 playoff-type teams in one month, in addition to the back-to-backs. I think these guys persevered really well, and we probably could have won a few more games, well I know we could have won a few more games, but exhaustion got us several times. It looked like it did it again when we were down five with two minutes to go in overtime, but that's why these guys are a fantastic group, they just hung in there and just kept on playing. As we said before, nobody cares about your schedule and all that sort of thing. We don't let them dwell on it, but it is a fact. It put us in a hole, and now we have to do what we can to see if we can recover from it without Tony [Parker] and Kawhi [Leonard] for a while."

Spurs Forward Tim Duncan:

(On the last rebound after the miss by Tyreke Evans...) 

"In a situation like that, to get something that closes it out is such a relief. We have gotten to that point sometimes where the ball stays alive or they make that shot, so to get over that hump and get my hands on the ball and know it's over. Then it isn't actually. But this is a great win for us. We've had so many overtimes this month and we finally get to get one, so this is a good way to end it."  

(On tip-in to force the game into overtime...) 

"I don't know what that was, I can't explain that one, but I'll take it. That was more luck than anything in the world, so I'll take that with me. We deserve one."   

(On defensive work by Tiago Splitter and Matt Bonner...) 

"They were great, they were very physical. He (Anthony Davis) still played pretty well. He made shots and made plays. He is having an MVP type of season. We need to change something on him, and those guys just tried to bother him as much as possible, try to make his life as tough as possible, and I think they did. They frustrated him a couple of times and that is what we needed."  

Spurs Guard Danny Green:

(On the tip-in by Tim Duncan...)

"I saw the pass and it wasn't very hopeful. It didn't look too good, and when I saw the tip, I started gaining more hope back. It rolled around a bit, and when I saw it go in, I had excitement. We got new life."

(On what was discussed in the huddle going into that play...)

"Just talking about the plays they were running and how we were going to guard them - how we were going to guard the pick-and-roll and how they had a play they would run over and over that just killed us. They played well, they shot well. Good thing Jrue Holiday fouled out because he was making everything down the stretch. They went up five or six points. We just talked about how we had new life and how we had to fix those little mistakes on the pick-and-roll. "