Here’s the South Florida Sun Sentinel with quotes from LeBron James and Shane Battier of the Miami Heat on the San Antonio Spurs. The two teams face each other on Thursday, for the first time since last season’s NBA Finals:

lebron james

James, in fact, scoffed at the notion of the Spurs growing too old.

“I never buy into that,” he said. “I’ve always been asked about that. I’ve bought into the Celtics team with Ray [Allen] and K.G. [Kevin Garnett] and all those guys, they were talking about they were too old and they were in the Finals again, so I never bought into it.”

And there the Spurs are, again near the top of the West, San Antonio again potentially the Heat’s final destination of the season.

“They’re awesome, they’re awesome,” forward Shane Battier said. “The fact they’ve done it so long and everyone is just waiting for them to fall off, and they haven’t. Not that they care about what everyone else thinks. But it’s awesome, it’s awesome.”