Our movement around the floor was not as sharp as it has been. We did a lot of stumbling around out there tonight. |
Our problem in the first half was our transition defense, which has been a problem for us all year. They had 11 of their 24 baskets in transition, and many of those were right at the basket. That's unacceptable, [and] we need to do a better job of that in Game 2. |
Paul pretty much had his way with us the whole night. |
Paul pretty much has his way with us the whole night. There are certain rookies who come into this league and are ready to play and he is definitely one of them. |
People think it's easy getting the ball to somebody, but it's not always that easy. |
Shaq got into a scrap with one of my teammates, ... and I got tired of everybody separating them, so I went over and said, 'Why don't you guys stop [messing around] and just fight?' Then he took a swing at me, and that's how that started. The thing that led up to it was we were playing so bad, [coach] Brian Hill let each of us have it before practice. So everybody was on edge. It was a melee with a lot of punches landing. Shad had me by the neck, and I don't know if he hit me, but my neck was sore for six weeks. |
Shaq is on of those guys who if and when he really wants to get something done out there, there isn't a whole lot you can do. |
Some guys play hard, some guys play harder. He's a hard-playing guy. I have never seen him do anything that was out of hand, over the top. In a league where a lot of players feel a degree of entitlement, a guy like him that doesn't feel that can stand out. |
Sometimes when you're short-handed, guys step up. |
That game had a little bit of everything. It was a hard-fought win. |
That kind of team has given us problems. We're going to have to play much better than we played tonight. |
That made it interesting. They came out in the third quarter and started getting after us, and we didn't handle that really well. But we were able to make our free throws and take care of the ball well enough to get the win. |
That's something I really can't complain about all year. Our guys -- every day in practice, every game, even games when we don't look real smooth offensively -- we attempt to play unselfishly and share the ball. It's a fun team to coach in that regard; the guys are unselfish, and they like to pass the ball. |
That's what we need to be successful. When we have that [balance] and then Ben doing what he did, we're a pretty good team. |
That's what's a little bit odd about this, that it's back-to-back afternoon games. I don't know what time we'll get in, but we'll get up in the morning and have a breakfast-type meeting and get ready to go again. |