It's six games, and pretty much everybody we're playing is a quality team. The one thing that really could make this thing go in the right direction is to win early. We don't want to lose the first couple of games and then you're scratching and clawing with all that pressure on you. |
It's still early in the season. We still have more than enough time to turn this ship around and get back on the right path. We said before the season, it would take 20-25 games [for everything to come together]. I hope it doesn't take that long, but we're getting closer to that number. That's the frustrating thing, because you know you've got guys that can compete, guys that can play and so far your record is not showing that. |
It's what we should have done a long time ago. It's what we expect. |
Let's face it - when myself, Gilbert and Caron step up, we play a lot better as a team. |
Now I have my pep in my step. I have that swagger. I feel like myself again. I'm just playing hard. I'm playing with a lot more intensity. I'm positive about everything. It's almost like a 180 from where I was when I was struggling. |
Offensively, I don't know what we were doing. They did a good job of staying poised. |
Offensively, I don't know what we were doing. They did a good job of staying poised. We thought we had a comfortable lead and kept it going back and forth, back and forth. But that is no excuse. |
Offensively, it wasn't there. We cheated the plays. We cheated our cuts. We weren't aggressive. We were lazy with the ball. |
Oh yeah, ... Playoffs for sure. We could definitely make a lot of noise. We could make a run to win it all. |
Our Achilles has been the beginning of the third quarter and the last five minutes of the game. But we did a good job of keeping our composure today. We stayed focused and stayed positive. |
Phenomenal. He's playing the way he's been playing all year. He got it going and he tried to let Caron (Butler) and myself get it going. We kind of struggled a little bit, but the guy's playing awesome, man. |
Rebounding, ... The only thing we need to improve on from the first three games is rebounding. If we box out and rebound, we'd be blowing people out instead of having to win these close games. |
Rebounding. The only thing we need to improve on from the first three games is rebounding. If we box out and rebound, we'd be blowing people out instead of having to win these close games. |
Some of the problems we had early last year were on the road. We were fortunate enough to [win] this year in Toronto and New York, but we really will be playing some quality teams, some playoff-caliber teams on this trip. It's definitely an important stretch for us. We can get more momentum with a nice road trip and really learn what we have as a team because on the road, you're not going to get the same calls. It's going to always be difficult with the crowd. They are going to go on runs. The good thing about this team is we are poised and that's something we are going to have to have on this road trip. |
Sometimes you do have a lot of minutes, but it's crunch time. We know when we're out there we give our team a chance to win, but we have to be smart about it. We know we have 19 or 20 games left and have to play smart. |