When he's on his game and he's playing tough, hard-nosed defense and getting rebounds, getting some assists, guarding one of the better perimeter players and scoring, I'm a much better coach. |
Yao is playing some awfully good basketball. I had a firsthand look at him during All-Star Weekend, and he looked to be moving pretty good. Obviously he's a big focus of our defense. |
Yeah, that puts them at an advantage I would say. So what I'll try to do is when he puts his four guys out there, I'll try to have combinations. I'll try to play Steve and Dirk together since they played together. And maybe I'll play Yao and T-Mac. So maybe we at least have four guys out there . . . two and two. And then throw in somebody else. . . . Maybe Kobe (Bryant); he's a whole team himself. |
You always worry about what adjustments they might make. We thought they might change their lineup the last game. You just never know. |
You can't whisper the whole game, |
You got to be able to go to guys one through 12. We're not afraid to go to D.A. (Darrell Armstrong). We're not afraid to go to D.J. It's a good positive. |
You have great offensive players in this league who don't let anything bother them. Even when I played, you had supposedly great point guard defenders and they were supposed to get under your skin with their growl or their stare or how they would grab or hold you. There are things you can do on the court to try to take care of that. I've participated in that kind of stuff before. Just be physical. |
You just play it out, because you're just trying to win as many games as you can. Wherever you land in the playoffs, you've got to go out and play anyway. I just couldn't see myself doing anything but giving 1,000 percent on the sideline. |
You think a streak is never going to come to an end. When it does, it doesn't feel good. |
You're concerned any time a guy is injured and you have a timetable and are not able to hit those kind of goals. |
You're not always going to get a double-double but we want him to play with emotion and intensity. Does what he did tonight make coach happy for the rest of the playoffs? No way. He's still paying me back. |
You're not always going to get a double-double, but you want him to play with intensity and not get so many cheap fouls, showing some emotion. |