[The Magic say that fewer than 700 tickets remain available for their home season-opener Nov.2 against the Indiana Pacers. The club expects its first sellout for an opening night in seven seasons. . . . Free-agent guard Felipe Lopez blasted the Magic in a diary posted online at HoopsHype.com. Waived last week, Lopez said he was not given a fair shot.] I think we were the only team to invite him to training camp, ... I feel bad that he feels that way. But based on what we saw, we weren't going to be able to get him on the floor. |
A lot of teams with our record a month ago would have packed it in and just played their way through the remaining games. |
After going through so much frustration early in the season, to have this success now just makes me so happy for this group of guys. They never gave up. |
Against this caliber of team, you just can't do that. |
All I say is we're still alive. You just have to take them as they come. |
All the guys were really, really excited. That was a great win over an excellent basketball team. That we did it after playing the night before (against Toronto) made it even more impressive. |
AMA sanctions races in only one place at a time. |
Anytime we can get road wins, it's huge. It's a tough league to get road wins. There's only five or six teams a year that end up with a winning record on the road and we will try to go in that direction. |
Before the game we talked about a total team effort -- getting something from both the starters and reserves -- and I thought we really got that tonight. We had 41 field goals and 24 assists, which is a great percentage and when you're shooting 58 percent, it helps a great deal. |
Before the game we talked about just getting a total team effort tonight. From everybody - from both units, our starters and our second unit. I thought we really got that tonight. We didn't come out sluggish like we did last night. |
Carlos, having been a point guard his whole life, just has an understanding of where the ball should go. He's going to get the ball to the right people and knows when he's supposed to keep it himself. I don't expect him to go 7-of-11 every night, but he did a very good job tonight. |
Certainly this was a much needed win, especially with both of us coming off four-game losing streaks. |
Dwight and Tony got every rebound. They didn't get second and third shots like they were getting in the first half. Because they had everybody going for the offensive rebounds, we were able to get out and run. That's what the third quarter was all about. Good defense, hold them to one shot and get out and run. |
Dwight was sensational. As I've said all year, he's continued to grow and grow and grow and has gotten better in every phase of the game. But to get 26 rebounds. That's a monster effort for anybody and you don't see that too often in today's game. |
Even after the first practice with us you could tell that he just has such a great feel for the game. It's those types of plays where he sees how the defense is reacting and he's thinking one play ahead. He knows what the play is going to be even before the ball gets to him. That's priceless. |