Head Coach Mike Brown
(On tonight’s game):
"You know, first of all, I would like to acknowledge the Detroit Pistons. That's a big time organization. It's a big time team, starting with Joe Dumars. They have done a terrific job year after year after year just putting, not just a good team on the floor but an excellent team on the floor, and this was a hard fought series where every single game could have gone either way. Every game came down to one or two plays, and sometimes we were on the winning end, sometimes they were on the winning end, but I definitely want to congratulate those guys for a tough series. Either team, again, could have won this and it's nothing to drop your head about.

I thought the thing that got us over the hump was our defense, especially in the fourth quarter. I thought we turned it up a notch defensively, they were shooting almost 50% from the floor in the first half, and we weren't defending the way that we were capable of. I thought in the second half our guys went out and made a conscious effort of trying to get stops. And once we were able to get stops, it didn't allow them to always set up in their half court trap, and when they did or if we got it off a rebound, we were able to become the aggressors, because we were getting stops and we were gaining confidence from getting stops. So our second half defense was terrific.

I thought everybody contributed. Again, all the way down to, you know, David Wesley and Dwayne Jones and Shannon Brown in suits. They were into the game, David was helping me coach, he was telling the players what needed to be done, he was reminding everybody of stuff, Dwayne was cheering, Shannon was cheering, I was cheering, Scot had his fifteen seconds. Eric Snow was terrific. I went to him and I said Eric, "I'm going to play Damon, see if we can spread the floor, drive and kick and see if we can get some looks that way," and you talk about a professional, he handled it just like a professional. Every time I called his number, whether it was for 2.2 seconds, like at the end of the first half, or for seven or eight minutes at the end of the fourth quarter, whatever it was, he was always into the game, and he always came up big.

Everybody on the bench from Anderson, to Donyell to Damon. Damon played big minutes for us, he was steady for us when he came into the game and his defense in that fourth quarter was great. He stuck his nose in. He tried to box out and he tried to rebound.

Our starting five, they've been terrific the entire year. I can't say enough about Larry Hughes. Larry Hughes is a guy that's playing in a lot of pain but he's sucking it up and getting out there and he's getting it done for the betterment of this team.

Daniel Gibson. Wow. Tonight I was wowing Daniel like I was on LeBron. I didn't have a stat sheet, someone told me Daniel had 31, they said he had 19 in the fourth and I said, "are you kidding me?" And they said "No, 31, and 19 in the fourth." That was LeBronesque, if that makes sense. He played a great basketball game defensively and trying to rebound.

The last player I want to talk about is LeBron. For 22 years old and knowing he's our guy, and the double teams and triple teams that he sees night after night, and the 45 plus minutes he plays for us night after night after night, he's one hell of a player. We understand that we still have a ways to go. It's one day, one game at a time for us.

One more thing before I forget, this crowd was terrific. We're going to need you for this last series, too. You guys were great."

(On the game plan):
"We knew they were going to hit LeBron and we wanted to invite the hit and spread the floor. You've got Daniel Gibson, Damon Jones and Donyell Marshall with LeBron James on the floor and you play pick and roll with Andy. We wanted to invite the hit, and just like in New Jersey, we have to step in and make shots, and if they close out hot to us, we've got to drive it. If we're playing a team that's going to junk the game up, you've just got to play basketball at times and your spacing has to be correct, you have to cut hard, you have to screen hard, you've got to move the ball and drive at the defense to try to collapse it. So as long as we kept the floor spread and we were aggressive, and we moved that basketball, we knew sooner or later somebody was going to get some good looks or we were going to be able to drive the ball versus a hard close out."

(On the young team winning four straight games):
"One thing I preached to my guys is one day, one game at a time, and if we truly do that, if we truly focus on one day, one game at a time, then it doesn't matter how much games you've got to play, doesn't matter how many wins you've got to get in a row because you're not thinking beyond the next game, and I think our guys believed that and they tried to follow that and that's why it didn't seem insurmountable when we went down 0 2, we just concentrated on the third game and then on the fourth game and so on and so forth. I think that simplifies the process a lot."

(On LeBron James' huddle):
"I'm not a guy who likes to look too far into the future and I wanted to say one, two, three defense, But the very first practice we had, he goes, "one, two, three championship." I was like, "Damn, how am I going to tell them to say one, two, three defense." So I let it go on for a little bit and finally I said, he's the man, we'll say it, we want that type of pressure, let's live up to it. He's the man and this is no easy task. The next team, it's a great team. Not a good team, not an excellent team, not a very good team, that's a great team and we're going to have to pry every ounce of energy for 48 minutes every single game to have a chance."

(On LeBron James' huddle):
"Last year Washington beat us 3-1 during the regular season, Detroit beat us 3-1; regular season means nothing during the playoffs, it's a new environment, new game, new day. And it's not me against Pop, it's the Spurs against the Cavaliers. It's going to be a tough fought ballgame, because they have a superstar in Tim Duncan, they have two great players in Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili, and they have a great surrounding cast. They defend, they know how to score and they don't make mistakes, so it's going to be a tough contest for us against that team. But, again, if we play hard for 48 minutes and we try to limit our mistakes, we're going to give ourselves a chance."

LeBron James
(On his feelings on the win):
"If I could put into words what's going on in my head right now, man, we would be up here for another three hours. But this is special, the guys were really mentally prepared. We want to give Detroit a lot of credit because they definitely brought out the best in us, but we just believed and guys stepped up, no matter if it was the one guy all the way down to the 15th man on the roster, we believed."

(On Zydrunas Ilgauskas):
"Definitely, I ran to Z because when I was first drafted, Z was the first guy I seen. Z has been through a lot, been through losing seasons, year after year after year, and I promised him when I got drafted I was going to try to change it. If you guys remember when I was in New York, I said I was going to light it up like Vegas in Cleveland. Awesome, I told you, I'm going to be a GM someday.

I told Daniel before the game, I said, "I believe Detroit is going to double team me, triple me before I cross halfcourt, so get that gun and get it locked and loaded and just shoot it, don't second guess yourself, just shoot it." And that's exactly what happened, and guys stepped up. Especially Boobie stepped in, knocked big shots down. When they closed out on him hard, he drove the ball to the rim, got fouled and made free throws. This is definitely a big step in Cleveland Cavaliers history."

(On Daniel Gibson):
"I mean, when we got Daniel in the second round I believe it was a blessing in disguise, I believe we got a steal. I just knew how good of a basketball player he could be, and once I seen his work ethic during practice, after practice, before practice, I mean, I get to the gym early, he's there before me, we're shooting after practice every single day and I just seen his drive and his passion. And one day we had a sit around in the locker room when we were struggling and Daniel said, "Man, if every guy in this locker room just plays as hard as I want to play on this basketball court, we're going to be something special." And for a rookie, a guy that really is not even supposed to say something or say nothing at all, I remember that, and you remember what I'm talking about, right? I remembered what he was talking about and I stayed on him from there. I just knew he was going to be something special and tonight it was perfect."

(On the team):
"You guys know how I am about my team. There is no way we would be here in the Eastern Conference Finals or winning the Eastern Conference Finals if it was a one man show. It's never happened in NBA history, it would never happen in the NBA where a team has one guy and he does it all. My teammates are my family. I'm with them more than I am with my own family, honestly. And every time these guys come to the gym, we believe and we made it happen."

(On playing San Antonio):
"San Antonio is the premier team in our league, playing the best basketball better than any team in this league; they're veterans, they've been there before, they're special. And we've got to be even more intense, even more physically and mentally in tune to what's going on, when we enter into The Finals on Thursday. But just the simple fact of I've always believed in us, from day one, all you guys know I've chanted championship, one, two, three championships. Every time we brought it up, funny faces at first looked at me. I didn't care, I kept it going, championship, every single day. And we've made it happen. This is special."

(On momentum after Rasheed Wallace's ejection):
"We felt when we made our run in the fourth quarter it was starting to swing our way, something had to go right for Cleveland sports, something had to go right, and we made a real big run. This game reminds me of my freshman year in high school in the state championship, and what Boobie did tonight reminded me of our point guard, Dru Joyce hitting six consecutives threes, he hit seven threes in a row, and we won the state championship. They doubled me, we kicked it to Dru and he hit back to back to back to back threes in a row. And Boobie is unbelievable, what he's done, how he's grown, and I'm lost for words right now, I'm not even answering your question, (Chuckles.) I'm so excited, I'm not answering your question at all, but you guys know how I feel right now. Yeah, it was a turn when Rasheed got a technical, I guess. (Laughter.)"

(On getting to the finals):
"I never put a time limit on when I thought we could reach this point, but what I did I honestly believed we could get better every single year, and I mean, we won 30 something games my rookie year, we won 40 games my second year, missed the playoffs, and in my third year we win 50, my fourth year we win 50, and we've gotten better every single year I've been in this league, and we added the pieces that we needed to compete every single night and brought in a guy in Coach Brown that stresses defense, defense, defense, defense, defense, defense. And it's unbelievable, you can have so many struggles during the course of a season, so many people criticizing your team, "they don't have enough pieces, they're not a good outside shooting team, Coach Brown lacks this, LeBron lacks this," but we've also believed and it's always been 15 guys in the locker room that just believed and we have a special team."

(On defeating Detroit to get to the Finals):
"If you've been up on my commercials, someone wise told me that I couldn't get through Detroit swimming in a pool, so I guess I had to do it on the court. I think it was just our time. It was our time. I think Detroit, we give all the respect in the world to that team. That team is awesome, they're great but I believe it was just our time and we're here now and we've still got business to do. We're going to enjoy tonight, enjoy our day off tomorrow and get back to work on Monday and get ready for the big bad wolf of the West."

Daniel Gibson
(On LeBron James):
"From day one LeBron has been in my corner. He told me from day one he was going to make me something special, he was going to do whatever he could to make me better. Like I said, when I took shots, he told me to keep shooting, keep shooting, don't hesitate, don't worry about anything else. "When you got a look, you take it," and when a guy tells you that, you step to it with a lot of confidence and knock it down for him."

(On his emotions in the fourth quarter):
"Oh, man, it's hard to describe, I was excited, feeling good, and happy for my team, happy that we had put ourselves in the situation to win the game because that was our main focus, just getting out there and giving it everything we got, and bringing home a victory."

Larry Hughes
(On how tough it was to win):
“It was real tough, personally and as a team. We knew that they weren’t going to give us anything, (it was) tied at the half. We came out in the 3rd quarter like we haven’t been doing all year and we played well.”

(On Daniel Gibson):
“Way to step up. Way to step up. Took what the defense was giving him. They were trying to double LeBron. He stepped into some shots and did what he did. He got to the free throw line and that was big for him.”

(On the crowd):
“That was fun; a fun way to play basketball. We expected that yesterday. We knew that it would be packed and we came out and played well.”

(On tonight’s game):
“We’re not done yet. We have a goal in mind and that’s to win a championship. The Eastern Conference Finals, we got that under our belts, now we have to win the whole thing.”

Donyell Marshall
(On Daniel Gibson):
“The way ‘Bron played in Game 5 we knew they were going to pack it in on him, and we knew we were going to have to step up. From the beginning, I looked at Damon, I looked at Daniel, and I said ‘We’re going to have to make shots tonight’ and we did that. When we did that, it helped open the floor for LeBron.”

(On the changes from last year to this year):
“We’ve definitely grown. Last year we were learning defense. This year we put in a whole new offense so we put them both together. I think if you look at right now, I think throughout the playoffs, we’ve led all playoff teams in defense and we wanted to execute. Like we said, we knew we were going to have to help LeBron tonight; we knew they were going to pack it in and Daniel did that.”

Flip Saunders
(On the game):
“I really didn't talk much afterwards. We'll talk tomorrow, we'll get our group together. I really didn't say much, to be honest, I just got our guys together and said "We'll talk later." Like I said, it was disappointing, they played well. Gibson had a phenomenal series for them, and you get in a situation where you're trying to stop LeBron and he kills you one game and you want to not let him, you know, totally get off, and you give him a little bit more people running at him, and Daniel made every big shot. And the big key was, you know, we came down and threw it away, LeBron gets a three point play and Daniel Gibson hits a couple threes, and all of a sudden we're playing from behind from about the ten minute mark.”

(On his substitutions):
“Trying to get those guys fresh. We made a decision we were going to play more guys and buy those guys a couple minutes, and that couple minutes right there was - We didn't score a couple and kind of did us in.”

(On Daniel Gibson):
“He continued to make big shots. I thought it started in the New Jersey series, where he started making big shots and doing some things and he just continued to make big shots. When he shoots like that from three, even if you're in the game he made shots under pressure.”

(On the team's poor shooting):
“You exert a lot of energy defensively, and does it affect you offensively? Who knows? But our shooters never really got into a rhythm as far as anytime in this series and you've got to give them credit for that, too.”

(On his future):
“I feel comfortable, I think the players do, too, we've got to go and get better. That's basically what you do. Every year there is only one team that's happy and all the other teams are doing things to try to get better.”

Chauncey Billups
(On the loss):
“Disappointing. I feel bad for the guys on the team. We’ve had a great year and for it to come to an end like this…we put a lot of work in, but it was a tough one out there today. The fourth quarter just got too far away.”

(On the fourth quarter):
“Started the fourth quarter down one and they hit a couple of shots. Then it was foul, foul, foul and they got into an early bonus situation. They used the free throw line and Gibson got loose a couple of times from our doubles and hit threes. It rattled our defense, but that was our game plan and we wanted to stay with it. We wanted to make someone else beat us, not LeBron, and he stepped up huge.”

(On their run being over):
“I don’t know. That’s not really up to me. I love the guys I play with. We love being around each other. We had some really great years and if we keep it all together, we can have a few more great years. Nobody’s too old; we still have a group. It’s not really up to me.”

(On their playoff pattern):
“We got caught up in situations of losing home court. We had to go on the road for some tough games. That team was hot; they played extremely well both years so I don’t look at it like it’s a pattern. There are other teams that would love to be in this position. We don’t take that for granted.”

(On his future in Detroit):
“Everyone knows I love this team, this town, being a Piston. I really grew up here, made a name for myself: All-Star, champion, MVP. We’ll see how it works out, but I love this team.”

(On his performance):
“We didn’t play well. I didn’t play my best but I played my hardest, but a lot of guys in this locker room can say that and we are a team that can stand up and say that. That team played well.”

(On the Cavs’ hunger):
“They had never been here before. They know exactly what it feels like now. They knew what was at stake and you could see that. It was a close game, but it slipped too far away from us.”

(On sitting at the beginning of the fourth):
“We had to get a break sometime. We have confidence in Flip, Carlos and Lindsey. I was exhausted, playing a lot of minutes. I needed a break, but unfortunately they went on a run. But I can’t say that was what made the difference.”

(On Rasheed’s ejection):
“He played his heart out. Some situations just seem unfair and especially in this case. He played his heart out, got six fouls. He was very frustrated with how the game was being called and he should have been.”

Tayshaun Prince
(On losing the game):
“It was a tough situation to get the momentum back. That was the case in this series and last year. Just because we lost the series doesn’t mean we weren’t hungry. They were hungry too.”

(On some guys not playing well in the series):
“Some of the key guys didn’t play their best series. We played up and down. That was the case last year in the series, but when people were in slumps, other guys picked them up. This year, when guys were hot we tried to stay with them.”