HEAT Head Coach Stan Van Gundy

“I thought we played three very good quarters and then hung on in the fourth quarter when we did not play very well. We were good. It looked like we wanted to play. Shaq(uille O’Neal) and Dwyane (Wade) were outstanding and Damon (Jones) made a lot of shots.

“Dwyane had a great start. Both Dwyane and Shaq were great in the low post tonight. Dwyane and Shaq have had a couple of those games like tonight. Lately they’ve had a lot of them. We need more production from other people. Dwyane was great around the basket. This was one of the few games we really posted him a lot. Tonight we were dominant inside.”

HEAT Forward Udonis Haslem

On getting into the starting line-up:
“It still was a fight for the starting job, nothing was given to me. I just had to work hard. I got in the gym, worked on my shot and I have been knocking down shots. I was fortunate enough to win the starting job.”

On helping Shaq with his game:
“When I am knocking down shots, the opponent has to guard him with one man. Everybody knows that when you guard him with one man, he is going to dominate. As far as the fact that my numbers are up because I play with Shaq, I had 7.3 ppg and 6.3 rpg off the bench last year without Shaq.”

New Orleans Hornets Head Coach Byron Scott

On O’Neal and Wade:
“To be honest with you, I thought our guys were intimidated by those two guys. Shaq is so dominant and strong."

On Wade:
“He’s a strong, physical specimen, and one of the most explosive guys going to the basket. He’s definitely been helped by the arrival of Shaq.

“We’ve got two guys who really love challenges, and that’s P.J. (Brown) and Speedy (Claxton). Speedy, the second half, wanted to guard Dwyane (Wade) and did a really good job on him. Speedy’s one of those guys that’s just a tough competitor. We all know about P.J.; he doesn’t mind playing bump-and-grind with anybody and mixing it up. If those guys wouldn’t have played as well in the first half, the game would have been over.

On remaining games:
“I think we have to give some of these guys a chance to play a significant amount of minutes so you can get a true evaluation of what they can do. Right now, 10 or 11 guys are going to be playing pretty much every night. I want to make sure I get a chance to see them in all kinds of circumstances, so I can get a good idea of what guys we want to bring back.”

Hornets Guard Speedy Claxton

On the play of Dwayne Wade:
“He gave us fits in the 1st half. Basically he was doing whatever he wanted out there. I thought we did a better job on him in the 2nd half. He did just whatever he wanted to do in the 1st half. In the 2nd half we tried to play him a little tougher and tried to contest more of his shots.”

On the comparison to Dwayne Wade and LeBron James:
“They are both great players, but I would have to give the edge to LeBron because he makes his teammates better a little bit more than Dwayne does right now.”

Hornets Center/Forward P.J. Brown

On the high percentage of shots Shaquille O’Neal had tonight:
“When Shaq makes his mind up there is not too much you can do. It was to either let him go one on one with our big man or double team him and let him kick it out to their 3-point shooters it was just tough all the way on both ends tonight.”