Apr. 28 Post-Practice Quotes

Head Coach Doc Rivers
On clinching the series Wednesday: “It would be vital really, I think it’s as important as anything. You look at this series and obviously we’re up 3-to-1, so we’ve got command in that way, but we don’t have complete control when you factor in we only have one home game left in the series for us. And again if Detroit’s thinking a hold at home and win one on the road, their thought hasn’t changed. They just didn’t do it the first time. So, we have to take care of it whenever we can. We can’t let anything slip, you know they’re going to play great on Wednesday night, you can almost guarantee that. So, we’re going to have to be up to par.”

On the fact that 96% of teams up 3-1 win the series: “Well that’s good to hear, but then you can go 96% of the #8 seeded teams don’t win, so you can always go back the other way. Lou Holtz taught me all these lines (laughing).”

On the free throw attempts last night: “Yeah we’re attacking the basket more, and that’s really important. I thought we settled some in the first two games, obviously they had a huge free throw discrepancy. I think our defense has been better also, and we’re not fouling as much. You know we’re not fouling the silly fouls to get us in the penalty with eight minutes left on the clock, and I think that’s been very important for us. On our end, we have been taking it to the basket. It looked like, even in the first three games, when our play broke down, we settled for a quick jump shot. Instead last night, when a play broke down, we kept the ball alive, we moved the ball, and we tend to attack the basket first and then throw it outside for shots.”

Darrell Armstrong
“That definitely helped, especially that my role has changed. I don’t handle the ball a lot like I did in the past, but the biggest thing is when you see how fresh you are during the post-season, you appreciate it a little bit more. It’s just tough because I’m the type that loves to play with the basketball and love to play with my energy, I know I can change the tempo of the game by just pushing the ball back or pressing the ball. But man I have really felt good.”

On his experience with having to close out a series: “Well you just let them know, it’s not going to be easy, it’s going to be tough, but we know we can go up there and we can beat them, but we have to play the same way we have been playing. And we definitely have to help T-Mac out on the road. We have to make sure we are aggressive the same way we were at home. The big thing is we have to play defense, that’s what we have to play when we’re on the road, at home, no matter where we are at, we have to play our defensive schemes, and make teams work, and try to give them just one shot at the goal. It’s hard to keep that #3 off the boards, some how some way he finds loose rebounds, long rebounds, or he goes and gets rebounds. If anything we want to keep him off the offensive boards, he can get all the defensive rebounds he wants, but we want to definitely keep him off the offensive boards.”

On his defense on Chauncy Billups: “First of all, I know he’s injured. I know he got hit in the thigh twice, kneed in the thigh, so all I’m trying to do is continue to put pressure on him up the floor. Last night he got in the game late, about three or four minutes to go in the game, I could see him grimacing a little bit, and I jumped right up. You could tell that the pressure is affecting their offense, and affecting their team, because they got guys in the backcourt setting picks now, trying to hunt me down, so I just have to continue to do that. That’s my job, try to make them get into their offense with 13, 15, 16, whatever seconds on the clock.”

Tracy McGrady
On his teammates getting involved: “They’re doing a great job. Everybody really counted them out and expected them not to come through in this way, but they’re going out there and they’re playing, you know they believe it.”

“We want to play like it’s an even series right now, so we just want to close out this game. We don’t want to give them any type of hope. Right now we have their backs against the wall and we just have to go ahead and close this out in Detroit.”

On Darrell’s contributions: “Darrell is a veteran in this league, he’s been in playoffs before. He’s just coming off the bench, and being Darrell. Nothing changes about the guy. Knocking down his wide-open jumpers, coming off pick-and-rolls like he should, and playing defense like he always has. So, he’s just doing a phenomenal job.”

On getting his teammates involved Wednesday: “Nothing changes for me, we’ve been pretty successful with me playing that way. Taking 19 shots last night and pretty much, we had the game closed in the fourth quarter, so if those guys continue to knock down shots and do what they’ve been doing the last two games, then I really don’t have to do as much, but just go out there and control what we do on offense and defensively.”

On sensing Detroit’s frustration: “Yeah because I’ve been in that situation before, so yeah I definitely know what they’re feeling. It’s like you go out there and you try to do everything and still it doesn’t work. I’ve been in that situation and right now I’m on the other end.”

On sushing the M-V-P chant: “Definitely I appreciate the love, but it was time where I had missed a couple free throws and it was pretty loud up in there, which I love, but at the time, I needed to knock down a free throw, because I was thinking about it. So, I just had to silence the crowd a little bit, it’s nice to have control of the crowd like that (laughing).”

“Man, I was talking about it after the game, last night, how unbelievable the crowd was you know. And G. Hill called me last night and he said it was like a college atmosphere. It’s just great man to really get that energy back into the building and around the city, it’s unbelievable.”