Post Game Quotes -- Mar. 9, 2007

George Karl - Denver Nuggets Head Coach
"Their zone bothered us and their length bothered us in both man to man and zone. It’s very seldom we walk in here that we played good enough defensively but not well enough offensively. We’re not in an easy place, but we’ve lost to good teams. We haven’t played well enough to get any confidence playing these teams. We’ve still got opportunities to try and turn the corner. Tonight you’ve got to talk about your offense, but it comes in different packages. J.R.’s value is really showing to us a lot."

Allen Iverson - Nuggets Guard
On the loss being a result of Detroit’s defense or Denver's offense
"A little of both. They played great defense and we didn’t make it any better by not making shots."

On being worried about the half court offense
"You’ve got to be concerned about it if it’s going to go the way it went tonight. You have to be concerned about it."

On being worried about running out of games with a long road stretch ahead
"Obviously it’s a concern. We just lost two basketball games in a row and we’re not playing well. There’s definitely a concern there. We’ve just got to be confident that you can get it together."

Carmelo Anthony - Nuggets Forward
On whether or not having a child affected his game
"No not really, I don’t want to make that an excuse. The second half of the game I just played terrible. I don’t want to make any excuses about that. I shouldn’t have even been out there in the second half. If I was the coach I would have sat me down in the second half for the way I was playing out there. It’s tough though man, losing on your home court. It’s frustrating, but we’ll get through it. We’re going to keep fighting, we aren’t going anywhere. We’re going to get through this."

PISTONS QUOTES

Flip Saunders - Detroit Pistons Head Coach
On keeping Denver under 100
"I told the guys that we have to start exerting our roles at both ends, offensively and defensively, and play at the tempo that we want to play. Our tempo is to make them defend our sets. I thought we executed offensively really well. I thought our zone was great. We played pretty well."

On Rasheed being suspended for next game
"It’s no different than when he was hurt and sitting out, so he won’t play and we’ll put somebody in. We can put McDyess in there, we can put Max in there, we’ll have to wait and see."

On taking control in second quarter
"I thought we had a good start after the technical. We just needed to calm down a little bit and get relaxed. We’re always at our best when we’re playing at our pace."

Chauncey Billups - Pistons Guard
“It was a good win for us. It was a good way to win, we grinded it out. That teams fighting too, they’ve been struggling as well. We knew they were coming out hard, and that’s exactly what they did. That team is dangerous if you let them get out and start running and gunning."

On not having Rasheed Sunday
"I mean we’ve just got to play. It was not long ago when we were missing him for a while anyways, so we’ve just got to play."