Postgame Quotes -- Mar. 4, 2006

George Karl - Denver Nuggets Head Coach
"I thought both teams were searching for energy at the beginning of the game. Orlando is a better team than their record indicates. They scare me watching them on film. We have had too many up and down games this season. When we evaluated Ruben Patterson before we got him out of the trade, we determined that he doesn’t have too many down games, and that’s what we need. The more we trust the pass, the more we move the ball, the more we rebound the ball, the better off we are as a team. We have a big game coming up against Memphis on Monday. I enjoy those games because we seem to get up for the big games. Winning that game could give us a tie-breaker situation at the end of the season, and we may need it at the end."

Carmelo Anthony - Denver Nuggets Forward
"I wish we’d go on a win streak, but I’ll still take this. We let one get away from us last night, but we had to protect our home court tonight. Earl came through big for us tonight. He kind of got out of his shell tonight. Tonight, we spread the wealth. As a result, we won the game. We’re just worried about ourselves right now (regarding Utah). Third quarter was big for us. Coach Karl told us to pick it up the first five minutes and we did."

Ruben Patterson - Denver Nuggets Guard/Forward
"It was a great win. I played bad last night, but I stepped it up tonight. I was very frustrated at myself last night, but I came out and played well. The difference tonight was that we came out and played defense, ran, and got some dunks and lay-ups. It was a big win. We’ve got Memphis coming up, then we go on a long road trip. We said it was too close, so we came out at the start of the second half and played hard."

MAGIC QUOTES

Brian Hill - Orlando Magic Head Coach
"I thought we played sluggish and tired all night, right from the beginning. Our energy wasn’t there. I can’t give you the answer. We weren’t the same team we were last night in Phoenix. Every time we turned the ball over, they scored. At the start of the third quarter we didn’t get any stops at all."

Jameer Nelson - Orlando Magic Guard
"They set the tone, and established the style of play. We were lackadaisical out there, and we just didn’t have it tonight. It was one of those games where we just didn’t bring it. We played “D” on Carmelo, who is a great player, and he just made some tough shots. Our guys were down there fighting. We’ve just got to make shots. We turned the ball over too many times, and our execution wasn’t there. We’ve just got to keep working and fight through this."

Carlos Arroyo - Orlando Magic Guard
"Any time we don’t match another team’s energy, we’re not going to have a big chance of winning the game. We can’t let the home team get momentum at home, because once they get momentum, they are hard to stop. Our effort wasn’t there."

On back-to-back games
"This is the NBA and you’ve just got to be ready, and you can’t let fatigue be a factor. It’s been tough on us on the road, and we have another game on Monday, and hopefully we can change things around."