Postgame Quotes -- Dec. 29, 2005

George Karl – Nuggets Head Coach
“Ray Allen was in the zone tonight. I’ve been on the good side of that before, but I was on the bad side tonight. We’ve had the lead in the 4th many times but we should have had bigger leads. What you are seeing is a team that lacks confidence to finish the game. Right now we’ve got too much weight on “Mello’s” shoulders. We just had too many lapses on the three point line tonight.”

Carmelo Anthony – Nuggets Forward
“(Late in the 4th Quarter) We just lose our composure and get out of sync. I’ve never seen anybody shoot the ball like that (Allen). There is really nothing you can do about it. (Panic button) No not yet, George says we have 52 games left. But, it is frustrating, everybody has to commit and we have to sacrifice for each other.”

Francisco Elson – Nuggets Center
“We just can’t finish strong. We need to make those important steps in the fourth quarter and stay focused. Fourth quarter leads have been hard for us to keep and teams know that. WE really need to not give up easy shots and lay-ups. Defensively, I played ok, I could have done better. (Rebounding) We have to learn from this and not have to talk about our rebounding every game. Teams come in and pound on us (on the boards). We have to stay professional and rebound better.”

SONICS QUOTES

Bob Weiss – Sonics Head Coach
“We switched Wilkins on Anthony half way through the 3rd period and make him work harder. We tried to get the ball out of his hands. The double team got to him. They got 27 transition points in the first half and two in the second, we shut it down. Our “smalls” did a good job tonight. Ray Allen was moving without the ball well, and when he got his shots he drilled them. It’s satisfying to get the win; it’s a big one for us and means a lot to our psyche. The fourth quarter we made some mistakes and had some fouls. We made more mental mistakes than we should have, but our offense was clicking so well, it didn’t hurt us.”

Rashard Lewis – Sonics Forward
“First team to start playing defense was going to win the ball game. I thought both teams did a bad job playing defense tonight. We both had over 100 points, so we got to start making some stops. They have been playing well here at home, especially since coach Karl has been the coach. We lost our game last night, it was a disappointing loss. At the same time we had to come and bounce back. It feels good to come into their house and get the win.”

Ray Allen – Sonics Guard
“The shots were there for me tonight. Damon did a pretty good job of letting the play develop. All we did was try to take what their defense gave us. A couple of times they left me open and I took the shot. A lot of times Rashard was left open. It was a pretty fun game to be a part of, because at some points it just kept going back and forth. It was a little more tiring because of the altitude here. We all felt it a little bit, but it definitely gets you in shape. We know that we’re a good team; it seems like last night a couple things didn’t go our way. We kind of dropped our heads a little bit loosing that game. We had every reason to come in here an sulk a little bit, but coming out and playing the way we did, I thought everybody just gut checked and said we can win this game and let’s not lay down. Everyone just played well together. ”