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(On the first half, could there have been a bigger nightmare experience): “No. I didn’t anticipate starting the trip off like that. Disappointed. We just talked about having trust out on the court, helping each other out on the court, defensively, offensively. We were out on the court playing like either we don’t like each other or are we strangers? That was disappointing.”
(On losses and effect on team’s mental state): “I’m sure anytime you lose it affects it. But, what are you going to do to correct it? I’m more into that. If your confidence is down, get your shot down, get more shots, work a little harder, play a little harder, get some easy ones in the game, be there for defensive stops, help your teammate, help yourself. We had one or two fouls, and at that point they (Cavs) may have had 26 points before we picked up our third foul. Be aggressive in what you are doing. A guy makes a mistake, communicate to him on the floor, don’t drop your head, just keep going. Tell him on the court, ‘hey, I’m here.’ Guys have to hold each other accountable out on the court and then, we as a staff, have to hold each other accountable for what’s going out there. Mix and match and move guys in and out, try to figure combinations that can give you the right focus and effort and playing together. You should be able to put five guys out there at any time that may not execute great together, but they’re going to play hard together and help each other out.”
(On being satisfied with the team’s effort and his confidence in the team turning things around): “No (about effort). I’ve been through harder things. Look at me as a player and how I got to this point. Fighting, that’s the easiest part for me. Things never came easy for me, so this is easy. But, trying to relay that to guys, that’s the tougher part, trying to get them to understand that when you’re in situations like this, all you do is fight. Unfortunately for guys who are new coming here, this is their first time (experiencing difficulties), and for the guys who have been here, this is their first time experiencing it now. This is a tough time, the first time they’re experiencing tough times in the regular season. The last few years, the tough times came in the conference finals. But, whenever you get to that point, and it gets really, really tough, you’ve got to work that much harder and trust each other that much more.”
(On losing a game like this opening up the players’ eyes): “I mean, how much more open do the eyes have to be?”
(On Delonte West return): “Delonte played the first two times we played them. We beat them once and we were up seven or eight points in the fourth quarter. Delonte played in both of those games, so they’re a good team with or without Delonte. Delonte got two or three threes early off our help on LeBron and guys didn’t rotate to him. That’s how he kind of got going. He’s a good player and he’s going to make plays. But, still it was nothing out of the ordinary that he did.”
Pistons Guard Allen Iverson
(On the Pistons situation tonight and of late): “We just weren’t good. We stunk the gym up. We usually play together on the road, and we just acted like strangers out there tonight. We didn’t get it done.”
(On what has to happen to the Pistons): “I don’t know. I know one thing, we’ve got to play harder than the teams we’re playing against. That’s for sure. Teams play harder than us.”
(On playing against Pistons in the past and their competitiveness): “Out of all the teams I played against in my career, this team (Pistons) played, to me, the hardest. And, that’s the surprising thing about all of this. Teams are out-playing us, You can deal with missed shots and mistakes and stuff like that, but when it comes to playing hard, that’s something you can always do. We’re not doing it.”
(On the game as a whole): “I thought our guys did a nice job defensively at the beginning of the game. Our guys did a nice job contesting shots, even though they (Detroit) didn’t shoot a high percentage from the field. Our guys did a nice job of keeping them off the glass and limiting their second chance opportunities. Offensively, I thought our guys did a terrific job of moving the basketball. Detroit is a very good defensive team and for us to move the ball the way we did was pretty impressive. We had six turnovers which was really impressive for 48 minutes.”
(On Delonte West): “Delonte is a very good basketball player on both ends of the floor. We didn’t have a minute restriction on him; we just wanted him to play. I don’t go into a game thinking, ‘hey, you’ve got to hit all your threes or you have to score 20-plus points,” I just want him to go play. When we’re able to get him the ball, good things happen and we were able to get him the ball. He did a nice job reacting to our penetration, and he was able to get himself open because of the dribble-drives and the ball movement that we had.”
(On having all five original starters on the floor again): “We’ve gone through ups and downs with injuries and guys have stepped in and kept playing. We didn’t miss a beat. Daniel Gibson has played the two, he’s played the one, he’s played 10 minutes in a game (and) he’s played 40 minutes in a game. Whenever guys have gone down, we’ve just plugged guys in and everybody has stepped up and met the challenge. I applaud all the players in that locker room for doing that. We’ve still got a long way to go, but it just shows that this is a deep basketball team that can trust each other.”
Cavaliers Forward LeBron James
(On Delonte’s return): “Delonte was injured? He played like he was never out. He didn’t miss a beat. That just shows the chemistry of our team: how a guy can just automatically implement himself into the lineup after being out for awhile. The same thing happened with Z. Z was out for awhile and he came back in and the chains still moved. It never stopped. It was great to have Delonte back out there, he’s another guy that can make plays for himself and create for others.”
(On what Delonte brings to the table): “For one, he adds another ball handler. He adds another guy that can attack a defense and guard some of the best perimeter guys on the opposing team. He did a great job on (Allen Iverson) tonight, Stuckey at times and he can guard (Richard Hamilton) too. He’s a multi-talented player that can do a lot of things and on this team, we missed that. We missed having him.”
(On the team playing with high energy): “We had a lot of energy. The fans were unbelievable and we had a lot of energy. We took the day off yesterday and I think that it looked like everybody was rested. We used that energy in the game tonight. It was great basketball from start to finish.”
(On Coach Brown being excited about the team’s defense): “I think (coach’s excitement) was on both ends of the floor. I think we had like six turnovers and 24 assists and we held a good percentage shooting team in the low thirties. That was good that we were able to attack both ends of the floor like we did tonight.”
Cavaliers Guard Delonte West
(On playing well coming off his injury): “The crowd is a sixth man. When the crowd gets behind you, you can feel the energy in the building. You feel like you can’t miss. Plus, when your adrenaline gets going and the blood is flowing through your body, it’s hard to really feel an injury. It’s starting to stiffen up a little bit now. I think that, for awhile, it’s going to be an ongoing thing where right now after I’m done playing, it’s stiffening up. That’s to be expected but I am happy with the way I played today and I hope I can continue that great style of basketball.”
(On if the game plan was to get him many shots early): “No, I just happened to be the open man. We really exploited the defensive zone they were trying to play and we just moved the ball well. I think that one thing about me is that I play off the ball well. With Mo’s penetration and how much attention LeBron draws, I know how to find the open spot on the floor. Luckily tonight I was able to knock the shot down.”
(On how making his first few shots helped his confidence): “Making shots always gets your confidence up. The crowd gets behind you when you are making shots, and it’s always good for a shooter when you see the ball go through the net. You just always have to keep on playing.”
