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(On the second unit having a great game) “It was great to see the second unit come in and play really well. I thought that the catalyst in that second unit was Rodney Stuckey. Stuckey did a tremendous job of his decision-making. He actually was calling most of his plays, which was good. That's what I want our guards to do. Right now I'm still having to call a lot of plays for that first unit, but Stuckey did a really good job of calling plays and getting guys in what we want them to be in and a really good job of being aggressive. Overall the entire group did much better job defensively.”
(How much do you attribute last couple days of practice to the win) “I hope that's why we played well. What we did tonight holding them to 38 to 39 percent, we haven't done that even when we have had wins. That's more of our area defensively of where we have to hold teams. Every other team that shot 31 threes we knew they were going to do that and we were able to still protect the paint. That's got to be our growing emphasis everyday, continue to take care of the paint. I think we held them to 32 in the paint and kept them around 32 percent on their threes. That's pretty good and guys did a really good job of securing those long rebounds.”
(On Amir Johnson's performance) “Amir’s (Johnson) activity and his ability to rebound the ball, he really rebounds the ball well for us and he really keeps a lot of balls alive. Anytime he doesn't have to have a big body to lay on him he's pretty good. This type of team is a really good team for him to play against.”
Pistons Guard Allen Iverson
(On game) “It was a lot better, definitely defensively. We held them to under 40-percent shooting, so obviously we did a lot of good things on the defensive end. We just wanted to play the toughest defense that we could and then cause them to miss, and get out and run; and we were able to do that.”
(On their defense) “The effort is there as far as what I do on the defensive end of the court. The whole thing was just knowing where to be, and knowing the concepts in how we want to play defense. I played for seven, eight coaches in my career so obviously different coaches have different strategies on defense. You may think that you’re doing it the right way, but it might be the right way for one coach, and the wrong way for another. That’s why I was stuck at going by my rules, and not knowing the team rules as far where we are supposed to be in different situations on defense. The last couple of days I was able to figure out a lot.”
(On running the game) “When you get stops it is exactly what you want to do. You don’t always have to come down and run half-court offense. To be a good team you got to be able to do it because you’re not able to run all the time but it’s easier when you get a chance to get out and run and create different numbers, and get easy baskets.”
Pistons Guard Rodney Stuckey
(On taking over the game offensively) “That is what I got to do this year. I have been struggling a bit this year but part of it has to deal with the fact that my wrist is still bothering me and Arnie (Kander) is taking good care of me but it didn’t help that Shaquille O’Neill fouled me. It is still sore.”
(On the overall game) “Today we played good defense and good offense. Amir Johnson really helped out big. My jump shot falling is only going improve my team’s chances of winning but really we were just clicking.”
(On the last two practices) “Man the last two games were like training camp. We are a whole new team. It was good for Allen Iverson to have him familiar with our offensive and defense.”
(On finding team chemistry) “It is going to be a little while until we get a little chemistry out there. For (Al) Harrington it has been about a month, (Tim) Thomas is out of shape and struggling with his wind and they aren’t playing up to what they are, but that is to be expected. There were some good things though, I think that our defense played better in that second half and David Lee was terrific tonight on both ends. I really believe that once we solve these problems and get guys back we are going to be fine. There is enough good stuff out there that I can see that we can work on and make it happen.”
(On players playing through injuries) “That is why I like these guys. I hate to keep beating a dead horse, but I asked Q (Quentin Richardson) if he could go and he said ‘my arm is killing me but I’m not going to leave my guys hanging out to dry’. He said I’ll go in but I can’t shoot but I’ll play. This is all that we can ask for.”
(On their record) “I just think that our spirit is okay and I don’t want to lose to many because you can lose that spirit. However, I don’t think that we will. I think that we will figure it out, get back on track and we just have to hover around .500 until we get some streaks going. That is our goal.”
Knicks Center David Lee
(On the game) “The Pistons second unit did a great job tonight and they got after us. Right now, we have some new components coming in and I think it is going to be a little bit of a running process, but once we get it all figured out we are going to be better off.”
(On their transition) “It is a transition and I think that once we get it figured out I think that we have a chance to be a really good team this year, but right now we just need to get used to a couple of guys being here and it is a bit of a learning process. They are veterans though and doing their best to learn and I think it is going to be a quick transition.”
(On the Pistons adding Allen Iverson) “They have a lot of weapons, no doubt about that, and they are really good at home. The thing that really strikes me about them though is their depth. They go three or four guys really good deep and they have a bunch of wing players. They have a great second unit that brings a lot of energy and of course their starters are good as well.”
