Postgame Quotes - March 12, 2010

Detroit: John Kuester | Will Bynum | Tayshaun Prince
Washington: Flip Saunders | Mike Miller

Pistons Head Coach John Kuester
(On the game) “I thought one of the things that was important tonight, was we came out and played with energy, pretty much for forty-eight minutes. We did a great job with coming up with loose balls, a great job defensively. I thought Will Bynum did a great job of getting 20 assists. He did a nice job of getting us into our offense and we had guys making shots again. I thought we had balance scoring between our starting five, but also having Ben Gordon play the way he did coming off the bench.”

(On Maxiell) “Max is an energy guy. Down the road, if he continues to improve the way I’ve seen him on tape. McGee has a chance to be very, very special because he’s so athletic so long and here you have Max who is 6’7” and just uses his strength, footwork and ability to get around him. He did a wonderful job of getting him off the block. Not only Max, but Jonas (Jerebko) did a great job defensively.”

(On our offense tonight) “We were efficient with what we did offensively tonight. I think that was important. We didn’t have as many random plays. We were getting stops, we had some opportunity to get easy lay-ups on transitions. When we had to run a set, we were getting into things that we wanted to. I thought Will did a good job of doing that.”

(On Bynum’s 20 assists) “Your primary goal is winning the basketball game. That is a wonderful accomplishment, to get 20 assists. I think it’s a great accomplishment.”

Pistons Guard Will Bynum

(On dishing out 20 assists) “I thought it was my teammates. I thought the great thing about it was that they wanted me to get it even more than I did even though I wanted to get it bad. My teammates were making shots and that’s a credit to them and the hard work they’re putting in the gym.”

(On being in the record book alongside Isaiah Thomas) “It means a lot, especially growing up and watching a lot of Isaiah…it means a lot to me and it’s a great accomplishment.”

(On keeping his turnovers down) “Even though on a couple of them I got a little big anxious there at the end trying to get to 20 assists and made a few turnovers - I can always do better.”

(On when he knew he was getting close to 20) “The first quarter. I was trying to get the record, I think it was 25 assists but I don’t think coach and I had the same game plan.”

Pistons Forward Tayshaun Prince

(On Bynum’s 20 assists) “We did a good job of making some shots and especially late in the game. I know it’s tough to be disrespectful trying to get to 20 assists when the game was in hand on the last play. I think it’s something that’s tough to do and in a sense you can kind of be on the side and say, ‘Hey, I hope he makes that shot.’ It’s just a great accomplishment, your name on a list with Isaiah. We were making shots early, guys were in a good flow and (Bynum) passed on a lot of shots to find guys so that’s a good job on his part.”

(On the team’s 28 fast-break points) ”Well we were able to get some steals and get some loose balls and things like that and get up the court quickly giving us the opportunities so that played a big part.”

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Wizards Head Coach Flip Saunders
(On getting down early) “We got down early, had too many turnovers and we just couldn’t get into our offense.”

(On JaVale) “JaVale didn’t look as good as we thought he did last night. Some say that he has All-Star potential, but tonight he might have been able to be a CBA All-Star tonight, if that. As good as he was last night, he was that bad tonight. He played about 20 minutes at about minus 19 when he was on the floor, he had no energy and we just had no presence around the basket and they just outworked us.”

(On looking tired and having to play tomorrow) “We did look tired and hopefully tomorrow our crowd will help us out. Their crowd helped them tonight and they had a good crowd and the players were able to play off that tonight. Hopefully we will be able to do that tomorrow night.”

Wizards Guard Mike Miller

(On lack of energy and going into back-to-back) “You have to come to play, you can’t make any excuses on back-to-backs because everyone plays them, it is not like it is our first one of the year or anything like that. We just need to continue to play and find ways to win games.”

(On getting down) “Anytime you are on the road and you give yourself a big deficit like we did it makes things difficult. They played an up-tempo pace tonight and we didn’t run with them. Then when we had an opportunity we didn’t take advantage of it. They had good pressure tonight, but it was really no different then the pressure we normally see. You have to give them credit, they came out and punched us and we didn’t react.”

(On Pistons ball movement and Bynum) “Obviously that is impressive, anytime one person gets 20 assists, let alone the way that they were moving the ball, it makes things difficult on your defense and you give them a lot of credit.”