Postgame Quotes - March 26, 2011

Detroit: John Kuester | Austin Daye | Charlie Villanueva
Indiana: Frank Vogel | Danny Granger

Pistons Head Coach John Kuester
(On energy) “I thought they did a real nice job. Getting people involved I thought that was very important for us and I thought Stuckey and Rip (Richard Hamilton) both of them having six assists a piece got people involved. I thought we did a real good job of getting points in the paint. Forty-two that’s good for us and I thought that was very important. I thought we had a spurt at the end of the second quarter and then we started doing some things in that third especially when we increased the lead but didn’t close the quarter out how we wanted too.”

(On Charlie Villanueva) “Charlie did a great job. He came in and gave us a big spark offensively. Chris Wilcox could not go in the second half so we started Max (Jason Maxiell) with Greg Monroe and also I thought Austin Daye did a nice job. We went with Charlie and he delivered tonight. I thought he did a great job.”

(On motivation coming into game) “I tell you this, no question about it; if you could ever bottle some of the things that we did tonight we would be very very competitive, we understand that. Again, you’re going to have games where you don’t understand why your energy is not as high as it was and tonight we had the energy the way I wanted it and that’s one thing I think was very impressive.”

(On Richard Hamilton) “I tell you, you have to give Rip a lot of credit. He’s really done a wonderful job. I think one of things you gage a lot of what Rip’s game is all about is what he’s doing offensively. I’m more impressed with his body language defensively. I mean he is engaged in what we are trying to get done. I give him a tremendous amount of credit. That’s why we’re both on the same page because we communicate with each other.”

Pistons Forward Austin Daye

(On the game) “We did a good job once we realized their offensive look, we did a good job of clamping that down. We stayed in tune with the game and we came away with some good baskets, we played good basketball, we played well tonight.”

(On Charlie Villanueva) “He's my friend and I always look out for him and he looks out for me when I was in the same situation. He was giving me advice early on in the year when I wasn't playing, so to me to see him play like that I was really happy for him.”

(On what could have been) “I think about it all the time. I wanted to make the playoffs really bad, I don't know what our odds are now, but to beat that team it makes us feel that we have a chance. It's tough to know we can beat this team and play as well as we can. It's an unfortunate situation, but hopefully next year we can bounce back.”

Pistons Forward Charlie Villanueva

(On 4th quarter play) “I just try to be ready. He called my name and I was ready to go. I was a little shocked, I expected the same amount of time as last game, but at the same time I had to be ready.”

(Energy in 4th quarter after sitting last game) “I had fresh legs. I was well rested and he (Coach John Kuester) called my name and I was ready to go. My teammates gave me the ball in the position to score.”

(On playing time) “We have nine or 10 games left, I’m not really worried about it. Whatever coach wants to do, I’ll back him up.”

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Pacers Head Coach Frank Vogel
(On the game) “It was a tough loss for our club tonight, we fought hard, but we just had a poor offensive third quarter, we fought to stay in it in the fourth quarter and Villanueva came in, hadn’t played all game or last game, and he was the difference in the game.”

(On poor third quarter) “It was our offense, we didn’t execute well and we are just struggling with our rhythm right now as we were a bit out of sync. I will get to watching film and get back after it.”

(On offensive struggles) “We are getting away from our spacing a little bit, we aren’t running the floor as well, maybe we are tired from the month of March. But it is no excuse we have to play to win every game. We need to push the tempo, we aren’t spacing well, we aren’t screening well enough and we are holding the ball too much.”

Pacers Guard Danny Granger

(On the game) “We should have won this game and we didn’t do that tonight.”

(On poor third quarter) “It pretty much killed us. We didn’t come out from half with any intensity and they took the lead and never gave it up.”

(On poor offensive execution) “Yeah, it was tonight. Lack of execution and lack of a lot of things, we just didn’t play up to our potential tonight.”

(On last playoff spot) “We just gave away two games in the last two nights to two teams that wanted it more and just let other teams right back in the hunt. We have to step it up and if we don’t we will be out of the playoffs plain and simple.”