Postgame Quotes - January 2, 2012

Detroit: Lawrence Frank | Jason Maxiell | Greg Monroe
Indiana: Stan Van Gundy | Ryan Anderson

Pistons Head Coach Lawrence Frank
(On start of the game) “To start the game it was 9-8 by the first time out and we gave up four lay ups…and in the second quarter, J.J. Redick had that string of three straight lay ups; to me what changed the game was Jason Maxiell and Ben Wallace. I think they brought a ruggedness to us; a fiscal inside presence. I thought those guys brought a lot of intensity tonight. Then you have someone like Ben Gordon who made key shots for us, and then you have Rodney (Stuckey) in the second half getting to the free throw line; the bench was into the game. I really feel, between Jason Maxiell and Ben Wallace, those guys were extremely instrumental tonight.”

(On irritating Dwight Howard) “They protected our paint and (with) their ability to protect the paint now we're not over exposed on the three-point line. Part of it was us and part of it was Orlando, but we owned the 32 points in the second half, I think they had one field goal in the last 3:33. These are things that we need to build on. Becoming a defense-first team is not going to be a snap of the fingers, these are the things that are going into the blue print, in order for us to grow as a team.”

(On Jason Maxiell) “Yes, a part of it is about being a veteran, knowing you still have to play aggressive even if you have fouls. I think for young players it is sometimes a learning experience, you have a couple of fouls and than you are not as aggressive, Maxiells experience played a big part in tonight's game. Dwight plays down low and that's when you have to throw a lot of different bodies at him. And in the end you just have to try to do your best.”

Pistons Forward Jason Maxiell

(On Ben Wallace and his play) “It was quick fouls and we were trying to be physical, that’s our game. So when we came out in the second half, myself and Body (Ben Wallace), that’s what we had to do, be physical.”

(On what to take away from game) “Multiple efforts, you have to work hard out there.”

(On what’s changed the past two games) “Everything’s starting to catch up. We started a little bit early, quick, fast, and into it. Everything’s starting to slow down.”

(On playing with fouls) “I’m not a guy to worry about fouls. They have more bigs on the bench; I’m going to keep on going.”

Pistons Center Greg Monroe

(On playing against Dwight Howard) “He’s the best center in the league, that’s pretty obvious. He’s one of the elite players in this league, whenever you play against him it’s a good, tough night.”

(On big men play) “I think as a group we did a great job tonight. Anytime everybody can give an effort like that we’ll get a win. We did a great job and we need to continue to play like that, to rely on each other to come in and save each other and have each others backs and we’ll continue to get wins.”

(On rebounding against Howard) “It’s a group effort. That’s something you have to keep contained when dealing with Dwight Howard is rebounding, second-chance points, points in the paint, so I think we did a great job of that tonight.”

(On them playing on back-to-back) “I think that might have been a part of it, but everybody has to play back-to-backs. I think we did a great job of executing down the stretch, getting stops, Ben Gordon hit a lot of big shots for us, (Rodney) Stuckey made plays getting to the free throw line, everybody did something to help us win the game tonight.”

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Magic Head Coach Stan Van Gundy
(On Game) “You can point to almost anything. I don’t know if we did anything good. We didn’t play any defense they shot 50 percent and went to the line 33 times and then we got out-rebounded by 11. They outscored us by 11 at the line. We ran out of gas offensively, that may happen but we weren’t committed from the beginning of the game to getting any shots. We didn’t rebound at all. I don’t even know how we were in shouting distance in the game.”

(On Guards) “Well, Gordon killed us and Stuckey got to the line. Ben Gordon made some shots over the top of us and we couldn’t keep Stuckey in front of us.”

(Scoring in the paint) “In the first half when we outscored them 20 to 10 in the paint, it was all jump shots keeping them in the game and then we just collapsed defensively in the second half. I mean we literally did nothing. It was really disappointing.”

(On fatigue) “We played poorly. That’s the way this season’s going to be so if you’re just going to write off all those nights then we’re going to lose a lot of games because you’re going to play a lot of four games in five nights and things like that so I’m not going to look at that as an excuse.”

Magic Forward Ryan Anderson

(On fatigue) “Obviously we had a long stretch of games and not a lot of time to rest. You can always have excuses but I think tonight they came out and played really hard. They had a ton of energy and they used that to their advantage today.”

(On Game) “I think that we need to do a better job at taking care of the ball. Just looking it in to Dwight and then just kind of playing out from there. A lot of times we turned the ball over trying get it down to Dwight or we turned the ball over on different passes like skip passes or off of pick and rolls, we just weren’t really connecting. There’s night where you are not going to make shots and tonight was one of those nights.”