Postgame Quotes - October 18, 2012

On the Heat: The speed they play at and the intensity is at such a high level, I think it is a great lesson for our guys. There’s a reason why they’re champs; they aren’t waiting for the regular season, they play hard every night. It goes way beyond having great players, they compete, and the speed off made baskets, layups, offensive rebounds and open shots. They compete at a very high level and we weren’t able to match it. They defend first, and have unbelievable pursuit of the ball, they share the ball, and are a good example of what a champion is. They had 36 fast break points by our count. They got it every which way and owned the paint.

On the Pistons: I’m not into how one quarter is played. We expect more from our group. We weren’t able to make clean passes because they have their hands in the passing lane. We aren’t making passes on target. The game just shows you how much work we have to do.

On the game: “It was disappointing. The only plus you can get out of this game is if you want to be where they’re at; look at how they played tonight. Those guys are going to come out like that all the time, and hopefully the young guys that we have can understand that if you want a chance to compete for a title, you need to play like that every night. We also didn’t make them take any tough shots. They just picked us apart. On the offensive end, they sped us up. Hopefully this is a learning experience for us. After this game, there are no easy days and you can’t take anything for granted. We’ll get better. We’ve been trying to figure things out in practice. Now we can we watch film to see things that we need to correct.”

On the game: “I know that we can play better as a whole. We have to do a better job of setting the tone. They played really well. We played really bad, and the score showed that. Our coach (Lawrence Frank) always talks about the game within the game. We tried to come out better after halftime.”

On the Game:

“It is a good step forward. We just have to continue to build this training camp and get ready for the 30th.”

On Dwyane Wade:

“From a conditioning standpoint I don’t think he is ready for a full 36 or 38 minute load right now but he is building up to that. We are encouraged but he will continue to be day-to-day and we will see how his leg is responding. He has been putting in a lot of work.”

On the rotation with Dwyane Wade, LeBron James and Chris Bosh:

“I wanted to give them minutes.”

On LeBron James:

“He can go more [minutes]. He has been terrific in practice. He had one of the better practices so far of training camp yesterday.”

On the game:

“That is the best our fast break has looked all year. We have been practicing it pretty well. We have been pushing each other hard every day. It really showed today.”

“It is a work in progress.”

On playing in front of home crowd:

“It is always great to play here. You can tell that everybody is excited that basketball season is back.”

On the game:

“It is always good to work on some things in practice and then be able to implement into a game situation. We have worked our habits in practice and it was good to see it come to life.”

“We have a free-flowing offense.”

On staying hungry for another championship:

“We have some guys that have not won. We have guys that want that feeling again. I am one of the main ones. I am not satisfied with just one.”

On Dwyane Wade:

“He looked real sharp. He has a good bounce in his step.”