Toronto Raptors vs. Charlotte Bobcats
Sunday April 1, 2007 – Air Canada Centre

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Mitchell

Thoughts on clinching a playoff position…
You feel gratification for the guys, the organization, the fans and what we have been through over the past two and a half seasons to get to this point. Happy for them, happy for the coaches and myself included, but we still got some things that we want to try to accomplish. We want to win the division and then try to get home court, go into the playoffs playing well, try to get healthy and then make some noise as well.

Thoughts on keeping your players motivated…
No, I mean these guys are happy but it was Chris Bosh in there saying ‘next step division, next step trying to secure homecourt.’ They understand but it was our first goal to make it to the playoffs like every team, you want to get in and we’ve accomplished that. It’s nice to accomplish your goals because it keeps the guys working. I remember Barry Bonds saying one time that when he is in a hot streak he works harder. And so when you’re winning and achieving things, it should motivate you to work harder because now you know that your hard work hasn’t been in vain.

At what time did you think it all came together?
I just think when we came off the road trip and we beat Cleveland, when no one thought we could win that game. The Cleveland game, even when we lost a couple of games after that, the Cleveland game proved that after a long road trip, because normally the toughest game to play is the first game back after a west coast trip. We proved to ourselves that we could beat a good basketball team. Then the Orlando game, right there in Orlando when Chris was out and Andrea (Bargnani) kind of grew up that night. He stepped up and played big for us, and so did our bench. So there has been a couple of games where as a team we’ve had to step up. Rasho (Nesterovic) right down to all these guys. These guys should all feel proud of themselves because when we were 2-8 everyone doubted us, but we didn’t have any doubt in that locker room that we were a good basketball team. I remember Wayne (Embry) kept saying to me that it takes time when you got a brand new basketball team. We just had to continue to work until those guys played, they allowed the coaches to coach them and they try to do the things that we have asked. They should be proud of what they accomplished because no one thought that we could get here.

Bosh

CHRIS BOSH

How does it feel to be in the playoffs for the first time?
It feels good and I’m still looking for a better feeling once we get everything underway. It feels good just to be in important games. Like I have been saying for the past week or two week, it feels good. It’s general excitement right now because we still have two more goals ahead of us. We want to get home court advantage and we want to lock up the Atlantic division. We still have nine more games to play and we have to concentrate and focus on each game until we clinch both.

Is it important to clinch a playoff spot in front of the home fans?
I think so I think the fans enjoyed it. It just shows how we are turning this whole thing around and it’s good for the fans to be a part of that and to see it.

Thoughts on other guys getting opportunities to play…
I think that is the best thing about this year, everybody has stepped up. I’ve been out, T.J. (Ford) has been out, Jose (Calderon), Garbo’s (Jorge Garbajosa) out, Andrea’s (Bargnani) out and the list goes on and on. Everyone has stepped up at certain points in time with any rotation that we put in the game. We continue to work together, we have that confidence and it is good for us because there is no telling what will happen from here on out.

Humphries

KRIS HUMPHRIES

On today’s win happening to be for bigger stakes…
Yes, it feels good to clinch a playoff spot. For us now we are trying to clinch our division, get home court. Everything builds on itself. You look at where we were at the beginning of the year, what people were saying, now these people are riding with us. It’s been great and we’re just going to build on this.

The last few games the rebounding intensity has picked up…
For us with Garbo (Jorge Garbajosa) being out, and Andrea (Bargnani) being out we lose a lot of height and with that comes some rebounding. Guys got to come in and play hard and get rebounds, like Joey (Graham) did the other night. It just comes down to trying to impose our will on the other team.

Bickerstaff

Thoughts on the game…
Fast break points, they (Toronto) had 18 and also 15/17 points off the offensive boards. So in terms of what I call work ethic, parts of the game we were beaten at tonight. It was a collective effort, we talked about how Matt (Carroll) had one of those games he hadn’t had and when Matt’s having problems you look at it and say ‘okay it’s one of those nights.’ He’s normally in there fighting and playing hard. I thought Toronto did a nice job of executing and when they needed a basket to stop a run, I thought they executed well and had shots. But we really, really got hurt on the offensive boards. We didn’t rebound the basketball.

Thoughts on Toronto Raptors…
A lot of credit goes to Toronto and how they played the game and the shots that they made. They outworked us tonight. What they do is, they keep it simple. There’s nothing complicated about this game. They keep it simple, they get open, they pass the ball, and they take shots. It’s very simple in terms of what they do. They share the ball with each other. But the big issue is that they make shots, and that’s the difference in the basketball game. He (Sam Mitchell) has done a nice job with the team.

Knight

Thoughts on the game…
They do a good job with the pick-and-roll and they make it tough for you. You have to make a decision of which lane you are going to take away. We just tried to follow them into our big guys, we tried switching, and they just had it going tonight.

Chris Bosh was the other alternative on the pick-and-roll…
When you have somebody that set the screen and then step back and shoot it, then that poses problems for your team. He got started early doing that and that just continued throughout the game. We tried to change defenses to comeback, but they were already on their roll. We made a couple of runs at it, but they just did a good job of holding us off and finishing off the game.

It looked like you had a chance down but eight at the half?
In this game you know you are going to make a run, that’s the NBA game. Teams are going to make runs, once you make your run you try and sustain it so you can get over that hump. We made our run and got it down to five one time, and they just pushed back and finished out the half the way they did. You have to tip your hat to them and move on.

Okafor

Thoughts on the game…
Tonight the entire game went their way, they were trying to get that playoff berth and clinch it. They came out and did a great job playing and they got it.

The Raptors really got it going early…
It is hard playing catch up all game, they had a couple of runs, a couple spurts and we never could quite get over that hump and it kind of got away from us at the end.

Chris Bosh led the way early…
He had a great first quarter, and that first quarter helped them out the rest of the game with that early lead. We were just playing catch up the rest of the game.