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GAME 4 QUOTES
APRIL 25, 2004
ROCKETS COACH JEFF VAN GUNDY
On whether the game came down to Kobe Bryant’s play:
"They obviously did some good things. We made some mistakes, we had two chances to go up six and we turned the ball over a couple of times. We didn’t get a couple of defensive rebounds. Were a little bit late on the help, we made some mistakes, but give them credit, too."
On how demoralizing this loss was(is) for the team:
"If you’re a competitor, it’s not demoralizing. I’ve been around some teams…I shouldn’t say that…I’ve never been around a team, but I’ve seem some teams who if they take a tough loss, the question is, when they’re going back on the road, do they want to compete? I’ve seen some of those teams, I’ve never been a part of those teams. So what we have to do is, you know you take the good with the bad in this league. We took a bad, difficult loss. You bounce back and go to L.A. believing and expecting to win and you go from there."
On Steve Francis’s shot at the end of regulation:
"We didn’t want to take a timeout because we scored on a 'two' before that play without a timeout. We’ve run that where he’s going to go 1-4 flat. I don’t know if the ball got blocked – I didn’t have a great angle. Most likely it’s hard to do on the move, but when we got the rebound, obviously we should have known that the shot clock was winding down and we should have taken a timeout. All that being said, we got up four, we had two chances to go up six; we just didn’t quite get it done."
On the exchange between himself and Phil Jackson in the first half:
"He yelled down at me his opinion, I guess, of where I was on the floor. And I gave my opinion back on his opinion. Don’t try to take away from the game with some silly coaching sidebar. The game, that’s what (counts). It’s no news. We ain’t smokin’ the peace pipe here anytime soon. But it’s not about us – it’s about our teams. He coaches his team great and I’m trying to help my team."
On Bostjan Nachbar’s confrontation with Karl Malone:
"It’s not really standing up to anybody; it’s playing to win. And if you’re going to play to win, you’re going to compete at a higher level than the guy you’re competing against. Malone is a top rate, top of the line competitor, so if you’re going to compete against him, you’re going to have to go hard. So I thought Boki did a good job."
BOSTJAN NACHBAR
On the first half hard foul by Karl Malone:
"I haven’t seen the tape yet. I just know that when I was up in the air, somebody cut under me. It was something that I wouldn’t do to someone else, but it was just something that happened. It’s basketball."
On the physical nature of the game:
"Everybody wants to win. Sometimes there’s bad blood out there. There’s a little bit of pushing and shoving, but I guess that’s a part of basketball, especially in the playoffs. I was just trying to make things happen and hopefully get the crowd involved."
STEVE FRANCIS
On the period of time in the OT when things got away from the Rockets:
"It was tough. They made some good plays down the stretch and we turned the ball over twice and that really hurt us in crucial situations."
On the Rockets comeback:
"This is only my fourth playoff game that I’ve played in. I thought that we showed a lot of character in this game and we did a good job. Things didn’t go our way. Even though this is my fourth playoff game, I’ve never watched basketball where in two games in a row, a referee gets injured and there were only two referees out there. Things like that just make you think about what’s really going on. We gave a good effort, but, at the end, we came up short."
On the Rockets having the OT lead:
"I thought we had a good chance to win. Of course I thought that throughout the whole game. We had a good shot at winning the game. We gave ourselves the opportunity going into the OT, where we were up, but as I said, we had two crucial turnovers in crucial situations which really hurt us."
On the Rockets being in the difficult position of down 3-1 in the series:
"I believe in our team. If you look at the series, there are two games that we had where they won in the last minute, but it’s going to be tough. They’re a team that can have any of their four best players step up at any time. Tonight Karl Malone hit a lot of shots and Kobe (Bryant) did (hit shots) late. I still believe in our team and I’m not going to say let’s go to L.A. and wrap it up because Coach (Van Gundy) told us at the beginning in order for us to win this series, we’ll have to win two in a row. Here we are with a chance to win two in a row and, hopefully, take the series."
YAO MING
On his mood after sitting out with foul trouble:
"Restless. It’s always better to be on the court than sitting there waiting."
On the referee’s call that resulted in his sixth and final foul:
"He might not have understood my English, so he didn’t explain it to me."
On what he thought of the last play:
"If that’s a foul, then I can’t play defense."
On how he felt when the Rockets were up by four in OT:
"Everybody was really happy at that point. The victory was right in front of our face. If we could have gotten one or two more rebounds, it would have been in our pocket."
On the biggest problem in OT:
"I think that foul on me was a real turning point. It really hurt us."
On how frustrating the last foul was:
"I think you could see it was a big blow to us, but at the time, we were still trying to win the game. I will just put my hands in the back of my head and play defense like that (from now on)."
On the game’s overall effect on him and the team:
"Of course it’s going to have an effect on us today, but tomorrow’s a new day."
KELVIN CATO
On the Rockets losing the OT lead:
"It’s just like any other loss. If we would have lost in the regular amount of time, it still would hurt like it hurts now. We’ve got to get focused and we’ve got to go to L.A. and get one."
On the Rockets’ mindset being down by 14 points in the third quarter:
"(It’s) still the same. We’ve got to keep fighting. We’re playing L.A.; it’s not a high school team or a college team -- they can play. So you’ve got to go out there and play as hard as you can play every moment of the game and continue to think you’re going to win and keep trying to win."
On the Rockets’ character by coming back from behind:
"I thought we had a chance to win. We made it so we had a chance to win. We had the opportunities and we had the last shot to win. Steve (Francis) took a good shot and it missed and we went into OT and we were up four with a minute and some change left and we lost at the end. Kobe (Bryant) made a great play going to the middle and they got an offensive rebound on the last play. We’ve got to get focused and stay focused through the whole 48 or 52 (minutes) or whatever it’s going to be."
On the physical play of Karl Malone:
"Hey, man, that’s basketball. You’ve got to be focused on what’s going on out there on the floor; he’s playing hard and we’re playing hard. We’re going to bring it at him like they’re going to bring it at us. We’re going to play basketball."
LAKERS COACH PHIL JACKSON
On the fourth quarter and OT:
"We let the momentum slide in the fourth quarter by a couple of errant plays, a couple of good plays by them, actually. A blocked shot, a missed layup on our part and some other things. Open shots that put them back in an opportunity to get back in the game. I thought we were despondent when we came out of that regular time, going into the overtime and played like it the first three minutes, but we found some energy at the end."
On his confidence level in Kobe Bryant handling the ball down the stretch:
"I just told him to get the ball to the open player. If things aren’t going well for him, he can create shots for other players. He found (Derek) Fish(er) for a good look at a '3.' He tried to lob one to Shaq (Shaquille O’Neal); that was an opportunity, but they ran underneath Shaq on that lob so it didn’t work, but he did try to create some plays."
On the performance of Karl Malone:
"He’s terrific. He saved us from a flat OT with that three-point play."
On how he feels about going home up 3-1 in the series:
"This is a closeout game. They’re going to be desperate and we have to take care of business at home. That’s why we really have to rally and pull ourselves together. They made some adjustments today, we tried to meet their adjustments with our own, and there will be one more chess move before it’s over, hopefully."
On whether the Lakers can keep going to Karl Malone:
"That’s an adjustment they have to show us in Game 5."
On what lessons the team learned:
"You know you have to have a lead going into the fourth quarter in a playoff game. You’re on the road, you’re going to get some breaks, things are going to happen, the crowd gets fired up and behind their team, we just didn’t pick the level of our game up. So that’s a really good lesson for us to still be able to win this game after they rally."
SHAQUILLE O'NEAL
On the game:
"We played well as a team. We stuck with it. Karl Malone was definitely the difference in the game. He played with a lot of energy. They were not really sticking with him and they were daring him to shoot. He played a hell of a game today."
On the Lakers:
"The game was going back and forth all day but we knew if we could just get one more stop and possibly one of our shots we would be OK."
On the Lakers cold spell in the fourth quarter:
"I don’t know what happened but actually the shots were good. Derek Fisher had a couple that just went in and out. I don’t think it was anything they (Houston) did."
GARY PAYTON
On his and Karl Malone’s play:
"Karl and I got really animated and that is just the way we play. We’ve been playing like that lately and that got us into the game. That is just what I want to do is to play and try to be productive and get things done and get this over with. Today I got to be out there (in the fourth quarter). We are trying to win a championship here and let’s not make problems and let’s just play."
On the win:
"That’s what we are supposed to do. And this is the way we are supposed to play basketball. Everybody contributing and everybody coming out and being patient. Winning one at the end and I think everyone feels good about this. Now we go to Wednesday and Houston will come out with nothing to lose. They will play free, loose and hard and we have to understand we have to focus and get the job done so we don’t have to come back here. We’re going to be ready on Wednesday and we are going to get it done."
KARL MALONE
On the game:
"We don’t get caught up in the physical part of the game, we just come out and play. The most important thing is you have to hold your ground within the rules. It’s just one of those things, you just have to come out and play, it’s the playoffs and it is more physical but I don’t get caught up in it. It was one of those days and it just happened like that. This wasn’t just one guy. This was a great team win. We scored just 12 points in the fourth and coach wasn’t too happy with that."
On if this was his best game as a Laker:
"Not really. I think I have played better defense and I know what they are telling me to do so I don’t really get caught up in that, it’s just one of the things that happened. As a team, it’s more satisfaction for me to get a win and stay within what we are trying to do instead of getting caught up in the stats. I’m looking for wins and that is the only stat I want."
On Gary Payton:
"I was telling somebody before the game he’s been very calm about the situation and he has been a professional about it. If a guy like Gary’s not upset about playing in the fourth quarter, no disrespect to anyone else, I would think there was something wrong. It’s not a knock on his teammates but he wants to be out there on the floor and I respect him for that. He came back this afternoon and did a hell of a job."
On Shaq:
"He’s (Yao) playing against the best center in the NBA. He (Shaq) said when I kick the ball back out to you, I need you to make all those, not just some of them. We just played within what we were trying to do and he is doing a great job of communicating with me, where to be and where the shots are going to come. It’s just one of those things but it was just a great team effort."
KOBE BRYANT
On his physical condition:
"I was just low on energy this morning. I had a bad stomach; I just had to get a lot of fluids in me. Once I started playing the game, I felt pretty good."
On whether he got a second wind:
"I got here and I had my weight workout and that generated a lot of energy, so by game time I felt fine."
On his poor shooting late in the game:
"Maybe some of it was legs, but also it was tough shots. Every time I turned around, they had a defender in my face coming from the weak side, so they were pretty contested shots."
On whether Steve Francis’ shot at the end of regulation was surprising since Francis didn’t try to penetrate:
"Actually I knew he was going to take the shot because I taught him that shot to win games. I think he had a play here earlier in the year, where he just kind of dribbled the clock out in a game-winning situation and I saw him in the All-Star break and I said, ‘How come you don’t do what I do?’ which is back the guy up off the dribble and just raise up and shoot over the top of him. And when he had the ball, I just knew he was going to do it. He just didn’t get enough legs under him. It was a good shot, a good look."
