Game One - May 6, 2003
Pistons 98, Sixers 87

Brown

"We got to 77-74 and we just kind of self-destructed. They made great plays, they made unselfish plays, they got four offensive rebounds late in the game. When you’re struggling, and getting behind you’ve got to play perfect down the stretch. You know you’ve got to give them credit. Their bench came in and I thought gave them a huge lift, I thought. Before Chauncey (Billups) got hurt, I thought their guard play was incredible. Okur, Williamson, Tayshaun, Chucky Atkins did a terrific job.

Our bench, Buck really helped us (Greg Buckner). Tyrone (Hill) really helped us. We had starters that you know just didn’t have their best game. It just put a lot of pressure on us. But that being said, we had chances, we had chances we just didn’t execute very well. We have to give them credit. They made every hussle play. And I think that they started off the game making hustle plays. We had 13 turnovers at half-time. I thought that we were going too fast, trying to win the game too quickly. We had turnovers, and in high possession games, a lot of times your going to have turnovers. But we had a lot of turnovers that just were silly plays. They were pressing us with three guys, and we had three guards back…and you know, we acted like we hadn’t seen that before. They had Ben Wallace and two guards pressing our three guards, and we were jumping up and throwing the ball all over the place. I thought in the second half we settled down a little on that respect. You know, on the road you’ve got to be careful. You’ve got to take care of the ball. We are supposed to make teams turn the ball over."

Iverson

“It’s expected that I am going to come off a lot of screens. Through the course of the season, nine times out of ten, I guarded the two-guards anyway, and that’s all they do is come off screens. I’m use to that. Eric Snow plays the point and I always guard the two-guard, because their two-guard guards me. That’s what 82 games prepared me for and it was expected.

You have to look at the positive things you did out on the basketball court and you try to keep doing it. We are going to focus on everything not going right for us, and still, we had a chance to win the basketball game, turning the ball over as much as we did. Guys have their heads up. We’re not going to let one game stop us. Our goal is to come in here and steal a game. We tried to do it in the first one and we couldn’t.

There’s a lot of emotion with starting a new series. Last series we started at home. This one we started on the road. We played real excited in the first couple minutes of the basketball game. Eventually we were able to calm down. So many negative things were going against us, as far as us turning the ball over, and those guys were making shots. They just played better than us tonight. With all that said, we still had an opportunity to win the basketball game. We feel good about that part.”

Carlisle

"Obviously we’re pleased to win the game. We played really hard and did what we had to do to come out of it alive. Chauncey’s ankle is sprained. Not severely sprained is our understanding, but he turned it pretty good so we will see how he feels tommorrow and the next day and that will determine his status for Thursday. Whether we have him or not, we are going to have to figure out a way to win. I thought Chucky Atkins did a terrific job stepping in in the fourth quarter, getting us into stuff…and he was active defensively. I thought he really played a great stretch there when we really needed him.

On stopping Iverson
You know with Iverson (Allen) you’ve just have to try to make it as tough on him as possible. You know he was able to get up 21 shots, and I thought our guys worked as hard as they could to make it as tough on him as possible. But we’ve got to study the tape. I am sure that there are things that we can do better, and Philadelphia will certainly do the same. They are going to find ways to give Allen some better looks, and they’re going to be ready for Thursday. Mehmet (Okur) played very well, the guy was seven for seven from the floor. I guess that saying he played well is an understatement. I thought he was active on both ends. He was active rebounding the ball. He had an important blocked shot during a period when they were making a run in the second half. He played with great energy. Tayshaun Prince was also an important factor in the game."

Curry

"We were very active to start the game and we needed to maintain that throughout the course of the game in order to win. In the first half, we really kept our turnovers low; we made some turnovers later in the game, but overall we did a good job of keeping the turnovers low, so Phily couldn’t feed off of that. That prevented them from getting out into transition and getting easy baskets. Their half court offense is still coming together. Allen (Iverson) made a couple of (bad passes for turnovers) that helped us out. Hopefully it is something that we are doing to force turnovers. Both teams play similar basketball; I know both teams are saying the same things, rebound the basketball and keep turnovers low. The team that does both of those things in this series will be the team that wins."

Hamilton

"Everybody is feeding off each other and it’s fun. We are doing a good job of getting stops, and once we get those stops, we get the outlet and go. I’m sure (Phily) is going to come back and try to get (Allen Iverson) more easy looks at the basket but we just have to worry about ourselves and play our game. If we play playoff style basketball, we will have nothing to worry about."

On guarding Iverson
“It was like chasing myself. I just tried to run him off as many screens as possible. He’s a great player. You’re not going to be able to hold him down by yourself. I think my teammates did a great job of helping me out. He’s the type of player where he’s going to get shots and he’s going to make shots. You can’t get down on yourself. You just got to keep playing aggressive and keep chasing him.

On Chauncey going down
It was tough. I just ran over to him and asked him, “are you alright?” You could see that he was in pain. Chauncey is a big asset to our team. In the training room, he told me he is going to do everything possible to be there for Game 2. He’s a warrior, so hopefully he’ll be back.

On Iverson
I just tried to beat him to the spot, to deny him. I tried to get around screens, sometimes laid off of him. I just didn’t try to play him one way. Great players figure out how you’re guarding him and then attack you from a different angle. I just tried to chase him and make it tough.

Being up one is a great feeling. Last series, we played with our backs against the wall all series. We didn’t play the beginning of the series like a number one seed. We have to take advantage of our home-court. We just wanted to come out and match their energy, but play smart, and I think we did that for 48 minutes.”

Okur

“We don’t have time to celebrate this game. We know it is going to be a long series. For example, last year, (even though) I wasn’t here, I followed my friends here and they won the first game (of the second round here vs. Boston) and they lost the series. We don’t want to do that. We are a great team and we have many pieces. It is going to be a long series and we need to come out and play hard."

Prince

"We did a good job in the first half of putting pressure on (Phily). We knew coming out into the second half that we had to slow them down a little bit and obviously (Allen) Iverson had the ball in his hands the whole fourth quarter and he is hard to be stopped. We tried to get in the half court set and just try to run some plays. We are feeling very confident, we just have to keep playing with a lot of energy and a lot of effort. That is the way to bounce back from a hard, seven-game series. (On Chauncey Billups being out at the end of the game) Chucky (Atkins) stepped in for him and gave us some good minutes there. It’s going to be tough for us and hopefully we can get him back in the lineup."