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May 10 • Mckie and Van Horn quotes May 9 • Practice report • Brown, Snow and Thomas quotes May 8 • Snow quotes May 7 • Brown, Van Horn and Buckner quotes May 7 • Brown, Van Horn and Buckner quotes May 6 • Brown, Coleman and McKie quotes May 5 • Practice Report • Bender, Coleman, McKie, Snow and Thomas quotes May 4 • Brown, Hill and Williams quotes • More quotes |
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Practice Quotes - May 12
I am happy to have the time off. Because I think with Kenny’s problem and Tyrone’s problem, Eric’s problem, the extra days will help us and hopefully will help Chauncey get back. I would like to see them play at full strength as well. We’ll also need the time to prepare for Game 5. Obviously, they’ll probably make some adjustments on the way we play. And we’ll have to make some adjustments on the things they did…we’re not going to have a lot of practice time, but we’ll have practice tomorrow and the shootaround. Hopefully, that will give us an opportunity to figure some things out. On the injuries Tyrone is having an MRI today…I have not seen Kenny, but he said he was all right after the game. Eric got his hand x-rayed after the game and his foot was really sore. On the Eric playing despite his injury I think it was remarkable what he did with his leg like it was. And not having time to rest. We played the overtime game when he was hurt. And he probably played too many minutes, playing 40 minutes. And then to have back-to-backs with it hurt. He didn’t have a lot of time to get treatment or any rest. So it was a pretty incredible performance. And then he played great. He played really solid, had only one turnover. Did a great job, even at the end, when Chucky Atkins started penetrating a little bit and (Eric) changed the match-up to go out and pressure. Allen has played though injury. Derrick you look at his left hand, you can’t believe he is still playing it looks so bad. Kenny I didn’t know what to expect last night, and he played really good with his injury. I guess that’s why this team has the ability to fight back. We got kids with some toughness and character. On Derrick Coleman’s play as his career is winding down We talk about it all the time. I’ve been in this a long time. I tell him you just can’t anticipate things always turning out the way you want them or your careers maybe the way you expect them to be…you can’t ever anticipate it. And these guys, their careers are almost over. I do believe there is a sense of purpose, guys like Tyrone and DC. It should be all of us…I tell Allen this all the time - ‘there’s only eight teams now playing’. I would suspect it is affecting Derrick and Tyrone in particular because the other guys don’t believe what (you) say. On momentum being a big factor I hope so. I don’t know what our players are thinking, I would hope we have confidence we can beat that team. But I also hope that we respect them enough to understand they’re going to be playing in their building. They won their division and conference, and I think they are a really good team. My biggest concern is I would hope that we understand that if we rebound and defend and share the ball, that is going to be the best way to get momentum on your side. That’s what we did in these last two games and that’s what enabled us to win the series. I think that’s what going to be the deciding factor in Game 5. On why he hopes an opposing player come back from injury I respect the sport and I understand what is going on in that other locker room. When you see Webber go down and you see Chauncey go down…it changes the whole outcome of your team. So all you have worked for, the whole season and all the effort you have put in, it's really not the same team. Some games, your best player gets in early foul trouble. I remember when I was coaching (at Kansas) in '86 ... I lost four kids with fouls in the Semifinal game, and then one of my best players tore his knee up, Archie Marshall. That wasn't our same team that went to the Final Four. So I would hope that, when you get into the playoffs, you play against their best and they play against your best. I always laugh about fans commenting about things like that. They are not involved in the sport. They are just fans of our teams and want us to win. I can understand saying, 'hey, take every advantage you can get.' I don't think it's a shallow victory (or) any less, but I'd still like to put our best team against their best and see who wins. That's what this sport is about. On Allen Iverson's success finding open teammates I think it's been a steady process of him getting better. His role is changing from time to time in his career. But I think he is learning the game. I have always felt that the more he plays, the more he understands how to play. The things that make him great sometimes maybe in people's eyes make it feel like he's being selfish. He is so competitive, and he has such a will to win and sometimes he does take it upon himself to do it. So you don't want to mess that up, but you also want to make him understand that there are a lot of ways he can help us. I have always felt the best players make all the other players around them better. I used to have a standing argument with Donnie Walsh when I was coaching Indiana. He used to always say you had to have a post player to command double teams to really make the other players better. Well, Allen, out on the perimeter, does that. I've seen that with other players. I do believe he is growing up. There is a fine line between what people think he may be being selfish and his will to win and his competitiveness. You don't want to take that away from him. On his approach to the rest of the series I just think about Game 5 ... I just want to go one game at a time. I hope that, as a coaching staff, we can help our players and learn from the things that happened. (We are going to) try to think about what we can expect so we can prepare our team. On whether he expects Corliss Williamson to get more playing time Tayshaun (Prince) has been coming off the bench. It's kind of weird ... What are Chauncey (Billups)'s extended minutes? How is that going to impact what they do? There are so many things. He went with (Zeljko) Rebraca. A couple games in the Orlando series, Corliss didn't even play. But (Rick Carlisle) is not afraid to play any kind of a line-up. That's what I've come to expect. We have talked about them trying to go inside more, but I've looked out there and their guards have played pretty good. Rip (Hamilton) had 30 points in 39 minutes. Game 2 when they beat us, Chucky (Atkins) and Rip and their guards scored. So I don't know what to expect. I am trying to figure out how they are going to defend us - what they are going to try to take away. That is my main concern, because they have a lot of weapons. They are so deep. On how the Sixers might counteract a bigger Detroit line-up They hurt us on the boards with their small teams early (in the series). If they go big, that is a line-up that we have been pretty good with, with Keith (Van Horn), Kenny (Thomas) and D.C. (Derrick Coleman). The things where we got into trouble is when they got in foul trouble, our bench was kind of limited. I think that has really made it difficult for us. So our thing is we have to keep our big people out of foul trouble. (We have to) find out about Tyrone (Hill). If he can't go, then Brian (Skinner) might have to come into this equation. I think there are a lot of things they can do. So much depends on Chauncey (Billups). |
