 | Suns Head Coach Terry Porter
(Opening statement)
“I am obviously very pleased with the win, great way for us start off this week. We’re going to have a tough week this week, so it’s good to see our guys come out and jump on a very good basketball team. The Detroit Pistons team came in here extremely hot and they’re rolling pretty good off of that big win in L.A. It was nice to really see our guys step up tonight. We were really in the game from the start, we moved the ball well, and Shaq seemed to be a force for us. I also thought that we were also able to get a really good tempo tonight; the tempo was up where we liked it. We had a good mix of throwing the ball into Shaq and then when we had opportunities we were pushing the ball and moving it. That’s good to see going forward as far as the way we want to play and we can build on it.”
(On the flagrant 2 foul that was called on Shaq)
“I didn’t get a chance to see a replay, when I came back in it looked like he just went for the ball. It was a judgment call and all three of them agreed on it; there’s nothing I can do about it. Sometimes in those situations, the fall may look worse that the contact was, and I think that’s what happened. Not to downplay what happened, the young man got hit pretty hard. I wasn’t an official and it was up to them to make that call.”
(On what Shaq said to Terry Porter before leaving the court)
“We were just having a discussion about that situation.”
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 | Suns forward Amar'e Stoudemire (29 PTS, 11 REBS)
(On setting the tone of the week tonight)
“It was perfect. Shaq went out with the ejection in the first half and we were still able to get the win – to start this week off strong was positive for us. We definitely wanted to come out and get this win – Detroit is playing well. It’ll help us with our confidence, but we’ve got another big game tomorrow.”
(On the flagrant foul from Shaq)
“I didn’t really expect him to get ejected for that. He was going for the ball. (Robert) Stuckey fell hard, but Shaq was going for the ball. I didn’t think it was an intentional foul or that he meant to hurt (Stuckey). He’s just such a big guy, his impact is a lot harder than the norm.”
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 | Suns center Shaquille O'Neal (12 PTS, 2 REBS)
(On the flagrant foul leading to his ejection)
“The laws of physics state that ‘a body in motion stays in motion.’ And if you have two objects that meet in air, the smaller object is going to fall much harder at the same rate of speed it was going. I’ve never been the type of player to take anyone out – I was going for the ball. He fell and he added a little bit to the end. The referees looked at how he fell, I think. It’s nothing I’m worried about; I’ve never been that type of player. If you understand physics like that, anytime you come in there out of control like that and you run into a brick wall, you’re going to get that effect.”
(On whether he’s worried about a suspension)
“The NBA is going to do what they do. You can’t really control a governing body that has all the power. I’m a man, whatever they doll out I’ll just take it. But you look at me and look at my character; I’ve never been that type of player.”
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 | Pistons Head Coach Michael Curry
“We talked about this before the trip. We just had two trips where we went 2-1 on the East coast trip we had and went3-1 on this one. But what we said was, ‘That’s a really good trip to go 2-1 or 3-1, but a great trip would have been 3-0 or 4-0.’ That’s what we’re looking for. If we’re going to be a great team, we’ve got a ways to go. Right now, I think we’re a pretty good team, but we want to be a great team. We’ve got work to do, which is a positive. There’s a lot of room for improvement."
"The big fella was doing well down low. Shaq has been playing well of late. Stoudemire got into the paint. They were aggressive. They were aggressive posting. Overall team defensively, we weren’t goo d and they were really good offensively.”
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 | Pistons guard Richard Hamilton (19 PTS, 5 REBS)
“We dug ourselves too deep of a hole. They were making runs earlier, they were making treys, they were shooting 70% in the first half. That’s what lost us the game."
"We didn’t defend the way we wanted to defend. They shoot 70% in the first half, the sky’s the limit with their game. So I just thought we needed to do a better job with that.”
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 | Pistons center Kwame Brown (10 PTS, 3 REBS)
(On Shaq)
“I’ve been guarding him my whole career, I’m used to it. Against Amar’e you’ve got to almost play perfect defense because he flairs the ball around looking to get contact. He’s a little bit different, a lot quicker than Shaq is.
It was a good road trip. But we definitely wanted to come in and play better than we did. They kind of took it to us. We’re a better defensive team than that.”
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