Posted: Nov 4 2009 12:33AM
Head Coach Alvin Gentry | 
Steve Nash | 
Grant Hill |
Erik Spoelstra | 
Quentin Richardson | 
Mario Chalmers | 
Dwyane Wade |
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Click on a player to read quotes
| Head Coach Alvin Gentry
“Obviously it was a great win for us. They’ve [Miami Heat] been playing great basketball and they are a great team. They have all the components that they need. They have size and they have arguably the best player, and if not the best player the best scorer in the league. He proved that last year and I thought we did a great job against him. We just gutted it out. It was a total team effort, it wasn’t just one guy. If you look at Steve’s [Nash] stats, and he’s got great stats, but then if you look at Jared Dudley’s stats he doesn’t have great stats but he was probably as important in that win as anybody. Jarred Collins came in off the bench and gave us great minutes, so I thought everyone we put in the game contributed in some kind of way. We’re still trying to find ourselves. We don’t read anything into being 4-0. I still think that for us we’re going to have to go about 20-25 games before we really know what we have. Amar’e [Stoudemire] is still trying to get better and find his legs. He doesn’t have right now but you can see that he’s getting a little better at it every game. We just feel like when he hits his peak and plays like he did in the past, that we can be a good team.”
“If we can hold a team under 100 that’s pretty good, and we held them to 40 percent shooting. I thought our zone did a great job against [Dwyane] Wade. You just have to find a way to keep him out of the paint because he’s just so explosive and he turns the corner so many times that I think for us, the whole thing was that we just have to see if we can make them beat us over the top with jump shots. It’s a really good win for us against a real quality team and Erik [Spolestra] does a great job with those guys. They execute and play extremely hard.”
“We just tried to slow them down in the fourth quarter. I thought our reserves did a good job. It’s really tough to have Steve sitting over there especially when the games on the line and you want him in there all the time. I thought Goran [Dragic] did a really good job of coming up with a few baskets and just being aggressive and getting guys some open shots. Jarron [Collins] came in and it was the first time he played for us and I think he set some really good solid screens to open guys up for shots and did a good job defensively. We’re happy with the win but like I said, we’re not ready to crown ourselves yet.”
“We haven’t played zone at all this season, not one play. We’ve been working on it in practice and we thought there would be an opportunity for us to use it and we thought we’d use it on this trip. When you watch the tape and you see the teams that play him [Wade] man-to-man it’s really tough to contain Wade in any kind of way.. He’s so good handling the basketball, and he’s so great at just breaking down the defenses that you almost have to have your defense stacked and ready and the only way you can do that is to play a zone.”
On the first quarter:
“They did a good job against us. Usually we can create a play where we can get Channing [Frye] a shot or Amar’e a shot and they just really did a good job defensively against us. They wouldn’t allow Channing any separation for a shot. I think we went about six minutes without a basket. I just think that we are good enough offensively that if at some stage we can keep it close, where there is not a big separation, we would have an opportunity to close the gap.”
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| Steve Nash
“I didn’t really play great in the first half. I didn’t get a lot of opportunities. I wanted to be aggressive and give my teammates a chance to get back in the game. I was just trying to put more pressure on the defense. I was able to make a lot of them (shots). I was too passive and thinking instead of going. It eliminated my opportunities and the pressure I was able to put on the defense.”
On playing zone defense:
“We haven’t really used it much or had much success. It really came out well for us tonight.”
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| Grant Hill
On playing zone defense:
“We kind of walked through it in practice. Tonight it was good for us. We did a good job. We rotated and contested shots. For the first time doing it in a game against a very good team I thought we did a pretty good job.”
On Steve Nash’s second half performance:
“He came out in that third quarter and put on a clinic. He was kind of quiet in the first half. Steve was huge really the whole second half. It was really fun to watch.”
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| Erik Spoelstra
“It just came down to the Suns sustaining it. They got to their game more consistently and did better getting to their game than we did getting to our game in the second half.”
“The zone changed our rhythm. We didn’t have a lot of answers for that.”
“Nash obviously just turned it on. It seemed from our vantage point that he just kept on getting stronger and stronger. He’s in tremendous physical condition regardless of his age. He finished the game making all the right plays down the end.”
On Steve Nash’s play:
“It’s amazing. He just keeps on coming. It just appeared that he was getting stronger as the game went on. It’s extremely difficult when they get the lead and the ball is in his hands. He makes all the right plays.”
On all the three-pointers shot toward the end of the game:
“Certainly we didn’t make a conscious effort of putting the ball on the floor and creating plays. A lot of that is on me for not coming up with something that we could get to, to loosen it up a little bit for a couple of easy baskets. It was a good change on their part. We had a good rhythm up until that point. We didn’t attack from there.”
On the line-up at the start of the fourth quarter:
“A lot of it was circumstance. We were forced to go deeper in the bench. Mike (Michael Beasley) had four fouls. Dwyane (Wade) needed to come out a little bit earlier because of the pace of the game. That’s what we have the depth for. It was a little bit different of a line-up but I really don’t think that was the change.”
On not bringing Michael Beasley back into the game:
“We were just trying to get some athleticism in there to speed it up and Dorell (Wright) is another guy that can put the ball on the floor against the zone.”
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| Quentin Richardson
“They are a tough team, offensively. They had some good runs and made some shots. ‘Stevie’ (Nash) got it going.”
On playing against the Phoenix Sun’s zone defense tonight:
“I think we need to work on everything. Obviously, we had a little difficulty against that tonight (the zone defense). That is just another facet of the game that we need to get better in. I think, even with that being said, that wasn’t our main problem. Our problem was with our defense and we need to get better with that.”
On Steve Nash:
“I don’t think age really matters with Steve (Nash). Steve takes care of his body pretty well. He is in great condition and he’s a great player.”
“He’s able to get everybody involved and then he can flip a switch and turn it on. That is why he is a two time MVP.”
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| Mario Chalmers
“Their zone did affect us but at the same time we had a lot of open looks. We just weren’t able to knock them down.”
On Steve Nash:
“They set several pick and rolls for him. We tried to change our scheme up but we really didn’t do that.”
“He hit a lot of tough shots in the second half. They had a lot of goods screens for him and we just have to work a lot more on our pick and roll defense.”
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| Dwyane Wade
“You never want to lose at home but it happens. You learn for the game.”
“We didn’t execute well against the zone. It’s a different wrinkle that you’re not used to seeing. It’s still early in the season and we have to do a lot of practice on that. We’ll be better next time”
On Steve Nash:
“He willed his team to a victory. He really got it going offensively in the third quarter and we really didn’t have an answer for him. He gave them confidence and they made their run and kept it.”
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