SONICS COACH NATE MCMILLAN:

On the Sixers:
I thought they continued their impressive play for 48 minutes. They basically had control of the game in Philadelphia in the game that we shot more threes than twos, but we knocked down our shots. That’s a good defensive team. They showed that tonight by really making Rashard (Lewis) and Ray (Allen) work for their points. The pick-and-roll defense was solid. Defensively we couldn’t stop them and gave up an average of 28 points a quarter. We didn’t control them in transition - 23 points in transition. Way too many points. They basically controlled this game.

On the free-throw discrepancy:
That was the key. Some of those calls you feel like it’s going their way, but you’ve got to try and keep those guys out of the paint and keep them in front of you. They went to the line 40 times and got 32 points from the free throw line. That shows this team is very aggressive getting in our paint and we didn’t do a good job of keeping them in front of us.

On the Sonics defense:
A lot of their supporting cast was scoring on us. That was due to breakdowns on penetration, whether we were containing the ball and giving them looks on the perimeter or just breaking down and not keeping those guys in front of us. They had other guys playing well early.

On the bench:
That’s one thing I really have to look at. I was searching for some energy and scrapping tonight playing 11 guys, but that’s going to be hard to do. It was just a night when Philly was the better team. They did what we thought we would do.

On Luke Ridnour's performance:
I thought he knocked down some shots tonight. He did a good job of taking shots, moving the ball, creating offense. We seemed to have a rhythm when he was in the game. It was nice to see him knocking down some shots.

GUARD ANTONIO DANIELS:

On defending Allen Iverson:
He’s tough every night. When the guy has the ball in his hands that much with that much freedom and the ability that he has, along with quickness, he’s a very, very difficult match-up. When he gets it going, gets in a rhythm, makes 1-2-3 shots in a row he’s a very difficult guy to guard.

GUARD LUKE RIDNOUR:

On defending Iverson:
It’s tough to guard someone who attacks that much. He hit some big shots in that fourth quarter, got some layups that were tough. Their entire team did a good job tonight.

On the Sonics struggling from three-point range:
We were getting the same looks as we usually do, but we can’t rely on that night in and night out, to hit threes all the time. We’ve got to find different ways to score. I think we scored enough points to win the game, we just didn’t get the stops we needed.

On his offense:
I was just trying to attack the basket and make things happen. I haven’t been shooting well, so I tried to get some easy stuff rolling for my team.

PHILADELPHIA COACH JIM O'BRIEN:

On the game:
This was one of the few games all year that we were able to put together four solid quarters. I thought our offense and defense was very consistent. It was a great win for us against a very good basketball team. It was nice to continue our winning ways on the road.

On Iverson:
I think he is a guy that feels the responsibility of stepping up in the second half. He’s our leader and he knows that we are gonna call his number enough times that we are going to allow him to get hot. We’re not going to go away from him. He is just an extremely confident basketball player.

On his strategy against the Sonics:
We tried to match their lineups. When they went big, we went big and strong. When they went small we tried a new lineup with Corliss (Williamson) to be able to defend our pick-and-rolls better. I thought overall that we just played a terrific basketball game in every phase. We rebounded the ball well. It was just a solid, solid effort.

GUARD ALLEN IVERSON:

On the game:
It’s just about playing for 48 minutes and getting it done. We believe in each other and we know that the people back in Philly believe in us. We just wanted to come out here and play like we believe in ourselves. So far we are doing it and it’s a good feeling.

On strategy against the Sonics:
This year we have been playing well against three-point shooting teams. We knew they were gonna come out and hoist up a lot of three-pointers. We just wanted to contest them and not give them a lot of open looks. We feel like if we got a hand up at their three-pointers then we did our job.

FORWARD KYLE KORVER:

On the Sixers:
I think we are playing really confident. We have five in a row on the road and we feel like we can get them. We are just excited right now.

On what's changed:
It has come together. I think that we were kind of looking for a spark and I think Allen’s 50-point games might have been that. He’s been our leader all year and when he had those games it got everybody excited again. We have just been playing a lot more inspired basketball, I think.

Notes: