SONICS COACH NATE MCMILLAN:

On the game:
Tough game to swallow. Just a lot of mental errors tonight. Not defending the ball, offensively thinking that you can outscore teams. Shot selection - tonight, I thought we were too quick with the three-point ball. Our game plan is to make teams attack the basket and we tried to make it a shootout. Whenever we took the quick longball, they ran off that and they ran off our turnovers, 22 fastbreak points and 52 points in the paint. You’re not defending your paint and 31 threes, you’re not attacking the basket, you’re trying to make this a shootout and we didn’t shoot the ball well and didn’t execute.

We had the opportunity to win that game. We tried to dribble in traffic; we tried to make the homerun pass a few times. Coming up with stops, we didn’t rebound the ball, we didn’t finish the play. Just too many errors. Not enough execution.

On whether the Sonics were outworked:
I think yes, no question about it. I think they showed tonight it’s not about the talent as opposed to how you play and how you play the game. I thought defensively they got after us tonight, offensively they attacked us and showed patience and ran their offense and whenever we had breakdowns they made us pay for it. They were without two of their key guys and they found a way to win tonight. We can’t rely on outscoring people. You’ve got to defend the ball and control the ball and get stops. And we didn’t do that. And offensively, you’ve got to execute.

On Earl Boykins' performance:
I thought he did a good job of controlling the game. His speed, his quickness, he was able to just probe until someone broke on defense. He knocked down a big three and made some big plays. But it wasn’t just Boykins. (Marcus) Camby made some big plays. A couple of those guys played solid and did what they had to do to win tonight.

GUARD ANTONIO DANIELS:

On the game:
We’re all NBA players and NBA teams just like we are. You can’t afford to play records or names or worry about who is playing, who isn’t playing. You still have to go out with the same effort. I think maybe when they had a couple of guys go out, and Kenyon Martin wasn’t playing, maybe we took them for granted. We should definitely be disappointed with ourselves with the effort we put forth tonight. But that happens sometimes. Just like I’ll tell you after a win, we win together, we lose together, we pick our heads up and worry about Minnesota on Friday.

On the Sonics effort:
We had good looks and shots just didn’t go. But whether or not our shot is falling it shouldn’t determine how hard we play defensively. I think that is a very bad habit of this team. I think it because we are a young team and we haven’t done a lot yet. But we have a tendency to kind of drop our heads and not play as well defensively.

GUARD RAY ALLEN:

On his final shot of regulation:
I had a good look at it. It looked like it was going in but it was just typical of my whole night. I felt like I let the team down tonight.

On his off night:
I’ve had nights like this before, I just haven’t had too many of them. It wasn’t anything that I can put my finger on. Everything that I shot looked good when it left my hand. It just wouldn’t go in for me. That’s when it hurts the most. There is nothing you can do about it. You keep fighting it. It’s just disappointing.

DENVER COACH MICHAEL COOPER:

On the game:
Am I surprised that we won the game? No, because this team has been playing but we just haven’t come up with complete games. This was a complete game after missing K-Mart to start and having Carmelo (Anthony) go down. It was just good team basketball. They beat a very, very, very good ball club tonight, but I think we are also good.

On changing the offense in overtime:
We were just trying to create mismatches. Earl had it going and we put him in some pick and rolls. He was making great decisions tonight in the game. We just got out of that selfish mode. That’s what we have to do to win games, we can’t beat ourselves.

On his use of zone defense:
People will talk about the zone defense, but as Dr. Naismith put it, you have to use everything you can that is legal to be in the game. Our zone defense has been helpful for us. As we get better on offense, it helps our offense.

On Marcus Camby's game:
Marcus is always big for us. Anyone that can close the middle down for us … he does so many other things for us. He talks on defense and sometime I let him make his own calls out there defensively. He is very vital for us and when he is shooting ball out there like he was tonight, that means he is a double threat out there for us.

On Boykins:
Earl was just doing what we needed him to do. He’s like a little waterbug out there. He creates mismatches and he always has the mismatch with speed. He was making good decisions.

CENTER MARCUS CAMBY:

On the game:
After losing last night and having guys suspended or not being out there, that made this a huge win.

On his strategy:
I was just trying to be active. I know they have some big bruisers down there and they are going to crash the boards. I just tried to match their intensity. It was all their bigs against me. It was just being active and a lot of luck being in the right place at the right time.

GUARD EARL BOYKINS:

On how Anthony's injury changed his mindset:
I did look to score a lot more after Carmelo went down. I began to get more aggressive and my teammates did a great job of getting me the ball every time down the court. Guys were looking for me to get the ball. We just played well as a team.

On the win:
A win like this shows that if we play together and we stay together no matter what happens. And if we play with great effort and energy like that then we are capable of playing with anyone in this league. Tonight we did that.

Notes: