Jermaine O'Neal Team Quotations

Rick Carlisle has to be Coach of the Year. If you have great players, it's easy to win. If you take away those players, it has to be the coach. Take away the top two or three players from any other team and ask me if they'd be in position to compete.

To me, he's probably the best scorer in the league. Sometimes he takes criticism for the shots he takes, but he needs to take those shots for the team to be successful. He needs a low-post player. We joke all the time that we could play together. He's a guy who's going to make a low-post player better, and vice versa.

The team is really trying to focus in and guys are really going at each other in practice extremely hard, probably the hardest all year. That's good to see. When you bring that competitive nature to practice, you know you'll bring it to the game.

People base my dominance on scoring. I want to help the team control the paint, rebound and help the defense. We don't need me to score 20 points every night.

We can't wait around for Superman to come in here and save the town, save the team. It's up to us to get it done.

We are a terrible defensive team right now. We're not putting forth the maximum effort that we need to put forth, especially in our position. You'd think that we'd put forth that maximum effort to not only win the game, but to get a good rhythm to get into the playoffs.

We shouldn't even get paid for this game. I'm not trying to take anything away from the Bobcats, they played a heck of a game, but we feel like we are at another level. I felt like we were the expansion team tonight. I'm thoroughly embarrassed.

I'm a very emotional player. I use emotion because my team feeds off it.

If my team isn't motivated, it's my fault. I can't consider myself the best of the best until my team is able to get out of the first round.