Josh Howard Team Quotations

We did a great job with our team defense on him. Everybody who had a chance to guard him did a hell of a job.

They have great players on their team and they don't quit. We had them up by 10 twice and just couldn't put them away. It's hard like that when you have a great team like that your playing against. We finished it out when we needed to at the end.

It's a conference game, it's two of the best teams going against each other. Who would want to miss that?

We wanted to keep the ball out of his hands as much as possible. Through this whole winning streak, we've been playing great team defense. The last two times we played the Lakers, we didn't play great defense and let them take advantage of it. We got tired of it.

It's a big motivator. We've been a good defensive team and don't want to let that happen again. We're conscious of who can score the ball on the other team. We take that as a personal challenge.

We're just trying to hold teams under a certain percentage. It's a challenge for us and we take it out there every game. We study film, we have goals we set before every game and we try to reach those goals. We do reach those goals. As a team, we go out there and play hard every night on the defensive end.

Through this whole winning streak, we've been playing great team defense. The last two times we played the Lakers, we didn't play great defense and let them take advantage of it. We got tired of it.

That comes with that communication and the defensive scheme we've been working on all year. It's just been great team defense. If we communicate and do the things coach wants us to do, we win.

As long as we've got a team of guys that like being around each other, on and off the court, it's a good thing for us. I mean, we can take this thing to another level.

A lot of teams made a mistake in the NBA draft.