Brian Hill Quotations

We're not going to rule out the playoffs until we're mathematically eliminated. I know the players would hate to hear this, but I'd love to go to training camp with this group of guys right now and start the season all over again.

We've always said there's something better down the road waiting for you. It wasn't the right time or the right place.

With the number of games we have left to go, the one thing we refuse to let happen is we're not going to come out and go through the motions. It doesn't matter who's out there playing as far as I'm concerned. We're just going to play the people who play the hardest.

We're still fighting for that playoff spot and that just means those teams in front of us have to keep winning to stay ahead of us.

We hold then to 40 percent from the floor, they shoot nine free throws but we turn it over 17 times. We need to shoot a higher percentage and get to the line more.

What we did this year has no bearing on how many games we win next year. There has to be a commitment in the off-season to get better, and there has to be a commitment when we come back to training camp. If we make that commitment, then we'll be a better basketball team.

Some of it was Chicago's defense and some of it was us being careless with the ball. They deserved to win. It was not one of our better efforts.

Since we made the changes, this group just really enjoys playing together. They're sharing the ball and pulling for each other. No one cares who gets the credit.

Sixty-two points combined out of their backcourt -- that's who they are.

Obviously with each win our guys are beginning to believe more and more. We want teams to know if they come into our place they are going to have their hands full.

My father always told me just worry about the things you can control and don't worry about anything else. I can't control the number of games we play. As long as we keep playing the way we're playing, that's the most important thing to me.

Maybe it says something about the fact that they were both raised in different countries. I think if you ask anybody, they'll tell you European players are more fundamentally sound than American players. And maybe the same is true for learning the game in Puerto Rico.

Now when a guy drives baseline, that's how I wanna to see you jump and contest the shot.

Obviously this was a much needed win. It was a good win that was kind of like Murphy's Law. Everything that could go wrong in the first half did go wrong. But we played very well in the second half and we clamped down on defense.

Obviously, (CMGI) stock should be up with Lycos,

If we're going to play inside-out, he's got to be able to play that way too,

I don't know anything about trades right now. It's all talk, there's nothing that I'm aware of that we have on the table.

I didn't like our offensive execution at all. I didn't expect us to come flying out of the gate to start the season, but I have faith in these guys. We've got to work harder and execute better at the offensive end.

I'd like to think that we're building an identity now.

I don't know whether you can call it a trend or not. But it's two games now where we've been better with the basketball offensively.

Carlos, having been a point guard his whole life, just has an understanding of where the ball should go. He's going to get the ball to the right people and knows when he's supposed to keep it himself. I don't expect him to go 7-of-11 every night, but he did a very good job tonight.

I feel for Bernie and his team. I hope Wallace is OK. When it rains, it pours.

I can't say enough good things about the bench. I thought early in the game we lacked energy. Guys came in and picked it up for us; picked up our defensive intensity. It was basically the same thing in the second half. We got good shots and good offensive production from our bench.

Give me 24 hours at least to savor this one. We just had a bad road trip. I want to relax a little bit and have a cocktail and then we'll talk about the starting lineup some other day.

Getting a young big man and a point guard, that doesn't happen very often. So to be able to do that in one-fell swoop and get two players you like is good.

If anything was learned this year it's the importance of all 82 games. It would have been a great learning experience and a nice reward for what they accomplished from the trade deadline on, but we're going to have to wait 'til next year.

If anything, this shows we're not throwing in the towel on the season.

I don't think it was because they missed open shots. Defensively, it might have been our best half of basketball all year. And it took all five guys.

He's had some opportunities. He's got to work hard to get low-post position. If we're going to play inside-out as a team, he has to play inside-out as an offensive player.

He has been on exhibit since his birth, but we had kind of kept the public at a distance until today, to give mom and baby a little peace and quiet and a little opportunity to get to know each other.

He (Howard) was very focused. He attacked the basket. He was really active on the defensive end and on offensive boards and he did a excellent job.

He looked like like he was still favoring it a little bit this morning when he was out on the floor. We just felt it would be much better for him if he waited until Wednesday's game and he was able to get a practice or two under his belt, rather than rush him right back into a game.

He made all the big shots when we were struggling offensively. He was fantastic. We don't win without him.

He needs to work on increasing his strength and stamina. He needs to do more (lifting weights) to become more of a presence in the low post.

We can live with that if we had rebounded the ball better.

This was obviously a real good win for us tonight. I thought we just really got excellent contributions from everybody at some point and time during the course of the game.

When he's getting to the line eight, nine, 10 times a night, that's when he's having a good offensive game.

To get 67 points from your bench ... there are nights when we don't get 67 as a team.

To get 26 rebounds, that's a monster effort for anybody. You don't see that too often in today's game.

He's a talented young man and wants to be able to do everything right now. But you have to take it in steps, and there's a natural progression to everything. To me, it's better to be extremely good in one area and then move on to another area, rather than just being mediocre.

He's done a great job this season and he's done a great job over the last few weeks. He's come along on both ends of the floor and that's something that we've really needed.

He's doing more than he's ever had to really do before, in terms of thinking about the game and playing all the parts of the game. And to combine that with chasing down every rebound, that's a credit to him that he's able to keep that pace.

We made some mistakes. We were compromised by how much attention we were paying to Kobe, but it was not for a lack of defensive effort.

He was pretty darn tired. But I wasn't going to take him out at the end of the game.

He just has one of those bodies, kind of like (Detroit's Richard) Hamilton, and the wiry-type guys can just run all night. He's like the Energizer bunny because he just keeps coming at you.

He just has a lot of pain in that abdominal area, and we're just trying to get to the bottom of it.

Just like the Medical Center, we had water in the Zoo. We lost one small animal that was spooked by the weather. All of the other animals came through during Tropical Storm Allison. During Alicia, I am told by some of the veteran zookeepers, that we lost two birds.

I thought we tightened it up a lot in the second half and we only gave up 41. That was the difference in the game. I don't think we were as sharp offensively and defensively to start the game but your going to have that. We'll take the win and move on and see if we can keep it going.

I thought we played sluggish and tired all night. Our energy wasn't there. I can't give you the answer. In that third quarter we didn't get any stops at all.

I thought we played sluggish and tired all night long. I just thought the energy wasn't there. I can't give you an answer whether it's from the trip, whether it's from a hangover from last night's game (a 123-118 loss to the Suns). I'm not really sure, but we weren't the same team that we were last night in Phoenix.

I thought we didn't have a lot of life. We started the game shooting a lot of jump shots.

I thought we mentally succumbed to fatigue in the beginning of the game because we played last night and that's what I told the team. We were the more aggressive team in the second half and got ourselves back in the game. We just didn't have enough to pull it off.

I thought we just gave in to fatigue at the end. We made a lot of careless mistakes in the fourth quarter. And Minnesota played well down the stretch.

I thought their guys coming off the bench won the game for them. Daniels and Taylor are the guys who came in and broke our back with 16 and 10 respectively.

I thought they got put on the line a number of times at the end of the game. But when you're a championship caliber team, that's what happens. You get put on the line in those situations.

I thought the second unit really gave us a lift defensively. I told the first unit at halftime that I thought it was a sub-par performance defensively and we have to thank the second unit for being in the lead at the half.

I thought (the second half) might have been our best defensive half of the season.

I thought the biggest thing was our defense in the fourth quarter. The other big thing was we had only five turnovers in the second half. That was a big problem for us in the first half -- we turned it over too much.

I thought that was a really good win for us tonight. I was really proud of our guys, the way we played in the second half.

I thought Stevie was great in the fourth quarter. We basically were just going to ride him, and he had, I thought, the perfect balance between when to look for his own move and when to penetrate and find other people.

I thought our guys played outstanding. We got contributions from everyone out there tonight. I'm very pleased with the way we played.

I thought our guys played outstanding. I'm very pleased with the way we played. In my heart this is the way I thought we would respond, but you just don't know.

I think we were the only team that invited him to training camp. I feel bad that he feels that way. But based on what we saw, we weren't going to be able to get him on the floor.

I think it's us struggling with our offense. I don't think it's so much what other teams are doing to us, I just think it's ourselves. Right now I don't see the mental toughness when we go out on the floor and play and like a team playing with that type of confidence, I think we're hurting ourselves more than other teams are hurting us.

I think the way you survive as a teacher is that you teach the kids so damn well that they are going to do well on tests anyway.

Last week every possession was a struggle. Now, not to say we've found the formula, but we're sharing the ball. And we're doing a better job of taking care of the ball. But it's only been two games.

Other than Carlos, our guards just got tentative in the second half.

Pierce had a phenomenal game. But other than that, we did a real good job defensively.

Sure they were disappointed, but I don't think it was reflected in our play. I thought the guys came out and gave us an honest effort. I don't think we played as well as we'd been playing but let's give Chicago some credit for that.

Steve looked like, I think, the Steve Francis that you guys were used to watching last year and that we anticipate. He was aggressive, he was attacking, he did a good job defensively.

Steve has played under control and yet at the same time has been aggressive at driving the basketball and creating opportunities. He's really played well lately.

That ball was about four feet behind him and I think it was actually deflected a little bit. That was a very, very special play by a heck of an athlete.

I tell the guys we've got to take care of our own business, and we're either going to get help from somebody else or not.

I think he just needs a chance. He's a very skilled player, but he hasn't had much of an opportunity. He was the No. 2 pick in the draft and Detroit took him for a reason. Sometimes we just pick guys who take a little longer.

I think this was definitely our worst loss of the season. It's very bitter to me simply for one reason that we couldn't come into the game focused because the other team had their best player out.

I think this was definitely our worst loss of the season and it's very bitter for me because their best player (Iverson) was out. I thought we were sloppy offensively the whole game and we weren't focused defensively. I thought from top to bottom it was from every individual, our worst game of the year.

That whole play upset me. When you're three-on-none and don't score, that's inexcusable.

That was a huge play. He ends up dribbling to the deep corner and knocking down the shot. We had some opportunities to shoot threes at the end but instead we shot twos.

That's two in a row on the road after 16 straight losses. This season is not over until after game 82. That eighth spot is anybody's and is up for grabs now.

Michael Redd is an outstanding offensive player. He made some big shots down the stretch.

We haven't stopped talking about it and that's where we are. We have games coming up with people ahead of us, Chicago, Philadelphia, Indiana, and that's certainly not overlooking tomorrow's game against Atlanta.

We just couldn't keep T.J. Ford in front us. If it wasn't for him, it would have been a much easier game.

You knew he was long and would be a factor that way. But he has very quick reactions. He's a quick second-jumper. He has not only blocked a lot of shots but changed a lot of shots.

You always want to play well against your former teams. But I don't think it's going to create a situation where anybody's going to become overly emotional or anything like that. If anything, maybe it raises your focus a little bit.

We finally got one and at least we won't be 0 and 82. We all needed it for our mental being. We are improving every game.

We couldn't make any shots and we didn't play very good defense in the first half, which got us in a hole. I give them credit - they're a heck of an offensive team. They're a tough team to guard. We shoot 38 percent and the other team shoots 53 percent, it makes it tough.

We couldn't keep T.J. Ford in front of us. He just went wherever he wanted to go with the basketball and created all kinds of scoring opportunities. If it wasn't for him, it would have been a much easier game.

Well, we made it interesting. A lot more interesting than we needed to after being up by 20. That's the danger of the Milwaukee team is their three-point shooting ability and tonight we just couldn't keep T.J. Ford in front of us. He just went wherever he wanted to go with the basketball and created all kinds of scoring opportunities for their team. If it wasn't for him, I think it would have been a much easier game.

Well, we made it interesting -- a lot more interesting than we needed to.

We had way too many turnovers in the first half. We gave them 17 points. Our offensive execution to start the third quarter was poor.

We had our chances. That's what it comes down to in tight games. Who is going to make the shots, make the plays at the end of the game.

We'll probably play him 4, 5 minutes a clip, and see how he does. We haven't had a chance to do a lot of up-and-down work because of all the injured bodies, but he's taken contact. His conditioning still has a ways to go, but the only way that's going to get better is to play. So we'll give it a go, and keep it a limited number of minutes.

We get the game where we have the opportunity to win it, then we turn it over. The turnovers in the second half I thought killed us - along with our inability to make shots.

We didn't execute on our last two offensive possessions down the floor and it cost us the basketball game.

We haven't had that discussion. We'll see what happens over the weekend, see how he feels and sit down and discuss what road to take.

We haven't ever stopped talking about it. We still have games against the people in front of us. . . . I said it before the season, during the season and I said it recently, it's all going to be decided in Game 82. Those six, seven and eight spots are going to be decided on the last day of the season.

We'll go through another transitional phase, but it'll be worth it to get guys back. Roles will change, adjustments will be made for the better.

We were in the children's zoo yesterday, a bull in the farm yard was snorting and would kind of give you the eye. I don't know if it was because of the weather, the barometric pressure, or if it was just the activity that there was no public around.

You'd like to see some momentum being gained with him and his status. But we'll just have to deal with it.

We didn't come out at the beginning of the game with the mind set that we were going to win this game. We did a better job in the second half, but we dug ourselves a hole early on.