Jason Williams Quotations

We let those guys get back in the game a little bit. We have to play together for 48 minutes.

There are things that he consistently talks about, and it just doesn't change. It gets into your head so that when you're out there you don't have to think. You can almost hear him in the back of your head, like 'get to the middle, drive to the net,' so it's not like you have to think about what to do - you're doing it.

We're glad we have another chance to play. We think we should have gotten a little higher seed. We didn't. We just have to go out and enjoy it and have fun. Maybe this is finally a chance for us to get a little respect.

Scoring is up around the NHL, so I'm not going to think too much about it. But it's obviously it's a milestone I was hoping to reach.

Mike has placed a lot of confidence in me. It's basically in my hands what I want to do with it.

My influences are Priest Holmes and Walter Payton,

Obviously, you remember what happen because this was the makeup game. Everybody knows Jiri is all right now, and we're glad he's OK. Everybody tries to put it in the back of their minds, but I'm sure some guys though about it.

Obviously, it made a difference because they beat us by the one goal. But we didn't really look at it that much. We just tried to come out and get something going right away.

Right now, it is hard to tell what they're going to call. From night to night, it's pretty different.

On the replay you can clearly see it went in through the side, but that doesn't make it any easier to get your head back to the game after you think you've got it won.

I got into a role of being their first-line guy, on the power play, penalty kill, so I think it really prepared me for coming into this year, knowing that my role might be a little different. I think it's going to help me a lot.

I don't care what he said, if a judge thinks you are guilty, he will find you guilty.

I got back to playing on the power play, and playing on the penalty kill, playing on the first line, and things like that will help me,

He had the injury and I think he was hesitant to do what he did before. It was kind of tough.

He is going to stop the first ones. We've got to get those second chances and get bodies in front of him. I think when we do that it sort of gets goaltenders off their game.

He's a very intense guy, ... But he's very professional, too. You know where you stand with him. He likes to be prepared. If you're not prepared, he'll blame himself. And he prides himself on his team doing the little things and having that strong work ethic.

Just trying to sneak down the boards on the power play. Hank (Zetterberg) made a great pass and I just tried to get it on goal up high.

Just trying to sneak down the boards on the power play, ... Hank (Zetterberg) made a great pass and I just tried to get it on goal up high.

It always kind of starts bothering me around the middle of the third quarter.

I think that the opportunity to be a kid another year and not have to not worry about the responsibilities of paying bills, and worry about getting an agent and worry about getting an accountant was important.

Our first priority is to go out and win here. We want to finish up the regular season on a good note, get that second seed and get ready for the tournament.

Playing with Stevie, he might not be able to do as much as he could back in the day when he could skate a lot better, but there's a reason he's one of the greatest. He's so smart and he makes those right plays and it makes it easy for a guy like me to play with him.

Sure, we wanted to make it to the (NCAA) tournament. But this is a chance to go out and have another game. As a senior, you want that opportunity. We just want to make the most of it and play as many more games as we can.

State regulations require archeology involvement when digging in sensitive areas, but Gene's contribution goes above and beyond. He's taken such a personal interest in the history here and brought it to the attention of the Historical Society and the city,

I was trying to protect the puck and he stole it off me. I have to be stronger there, I have to make a play, that turnover cost us a goal.

It feels good to finally know who we are playing. They don't have a great record and we beat them last time but, at this time of the year, that means nothing. We've got to come out and play hard every game. This is the tournament and this is a chance for both teams. We've definitely got to rebound. They got 16 offensive rebounds. That's 16 extra possessions. We've got to stop that from happening. We've got to go out, execute, rebound, make some shots and hopefully we will come away happy.

It all happened too fast, ... I don't believe she saw the plane hit the pole.

We know this will be a tough game. They are talented and they really get out and pressure the ball. And they beat us last time. We have to play our game -- defensive rebounding, play defense and have fun out there while we still can.

We play fair and we play hard. If we win the game we win, if we lose the game, we lose.

wanted to come in and do what Stan wants me to do and what my teammates ask me to do.

UAB came out pressing us, and we spent a lot of time in practice on our press breaker. The first time we took care of the basketball. That's what we have to do this time.

We don't want to go to the NIT. But if we do, we'll go and try to win that, too. We will try to win every game, get to play more games and have fun.

We've got to come out and play hard and get wins where we can.

You cannot fix the problem of families fleeing the city by taxing them more.

We've played well on the road all year. We've been playing really well on the road all year. I don't think we're going to panic.

We feel like we can not just get there to the finals. We feel like we can get there and win it.

Every day it seems like it's changing. Everybody seems to be checking the standings a little closer. The next day, we're playing a totally different team. But it's a race and we want to make sure that we're taking care of business on our side.

There's really so much debris out there, you really can't tell what it is,

I've been praying it won't go to trial. But sometimes reality sets in, and I realize that a dismissal is probably not going to happen.

Things are working out for me right now, but I know there is a lot more for me to learn,

I've seen him play like this all the time. This is what we all knew he could do. It's really no surprise to any of us. It's good to see him go out and dominate pretty much and have fun out there and be a leader.

Priest, he's a hard runner who never gives up.

Probably when I was 8 or 9, because I knew I was the best player in the league, but that's about the last time. I always felt like we could win, because if I didn't feel we could win, what the use playing? But realistically, no, this is the first time.

Of course we want to win the tournament. We've got two bad losses and no key wins. If we beat UAB again, get to the finals and lose ... maybe ... hopefully, they will consider us over them. It's in our hands.

After last year, I told myself I was going to get stronger, and I wasn't going to go down on the first hit.

No way will we take anyone for granted. This team has come in every day of the season the same way -- win or lose. We just try to go out to the next practice and focus on the next team.

Any player would want to play with a center of his caliber. Until you really play with one, I don't know what it's like. I can only imagine -- and my imagination is amazing.

As it stands, I have fired four rounds, killed four squirrels and been visited by four police officers. The first time, they SWAT-deployed. This is silly.

They sagged off me a little in the first half, so I had to shoot. I never thought I was a good shooter, so I'd probably do the same thing if I were them. But I was just trying to hit my shots when they doubled Shaq.

They never give up. That's what makes them good.

They are really a good team. They always play us tough. I talked to Bryan Hopkins after the game, wished him good luck the rest of the season. We might see them again at the conference tournament. Who knows?

A break here or there, we had our chances to score. Those breaks were going in for us the last few games. We can learn from this and move on.

A conference tournament is always fun. You have all the teams there at one time. And the good thing this year is that all the teams get along good. We will enjoy the atmosphere. Our first goal is to win Saturday and clinch the second seed. We want to at least get to the finals of the conference tournament. We've been there the last two years.

It seems like now we're giving them both things. In our league I don't think you can take away everything. You got to give up something, so we just got to take away whatever's working for them that evening.

It's usually hard to get a ticket, and there's a great atmosphere around the rink. It's fun for both the fans and the players. With Sergei coming back, it'll just add to the night.

It started when I first picked up the ball because I was so much smaller than everyone I couldn't shoot; everyone would block my shot, ... I had to pass if I wanted to get on the court.

It's supposed to come in on Saturday, whatever, but it doesn't matter. If it comes in early, like a little bit, we could be stranded there. I was talking to my parents last night, joking around with them, but they were like, don't joke about that, it's not funny.

It just made me feel so good, knowing that these guys down here wanted me to come here and Shaq wanted me to play with him.

It's going to come down to their word against mine. People take what cops say as gospel, but cops are human too.

Everybody says that it takes a loss to lose and I think it did take a loss for us to lose in a sense. But overall, when we win games here at Duke, and we don't play well, we might as well have lost the game.

That is what great players do. When they see their team struggle, they try to pick it up anyway they can. He did a great job.

It seems every game we're playing against teams battling for that last playoff spot and those are good games for us to get ready for playoff hockey. We want to get it into their heads that they're not going to beat us in the playoffs.

It was good to go over there rather than sit around and not do anything for a whole year. I'm at the stage of my career where I can't sit out a year and not do anything. Going over there and playing, and getting to play in all situations, it was a good choice and hopefully it'll help me this year.

They clog up the neutral zone really well. We have to find ways to get through there.

They came out, and they played strong. They got the puck behind us, and they skated well. We sort of sat back and waited to see what they were going to do, instead of going ahead with our game and trying to let them adjust to us instead of us adjusting to them.

They've just gotten better and better every year. They've drafted real well, and those young guys are developing into good players.

Not many people expected us to be No. 1, especially cutting our salary right in half.

After watching (Ross) last year and seeing all the great things he did, it was in the back of my mind, 'I can either be as good as him, or try to be better than him,'

I'm going to approach it as I did every other year,

I'm going to do my best and let the chips fall, ... I can only control what I can do on the ice.

I'm not even thinking about suing anybody right now. That's the last thing on my mind.

I'm not letting him write anything. I didn't do anything. I just took his pen.

I'm a 100 percent behind his decision; I take responsibility for that. My main focus is that (Jackson) gets over this.

I know they have a great secondary player. He's a pretty good player. He can play Division I anywhere.

I must be responsible and accountable for my actions.

I'm happy with the point, but you'd still like to get two whenever you can. We had some chances late in the third period and again in the overtime. It was a tight-checking game with a playoff atmosphere. A game like this is good for us to get ready for the playoffs.

If you can get into a team's head that they can't beat us and are going to have to play their best hockey to even be close, that's going to pay dividends in a playoff series.

I just tried to have a couple moves in mind and try to go in and make him move first.

I know I'm going to get a good opportunity to get some minutes, get some playing time, so I just want to do what I can to get as much ice time as I can. I don't think it's going to be any easier or anything like that. I know if I don't do my job, I know someone else will be in my spot to do that. I don't want to give that up.

I have to come in and earn a spot; nothing will be handed to me, ... Hopefully everything I did over the summer will help me this coming season.

I have to be ready to take them (jumpers) when I'm open and when those guys double Shaq, he kicks it out and I take the shot.

I never thought of myself as a good shooter. I would do the same.

He sort of put the responsibility on myself to come into camp and earn a spot, and that's what I'm looking forward to doing,

I don't really care about my offensive night, ... We just need to get some wins.

I don't know if I'm 100 percent comfortable yet playing with these guys, ... But each game, I just try to get better.

Hopefully by the end of this (season), my name will be on the list as one of the better running backs to come through Lee.

He (the pilot) may have been a bit disoriented due to the conditions of the weather,

He's a much better scorer. He's been doing really good lately. But I didn't want him to score 30 on me. I didn't even want him to score 20. That doesn't happen.

If I can make him do what I want him to do, then I know where to put it. I find that you have to give some kind of fake to make him move.

I figured it wouldn't be long before he'd be an NHL coach,

He puts the puck into areas where he knows guys are going to fish at it, and then when they go to fish at it, he brings it around and sneaks by guys. He uses his body well to protect the puck and then he rolls off of guys very well, makes tight turns, and takes it to the net. That creates a lot of room for other guys on his line, because if you beat a guy towards the net, sometimes another guy is going to challenge, and once that guy challenges, something else opens up.

These games are going to be really crucial. It looks like we'll be fighting for the top spot in the division, and maybe the conference, so these games are going to be key for us. We have to try to get as many wins as possible.

This is a good feeling. We're coming off a loss (last Saturday at Central Florida) and we want to get to the (NCAA) tournament, and this is the first step.

This has been the worst time in my life, ... This whole process has been unreal.

The media is going to treat you good one day and bad the next day.