Rick Carlisle Struggled Quotations

The second and third quarters hurt us defensively. We struggled and had some stretches where we couldn't stop them. Detroit is a team that is going to do a good job in the last play type of situations, but I'm more in tune to what happened in the second and third quarters than on the last play.

It's been tough for Fred this year because of the thumb; he's been in and out of it. He played great in the first two games, and I wanted to give him the opportunity to start and play a real significant stretch of minutes. We struggled to get him the ball (Saturday). I have to do a better job of putting him in a position where he can attack the basket and make plays. He wasn't able to do that, that's his game.

He's struggled lately shooting the ball and I was concerned he was due to come out of it. He's playing very well. What he's doing defensively has everybody in the league taking notice.