Rick Carlisle Three Quotations

At the start of the game he struggled. Of all the games that he's played in it was the worst start to a game that he's had. He got three quick fouls.

I have been voting for this guy as an all-star for three years. I am no closet fan. I am an out-there fan. I love the way he plays, and he is a guy you really fear.

It's important to be playing well and we played better the last three games. If we hadn't won three straight games, we could easily be out of the playoff picture.

It's clear off the last few games that he's a difference maker for us. I'm not going to look to play three guys just to play three guys. I'm going to look to try to have a rotation where guys can be comfortable. But you have to be accountable and play your minutes hard. Otherwise there are good players behind you; that's the fact. Our point position hasn't been this strong in a long time. It's good news for us.

With 18 games left, I think everybody is getting into a playoff mode here. Let's face it, from five on down to eight, there's going to be two or three games separating (the teams). So each win is really vital.

Jamaal plays a big part of our success. We're going to have to deal with it. It's tough. We got guys that can step in. We'll re-evaluate where he's at after three games.

We're finding out more about this group every game. We have a lot of guys that can contribute, but I have to evaluate it based on performance, the rotation, all those things. These (past) three games will be important to look at.

The guys got together and decided to make a stand. If we hadn't won three straight games, we could easily be out of the playoff picture.

We knew he was somehow going to touch it, whether or not he was going to hand it off to somebody else or take the shot. We had three straight timeouts to talk about it. We did a good job on the first two plays, and the third one they got us and got an open look. We're fortunate to be going back to the hotel with a win.

We knew he could get unbelievably hot. In the fourth, it started with that three from the corner. Then he shook loose a couple of times on other plays. Until then, we had them under control.

It's just too bad, because we really played hard for three quarters. The second quarter was really a disaster for us. It put us in a bad position at halftime, but we fought back and really put ourselves in a good position to win.

We competed hard from start to finish. It came down to Duncan making some tough shots. They hit that lucky 3 from the corner, which was a bad break for us. We hung in and played and gave ourselves a chance till the last minute. It's three losses in a row. There's no moral victories. You have to find a way to win games.

You're on a back-to-back, Chicago has been sitting here for three days and you lose Jermaine O'Neal in the first half -- our guys showed a lot of character. It was great.

We did it for three quarters, but down the stretch, we just didn't. We didn't step up like a good team should.

If we hadn't won three games, we could be well out of the playoffs. That's not what we want. We want to be in and have a chance to get as high a seed as we can.

We're still doing a lot of things we wanted to do, but when you don't have three 7-footers out there to go through stuff, it makes it hard. We have to roll with it and hope we can get guys back as quickly as possibly but not rush them back.

Three days ago it looked like it might be a possibility. He is doing better. It's just not the right time to push it. Also, if we would have did it, he would have been playing a game without almost any practice time leading up to it, which would have been hard. It makes it tough because he does a good job on (Shaquille O'Neal).

It's been like this the last two or three times he's come back. It's been hard to get what you call real practice time because of the frequency of games.