Written by TheMicrowave
on Thursday, May 29, 2008
Coach Doc Rivers answers questions on Practice Day, Thursday May 29 2008, after the Boston Celtics’ win against the Detroit Pistons in Game 5 of the 2008 Eastern Conference Finals.
Q. I just wanted to ask you first of all about Tony Allen. How is he doing today?
Doc Rivers: He’s doing good. I haven’t talked to any extent to him or Eddie Lacerte yet. He was in this morning getting treatment, and we’ll find out tomorrow.
Q. When you look at the fourth quarter of last night’s game, are you concerned about getting a better finishing kick in Game 6?
Doc Rivers: Yeah. You know, I would like to have that same lead going into the fourth quarter in Game 6 first. We earned that lead. So I would like to get that first, and then once we got that, we clearly have to finish better. (Continued)
Written by TheMicrowave
on Thursday, May 29, 2008
Coach Flip Saunders of the Detroit Pistons, after the Pistons’ loss to the Boston Celtics in Game 5 of the 2008 Eastern Conference Finals.
Q. Flip, rebounding has been an issue throughout this series, but it really, really crushed you guys tonight. Talk about that.
Flip Saunders: We got beat off some penetration on the top, which used up our bigs. Perkins was great on the glass. We withstood a little bit the last game just because of McDyess, but what’s happened is they’ve broken us down on the perimeter a few times and we’ve had to use that, or Garnett is playing outside a lot and we’re having to rotate to him because he’s knocking down shots, and our big is rotating to big. We’re trying to get the ball out of their guards’ hand, Pierce’s hands, and we’ve got two bigs on the perimeter.
Perkins is eating us up. The games that they’ve won, he’s had big games. He’s played well for them as far as on the glass. Tonight was a game where Perkins played well, Rondo did a great job assist-wise, Allen had his best game and Garnett was great tonight. So they had four guys that played at a high level. (Continued)
Written by TheMicrowave
on Thursday, May 29, 2008
Coach Doc Rivers of the Boston Celtics, after the Celtics’ win over the Detroit Pistons in Game 5 of the 2008 Eastern Conference Finals.
Q. Just want to talk about the rebounding tonight. That seemed to be the biggest factor in this game tonight.
Doc Rivers: Yeah, we talked about it before the game. They destroyed us last game. McDyess had seven offensive rebounds on his own. Coming into this series, that was the number two things that we felt we had to do to win this series. Number one was pressure, ball pressure.
So we talked about it, and Perk went out and did it, and I thought that freed everyone else. He was sensational tonight, played with great energy. That’s three games in a row that Kendrick Perkins has been absolutely phenomenal. No one saw it the last game because we lost it, but he was fantastic in that game, as well, with his energy. It was just good. The rebounding was huge for us tonight.
Offensively I thought we were good, as well, shooting 51 percent. You know, you should win games, and we did. We made it interesting (laughter). (Continued)
Written by TheMicrowave
on Thursday, May 29, 2008
Point Guard Chauncey Billups of the Detroit Pistons, after the Pistons’ loss to the Boston Celtics in Game 5 of the 2008 Eastern Conference Finals.
Q. Just talk about where you guys are at right now, the task ahead. You’ve obviously been in this situation where you’ve had to win a six and a seven to advance. The fourth quarter run fire you up for it, wear you out?
Chauncey Billups: No, we’re obviously in a must-win situation. The good thing about it is we’re going home. We’ll be in front of our fans. You know, we’ve been here before. We’ve been here before, and we don’t like being in this position, but we’ve fought hard. We’ve fought really hard in this game, and we’ll be definitely ready for Friday’s game. (Continued)
Written by TheMicrowave
on Thursday, May 29, 2008
Forwards Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett of the Boston Celtics, after the Celtics’ win over the Detroit Pistons in Game 5 of the 2008 Eastern Conference Finals.
Q. Can both of you guys talk about the significance of getting Game 5 once again?
Paul Pierce: It’s a huge game. I mean, we don’t get this game, we put ourselves in position to have to win another road game. We know how tough it is to win out there in Detroit. It’s one of the biggest games that we played all year long. A crucial game at home, get the lead just to get some momentum, get the momentum back, and we knew it was going to be one of the toughest games of the series. We said that coming into it, that this is like a Game 7, and we responded. We knew it wasn’t going to be easy.
Kevin Garnett: What Paul said. We knew the significance of this game. You don’t win this game, you put basically yourself in a corner. I thought we had good focus, good energy to begin with. I thought third quarter was big for us. We came out with a lot of energy. They made a run probably, I think, the late third and first part of the fourth, but for the most part you know they’re going to make a run. You know they’re experienced, and they’ve been in a lot of pressure situations. Now it’s up to us to go up there and try to get one. (Continued)
Written by TheMicrowave
on Thursday, May 29, 2008
Center Kendrick Perkins and Shooting Guard Ray Allen of the Boston Celtics, after the Celtics’ win over the Detroit Pistons in Game 5 of the 2008 Eastern Conference Finals.
Q. Ray, Doc talked a little bit about how even when you were having some offensive struggles in the series, you tried to make up with the defensive ball movement, but it really went hand in hand. How did you try to orchestrate those two over the last few games in terms of being physical with Rip Hamilton and moving the ball? And did that translate to your offense tonight?
Ray Allen: Well, clearly throughout the season, the one thing that I learned about me on this team is that I don’t need to score. Scoring is going to help the team, but we have so many options on this team that making the team better in small little ways, where I had to learn — become more efficient with my scoring. Over my career I’ve taken a lot of shots, and I think coming into this playoff series, my shots have been very limited, you know, you’re talking six to ten shots a game, and not worried about affecting the offense or being a great part of the offense. I knew being on the floor I had to have an impact, make my teammates better in whatever small ways possible.
If I wasn’t shooting the ball tonight, I didn’t want to be sitting on the defensive end. I wanted to make sure that I made defensive plays and trying to make these guys better. (Continued)
Written by TheMicrowave
on Thursday, May 29, 2008
Coach Doc Rivers of the Boston Celtics, before Game 5 of the 2008 Eastern Conference Finals.
Q. Is Tony Allen dressing tonight? And if not, who’s replacing him on the active roster?
Doc Rivers: These deep, penetrating questions. No, he’s not dressing tonight. He got injured, I guess, in the one-on-one games yesterday. So Scalabrine. (Continued)
Written by TheMicrowave
on Thursday, May 29, 2008
Coach Flip Saunders of the Detroit Pistons, before Game 5 of the 2008 Eastern Conference Finals.
Q. Is there anything in this series that in your judgment and experience you haven’t seen before in terms of teams playing well, then playing inexplicably bad, things going the way you planned, things not going the way you planned? In other words, is it a typical playoff series in your mind?
Flip Saunders: I think it’s pretty typical. Probably the biggest difference is I think neither team probably expected to have back-to-back — both home teams lose in back-to-back situations, basically Games 2 and 3. That we would win here on the road and they would come right back and win at our place, I don’t think either team probably envisioned that.
But you have teams, and I said this from the beginning, when you have teams that are very similar, what I mean by that is some of the main parts of each team, they have the same strengths with like I said, Hamilton, Allen, both storing-type guards. The Garnett matchup as far as with Rasheed Wallace, you have one of the better defensive forwards in Tayshaun Prince versus one of the better offensive players in their leader as far as in Paul Pierce.
We thought what would be big for us would be Chauncey at that position. Of course Chauncey has been hindered a little bit, but I thought last game he came out and ran the show for us and did a nice job. That’s why I think the series has been as competitive as it’s been. (Continued)
Written by TheMicrowave
on Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Center Kendrick Perkins answers questions on Practice Day, Tuesday May 27 2008, after the Boston Celtics’ win against the Detroit Pistons in Game 3 of the 2008 Eastern Conference Finals.
Q. Perk, can you just talk about Paul was saying when you guys broke the huddle, he reminded everybody of the opportunity you guys have in front of you.
Kendrick Perkins: Yeah. I thought last night we dropped our guards a little bit. I thought we were cool the whole game. I didn’t think we had the energy level and focus that we did in Game 3. But, you know, we did what we had to do, split, got home-court advantage back, and we’ve just got to take care of tomorrow. (Continued)
Written by TheMicrowave
on Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Forward Paul Pierce answers questions on Practice Day, Tuesday May 27 2008, after the Boston Celtics’ win against the Detroit Pistons in Game 3 of the 2008 Eastern Conference Finals.
Paul Pierce: We’re the type of team, like I said all year, we don’t get too up on wins, we don’t get too down on losses. We’ve got a loose group. We came out here, watched some film, went over some plays, went over some things. That’s what the playoffs is all about. Each game is an adjustment, and our guys have to just remain positive and stay together. We came out here and made some adjustments, and that’s how it’s going to be. We’re going to stay loose, and we understand that we’ve got to go tomorrow. (Continued)
Written by TheMicrowave
on Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Forward James Posey answers questions on Practice Day, Tuesday May 27 2008, after the Boston Celtics’ win against the Detroit Pistons in Game 3 of the 2008 Eastern Conference Finals.
Q. Just describe, I guess, the situation you guys are in.
James Posey: Worry about our next game, which is tomorrow, and that’s all the team is focused on.
Q. Do you get encouraged by the fact you guys have won both your Game 5s and do you see that as a thing of the past?
James Posey: I don’t really know, we’ve just been winning and taking it one game at a time. We’ve been playing well at home. (Continued)
Written by TheMicrowave
on Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Coach Doc Rivers answers questions on Practice Day, Tuesday May 27 2008, after the Boston Celtics’ win against the Detroit Pistons in Game 3 of the 2008 Eastern Conference Finals.
Doc Rivers: We didn’t get off to a fast start yesterday, but we had plenty of chances to win the game. We were down five, down three in the fourth quarter. We didn’t play well, clearly.
Q. (Inaudible).
Doc Rivers: Well, I thought they attacked. They were more physical. They fouled us hard, they bumped us off our spots. We’ve been a team in the games we’ve won that pressured them. They were the team that pressured us. (Continued)