Chauncey Billups Core Quotations

Did I think we'd get off to 20-3? No, I didn't think that, but we've got some good veterans plus our core is the same.

I'm not sure what's wrong. They've been able to score points against us early. We give teams that freedom early on and when we try to play lock-down defense it's tough, because they've already got it going.

You know what I mean, just waiting to collide. There were some struggles in my first couple of months. There were definitely some struggles with Coach Brown. But we both sacrificed a lot. We came to a happy medium and it's been a perfect marriage ever since then. My game has definitely grown playing for Coach Brown. I think I look at the game in a different light. I understand that I can dominate a game now without having to score as much as I usually do on most nights.

We never believe we are out of a game, no matter what the score is. You can't measure our pride.

It helped us tremendously. That first game back from a West Coast trip is always difficult to get back into the swing of things and get adjusted to the time zone and all of that. Without that, you don't see us score 38 points in the fourth quarter.

We haven't heard that around here for a long time. Flip, he's an offensive genius. For the last three or four years, that's the one thing - the only thing - about our team that was predictable. And I think it hurt us at times, us not being able to score points.

He's a volume shooter and he's pretty much the No. 1 and No. 2 options for them. He's going to shoot a lot of shots, and he's going to make some tough ones and score some points. We'll be right there doing whatever we can to make it harder on him.

He's a guy who can score anywhere on the court. He passes. He plays great defense,

We're never out of the game. You can just never measure pride. We're never out of the game, no matter what the score looks like. Tonight was a great example of that.

I think we'll be a lot better offensively. Defensively, we could be as good. But when you play a faster-paced game, naturally, that other team is going to score a couple more points.

Our defense is going to stay the same. Teams might score a few more points because we might play a little bit at a faster pace, but our defense will remain one or two in the league.