Doc Rivers Played Quotations

It came down to the fact that they've been together and they trusted each other. They made a run and they played great defense. You knew they were going to do that.

It is nice when you are a scorer like Ricky and you can make a contribution in another way besides scoring. That first quarter might have been the worst defense we played all season, but they turned it around with the way (Davis and Pierce) played in the fourth quarter.

You just got to feel at some point, it's going to turn our way. I felt horrible for them. They fought their butts off. I thought other than the middle of the third quarter, when we stopped playing for one stretch, I thought we played just great basketball.

We played as soft as a team can be. They were tougher mentally, physically and there was no way we were going to win that game.

We played really hard tonight and I thought our defense was phenomenal. On most nights it would have been enough to win.

We have to make sure that Wally and Paul have shots at the end of the game. I'm disappointed in the loss. We played hard, but we're not playing smart.

We had our chances tonight in the game that we never really played great, never had any offensive rhythm. We had one stretch where we did; other than that, we didn't and we just didn't come through.

The defensive (side) was phenomenal by both teams. It was a game played in mud. I just told the guys I thought they fought for the most part. I thought we had a ton of shots early and then I thought we pressed and got a little frustrated. The untimely turnovers though are just killing this team, and it's been a theme all year, so we've just got to keep working on it.

Wally and Paul played so well off each other. Well, everybody did a great job. The defense, at times, was really good with the rotations, and I just thought the ball moved great.

We gave away so many opportunities with the turnovers. They didn't score on them, but they took us out of scoring. I thought we played so passive in all three of the overtimes once we got the lead. We were trying to hold on to the lead instead of being aggressive.

We were playing a team that was obviously playing desperate and you could see that play in them. We're loose and we played aggressive.

Another calm night. I think we deserved that one after the last two times that we played them. We felt we stole this one tonight. But we felt they stole two from us, so we owed them that one.

They really came in to show us, prove a point, whatever you want to say. They came in and played great, so just give them credit. ... But their performance didn't sway me at all with the trade. The trade was a tremendous trade for us and, hopefully, a good trade for them. One thing about Mark and all of them, I hope they do well. I just didn't want them to do well against us.

I told them we played with them and that's great. But at the end of the day, we didn't win the game. And I told them the moral victory stuff, that's for teams who think they are losers.

I had no intentions of playing him. I didn't think he wanted to play. But he ran into my office with his shoes in his hands saying he was ready to go. The only reason I played him was because he was starting at me every freaking time out. I told the coaches, we have to put him in, or he's going to drive me nuts.