Jerry Sloan Guys Quotations

None of this has any bearing on who will start the season. I told them that today. I've got to move a lot of people around. I've got to see how different guys play off the bench, see how they play with other people.

I had said it would be a big disappointment if the team didn't make the playoffs. I'm not sure that we have enough guys that are hungry enough to want to be in the playoffs. The toughness to be able to get there sometimes doesn't show up. I take responsibility for that. That's my job to make them tougher or whatever it takes for them to be able to play.

Give (the Heat) credit, because they're a great team. They've got guys who can get to the basket and get to the free throw line. We don't have a guy who can get 20 free throws a night. So how are we going to play? We've got to do it from a team concept, by passing the ball and being ready to pass it.

He is a tough assignment for anybody. He's a terrific player. He can put the ball on the floor. And they've got the right complement for him: They've got guys that can make 3-point shots.

Guys are not getting enough shots. Shoot every time they touch it. Instead of executing the play, they break every play down. It's pretty hard to have any kind of team concept with that.

He's a very confident guy, but I probably got into his confidence level a little bit. The important thing to me was he fought threw that little spell we had and his confidence grew and grew. He can see a lot of things on the floor not many guys can see. I've been around a long time and watched a lot of different guys play this game. He has great knowledge of basketball.

He should be upset. I was upset, too ? but my job is to try to get these guys to go play again (tonight). He always has the right to do whatever he wants to do. I know that.

Guys played a lot harder. They played a lot more determined to try to win, rather than the way we have been.

I think it's been pretty good for most of our guys here because they got a chance to play some. They're not playing garbage minutes. We're trying to win ballgames with them.

I think we do believe in the offense now. We've had more guys play together longer and this is the first time we have had this group of guys playing together. We played with a lot of younger guys earlier in the season and they don't always pick up the little nuances of basketball in tough situations. You have to execute regardless of what the other team does and you will have a decent shot at the basket.

I thought our guys were playing hard tonight. I really thought we were playing hard. Dallas gets to it and they get whatever they want and go inside and really take it to you. They've got guys that can put it on the floor, they got a lot guys that can pass and they got guys that can shoot it out on the floor. You have to be really good to try to stop them.

I think they've always been fairly responsive. Everybody has their own way of playing and everybody has their strengths. In order to get 12 guys happy in that situation, it's kind of difficult at times to do. But I think for the most part they've done a pretty good job.

Our guys looked like they had their bags packed at halftime.

Our guys kept thinking, 'We have a chance. We have a chance.' That is so huge in this business. I hope we learned something from that tonight.

I thought he (Palacio) played pretty well. He played defense well, which is tough no matter which of those guys you put him on. The important thing is we did a good job of keeping them on top of the basket and made them shoot over the top of us.

We just couldn't do anything with them in overtime. I can understand guys missing shots, but I don't understand not being able to block them off the boards and give them second shots while we're trying to win a ballgame. They got to the free-throw line and we didn't. That was the difference in the game.

We were in the ball game. I thought our guys played pretty hard. We got waxed pretty hard last night (a 110-85 lost to Cleveland), but I thought our guys played pretty hard tonight, but that's the way it goes.

We kind of fought back a little in the second half. We got to within six or seven points and then they just annihilated us. Our big guys just looked like they were running in mud.

We gave (Sacramento) everything they needed to get their game going and win the ball game. I took the timeout with four minutes left in the fourth because I felt like the guys that were in just weren't going to get the job done.

As soon as you whip yourself but shaking your head and feeling sorry for yourself, you're a whipped pup. I'm sorry, but that's the way it is. Guys on the other team love seeing that. They love to see you shake your head and say, 'Oh my goodness, now what am I going to do?'

I understand guys missing shots and that sort of thing. But I don't understand not being able to block them off the boards and give them second shots right when we're trying to win a ballgame.

They executed, they got on top of the basket. If you made a mistake defensively, they took care of it. They made us turn the ball over if we messed up our spacing on the floor. They used us on the pin down. Guys couldn't get up and get over screens. It was kind of a revealing experience for our players. You see those things and talk about those things, but we aren't able to get to that point where we can stop that sort of thing.

There may be times when we use him like that. He can guard some guys bigger than him.

It looked like we didn't belong. They just waxed us. Our guys looked afraid, and I hate to use that word. This is one of the most disappointing games I've ever been involved in that had some significance.

They are good and did a lot of good things, but our guys did not respond. That's the most disappointing game I've been involved with.

After we got beat by 30 points over there I didn't know what we would do tonight. I thought our guys came out strong, they ran hard and went to the basket a little harder than they did the other night.

Size doesn't make any difference. Heart is what makes a difference. These guys over there want to make the playoffs more than we do. That's indicated by the way they play, how hard they play.

I'm really glad for what happened to Karl Malone, but these guys weren't involved in that that much. Their basic job is to get ready and play basketball, and I didn't think we came out with that intention.

If you're supposed to be on a certain place on the floor defensively, you've got to get there. You can't just go crazy. And if you've got a certain assignment on the offensive end of the floor, that all remains the same. But if we break it down because we've got something else in mind, then the other four guys don't have any idea what we're doing. It's just basketball. But we have to play it together.

He's in much better shape than a year ago. One of the important things for guys to remember is to be in great shape, so if you do have something go wrong, you don't get yourself behind to start.

These guys are excited about winning. They're excited about playing and pulling for each other. We didn't have that two weeks ago. We didn't have all our players (because of injury). Now we have a little bit of an idea of when our guys will play. Before it was potluck.

All I'm asking for from these guys is for them to compete hard ... If you like the game enough, this is what you want.

And, ... it's a lot easier to get guys to put on a jacket than play good defense for 48 minutes. I mean, have you ever seen Ostertag try to move his feet in the post? You've got to be kidding me. Just put on the stupid coat.