Rick Adelman Trying Quotations

We were trying to make the spectacular play, and all we talked about at halftime was trying to make the simple play. I thought the first half we really forced a lot of things, and during the second half, we calmed down the ball pretty well.

We're just trying to make sure somebody's on him all the time.

We're just trying to get one of those eight (playoff) spots, we don't care where it is. It's going to be a fight right down to the end.

We played at a frantic pace instead of the way we wanted to play. We quick-shot it, we turned it over -- we just fueled whatever they were trying to do. We have to be a smarter team than that.

We haven't been playing well these last seven games and our offense was the thing hurting us the most. Guys were trying to do everything on their own and we need to get back to trusting our teammates and passing the ball. We weren't paying much attention to detail in these last seven games, but we were better tonight.

We still control our own destiny and teams still have to catch us. In the past seven games, we haven't been paying attention to detail. Guys were trying to do it themselves. We wanted to come out with a different energy and we showed it tonight. Hopefully we can build off this, but we'll find out at Golden State (on Friday).

Everything is so new. We're trying to get a sense of what guys can do. So far, they've responded. Every day we've mixed it up with people playing with different people.

Ronnie hasn't been trying to force the issue, he's playing under control. We know he can make shots and guard people, and he has a great work ethic. I think he has a great chance to stick in this league for a long time.

Our energy level tonight was up. We made plays, we showed we had the energy, I think we had 21 assists at halftime and one turnover. Our offense was efficient tonight. We haven't been playing well these last seven games and our offense was the thing hurting us the most. Guys were trying to do everything on their own and we need to get back to trusting our teammates and passing the ball. We weren't paying much attention to detail in these last seven games, but we were better tonight.

There were about five or six opportunities they got just from a lack of concentration on our part. We just have to keep our minds on what we're trying to do defensively. We didn't do that.

I didn't envision anything. At the time, we were just trying to right the ship. I didn't really know what was going to happen.

The Jazz were the aggressors and they took the game over and we just caved in. We came out and gave it to them. We didn't guard them. We turned it over and we just waited for something to happen instead of trying to make it happen.