Chauncey Billups Last Quotations

We're just looking to be consistent now. Hopefully we can keep being good defensively and keep working offensively. That started a few games ago; we had a good win last night so we just want to keep it going.

Milicic created a brief fi restorm midway through last season when he griped publicly about his endof-the-bench status. A meeting among Milicic, Brown and president of basketball operations Joe Dumars eased those tensions, but Billups revealed that Milicic remained sullen and frustrated by Brown's constant rebukes.

He had a tough night against us last time, but he was having a tough night against us in Miami, too, before he got going in that fourth quarter. It is what it is. I'm looking forward to it, though. It's always nice to play them.

We are finally playing a team that's fighting for something, just like us. That's something new for us. The last few weeks we've been playing teams that are out of the race and have nothing to play for, and we sort of let our guard down. When you play against tough teams like Miami, there's no room for error. You can't let your guard down. I am looking for to it, man, I really am.

Our only motivation is not winning it last year. That's our whole motivation. We thought we was the best team in the world last year and came up a little bit short. We feel the same way again and we want to validate that.

Our last game was Tuesday, so I had a couple days to soak it in. That's when it kind of hit me that I made it. I'm an All-Star. It's still a little surreal right now. It's something that I always wanted.

We came into this game very focused, trying to get back on the right track. We knew we let one get away last night and it wasn't our best (performance).

With the tough game we had last night and traveling as well, this team was waiting on us.

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.

We're not into it. Because we know once we do get into it, it's a long grind. We've played until June the last two years, and that's long. That's three months. When it's time, we'll be ready.

We got longer, younger and more athletic. This year we played a little more up-tempo than we did last year.

When you have to take the ball out, you can't run. This last couple of weeks our defense hasn't been the same. When you have to take that ball out, you can't get transition baskets.

We just wanted to go out there and protect our home court. We knew they played a tough game last night, so we wanted to jump on them early and take care of business.

Also, a part of this whole thing will be me getting my degree and working toward that, which I take a lot of pride in -- obviously, I haven't taken enough pride in over these last few years, but it's time for me to buckle down and get that taken care of, too.

It's always good when the top teams play. You always look forward to that. Obviously, we have some history with that team being in that tough, grind-it-out series last year. It's going to be fun.

Tay had us on his back last night and we couldn't quite get the victory. He had us on his back again tonight, and he carried us all the way through.

Tay had us on his back last night and almost carried us to a victory. Tonight, he did it.

He almost carried us to a victory last night, and he did it tonight. He's just playing great basketball right now.