Jerry Sloan Ball Quotations

When we did go inside, it was kind of like an adventure in there with the way we shot the ball a few times to see if we could get it up on the glass. They did a terrific job standing us up and taking us out of our offense and we settled for that.

When we started the ball game it looked like a lay-up drill, the way they drove around us and over the top of the basket. For some reason this lineup hasn't been real productive on the defensive end of the floor.

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.

He got the ball inside, and he just threw it back out. I don't know if somebody threatened him in there, or what. But it looked like we were totally afraid.

He's (Palacio) terrific, he was terrific down the stretch. He made his free throws; he took the ball to the basket and just played extremely well. He seemed to be very confident playing in that position.

He just needs to shoot the ball when he's open. When he's done that, he's fine. When he hesitates a little bit on it, he has a little bit of a problem.

He kept us under control, and didn't throw the ball away. He had one turnover . . . That's what we need, so we can get into an offense.

We were so confused at the start of the ball game, and made some terrible mistakes defensively and couldn't get into our offense. We decided to play a soft game early and we had a difficult time.

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 gave them everything they needed to get their game going and win the ballgame. They came up and put the pressure on us, and we turned the ball over a little bit, and then we got real casual. There was no execution.

We had 23 turnovers and gave away 28 points. They went after the ball hard, and we looked like we were running in mud.

This was a winnable ball game on our part.

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.

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.

This is the way we've always wanted to play. We got our hands on the ball and got rebounds tonight.

It's a matter of how he approaches the game every day. You make a mistake throwing the ball away, is that going to affect you next time? The biggest thing is how you fight back.

It went crazy -- throwing the ball away, turning the basketball over, not playing like we're supposed to play. You can't play a streak game like that against a team that knows how to play the pass.

I could have passed the ball into Yao sitting on the bench he was so wide open. He got what he wanted and we didn't put any defensive pressure on him.

Andrei was terrific. He was all over the place. He was terrific defensively, he shot the ball well and did a terrific job passing the ball. I never took him out the second half. Usually I take him out, but he was so alive tonight I didn't take him out at all.