Chucky Atkins Quotations

My role is come off the bench, run the team and do whatever I have to do to keep us flowing, ... With Gilbert, myself and Antonio, we pretty much have three guys who can run the point but all of us can also can penetrate and get to the basket or create shots for our teammates.

The second quarter was the difference. Our second unit gave us great energy to open the second quarter. When this team gets in sync quick and we're locking down on defense, it creates a lot more opportunities on the other end for us.

I ain't saying I should be starting, but I think I deserve some minutes. That's all I'm saying. It's not a situation where I'm saying I demand to be traded. I'm in a peculiar situation myself. I'm in a contract season. They made a trade for me, and I want to play, I want to compete, that's all.

Teams (like Minnesota) that aren't playing for anything are always dangerous because they play loose. You always want to jump on teams like that and not give them a chance. We knew we had to put the heat on them quick.

We were one rebound away from winning, for really turning it into a series.

But great individual talent isn't what wins games in the NBA. The guys have to all be on the same page to win. I'm not sure they had that last season.

Any time you can hold a team like that on defense, it makes the game easier for everybody. We count on the defense to make plays. That's what's going to win us games in the playoffs. We just have to keep playing hard and finish games and we'll have a chance.

Dallas played smarter than us. They played harder than us. It seems their will was greater than ours. Everything snowballed from there.

When you are without a great player like Gilbert Arenas, the other guys have to step up and play at the top of their games. Tonight was a total team effort. We got a lot of energy, we played great defense, we moved the ball and we made sure that everybody got shots in. When we do that, it makes the game a lot of fun.

We feed off our defense. Anytime we can play that type of defense and get out in the open court, we can win.