Maurice Cheeks Quotations | Page 5

Paul Pierce thrives in those situations. He looks forward to his team being down, coming down and taking big shots.

Our offense is fine. Our defense is where's it's at. You have to put guys out there and show them how to play defense. We have to keep trying.

Certainly, you're disappointed. The hardest part for anybody, and certainly for me, is to know you're not in it and that you failed. Failed is a hard word to say. When you set a goal for yourself to get in the playoffs and have a chance to win a championship, that means I failed in trying to accomplish what I came here to accomplish.

Certainly you have to make adjustments on the offensive end. When you have a player like that in the fourth quarter, you have a tendency to look for him and realize he has that ability to take over a game. On the defensive end, he creates some turnovers for us and easy baskets. And we haven't gotten as many with him out of the lineup.

Certainly when I got the Portland job, there wasn't as much hoopla as there is here, ... I've spent time here. I've lived here. I grew up basically here. There's going to be a little bit more hoopla than there would be someplace else.

I can look at it and say some of the guys have had a lot of experience because of the guys that have been hurt, but I also would like to have the guys that are going to play out on the court,

Yesterday was a great practice with guys who came back like Johnny (Salmons) who was very good yesterday, and Kyle (Korver) and Andre (Iguodala). They uplifted the practice with the guys who are here trying to make a team. Everybody played pretty well. It was a great practice yesterday,

You are not going to have too many nights where he shoots like that. We were very fortunate.

It's something that we've talked about this season in terms of (Iverson) being a team leader. The past three games he's been phenomenal from taking over the game to his overall leadership.

It's something we talked about in this new season; to do different things in terms of being a leader out on the floor. That means sharing the basketball and taking over the game when he has to. These three games, he has been phenomenal.