Richard Jefferson Quotations | Page 2

You might struggle on the road or you might lose a home game or two, but this is new to us, and new to me.

They paved the way and started the tradition. It's our job to be good players and good people for the ones who will follow us.

They have an unbelievable crowd here. But for us, it was, 'OK, they hit a few shots, let's calm down. We felt confident and it worked for us in the end.

You can't make excuses for missing a player. They just wanted it more and they were more aggressive.

There's a lot of balance. Vince really set the tone attacking. Curly was a force down low. J-Kidd, 15 assists, that's unbelievable.

There's a lot of ups and downs to every playoff series. We didn't really get dominated. It was a game that was back and forth. They got (a questionable foul) call with 0.9 seconds to go that put them on the free throw line. That was the difference in the game, 0.9 seconds. So we weren't that far off.

I try and get him to shoot more threes. That's his next step. They're right there. You can't not shoot 18-footers like that and not be able to hit some threes. It's just a matter of getting an opportunity.

It was important for us to defend, make them play half court and limit them to one shot. It was an all around great effort by every player.

It's a nice stretch against very good teams. So it's going to be a tough stretch for us.

I tried to get my career high. J-Kidd, he was more going for NBA history. I'm going for personal history. NBA history is another thing.

It's not so much the type of shot he hit, but the importance of the shot.

It's tough to put it into words. And that's something that's rare for me to say.

You try to make it difficult, but he's going to shoot more than anybody else in the league. You try to defend him so he doesn't go for 50 or more. If he gets 40, that's his average, basically.

You try and win as many games as you possibly can. If in that time you catch them, then you catch them.

Everybody's surprised. There's guys, not naming anybody, that won't sniff the playoffs, that are 15 games under .500, that are playing in the game. But it is an All-Star Game. It's an individual performance game. Very rarely do team players get rewarded. He's probably the best team player in the game.

The ball was moving, to tell you the truth. It was drive, drive, pass, pass and then somebody had an open shot and we just knocked them down.

It's always your move next. What are you going to do to make an adjustment to our counter? What are you going to do now that we have played this type of lineup? It's all about trying to find an advantage, especially with two evenly matched teams.

It's big. We want to get home court. Detroit has separated themselves from the rest of the league. We can't get Detroit, so let's get the other. It's not too far-fetched.

It's big for us I'd never beaten the Dallas Mavericks in my career.

It was my first time being injured. Made it back for the playoffs, and started off this season struggling, now we are playing well. Ups and downs. Hopefully we will have more ups than downs.

It was a good win. We struggled a little bit when we got the lead. We were able to withstand their run and we were okay.

It was just one of those nights. It was a combination of us playing good defense and getting good looks and good shots. We were fortunate to get them on a night where they didn't hit their shots.

It was just like the good old days. When I'm out there running, then that's when I'm playing my best. It felt so good out there. We showed that we still have the ability to get out there.

It was a frustrating first half of the season because we can play a lot better. We've had some inconsistencies.

The Nets, since I've been here, are going to be judged by how you play in the playoffs. You win a lot of games in the regular season, we're still going to be judged by how you play in the playoffs. This is good, this is great, but we understand ultimately what's the big picture.

I let us down in a small way. I was disappointed that we lost, that I got thrown out, but I wasn't out here trying to prove anything.

I have no problem with anything and Frank knows that because he knows I'd go talk to him.

If you look at a lot of my shots, most of them were assisted by my teammates. It was just a matter of me getting open and them feeding me the ball.

In the first half, especially the second quarter, we were not playing D the way we needed to.

In the fourth quarter, we predominantly play through him. He's our leading scorer and he always takes the majority of the shots. A lot of people that don't watch us a lot throughout the year don't understand that's how we play.

In order to play well in the playoffs you have to position yourself in the regular season. That's where the regular season becomes important.

I remember I missed free throws. You don't go up there thinking about it. You go up there realizing that you have been working all year long, all summer long, all career long to knock down one free throw.

I haven't run like that in a while. I was a little tired. I had to come out.

In the past few seasons, have we had some good playoff matches? Yeah, we have. Are we looking for an opportunity to have another one against them? I think that would be a lot of fun..

In the past, a few years ago, it might have been cool beating them. But now it is just another game.

I really didn't even realize it was that crazy.

I had been on ice for 3½ quarters. I was watching Vince go to work, he's unbelievable. Then coach put the ball in my hands and I tried to be aggressive.

I just wanted Gilbert and JT to go at it because they were the only two guys who had any energy out there, it seemed like, ... I wanted to push them a little so they'd get each other fired up.

Cliff is the ultimate professional. He's not just here to play games, just to say, 'Hey I'm here in my 17th year.' He's out there to compete, to play at a high level, and the last few weeks, he has.

Hey, we've been playing the same way the whole year and we've been successful. I believe in my teammates. I believe in my coaching staff. We've been playing one way, all year long.

He's extremely healthy. He's the best player in the history of this franchise. Everything that we've accomplished starts with him. We need him to be the dominant point guard that he always has been over his career in order for us to succeed.

He's extremely confident with our team. He knows our schemes, he knows our coaching staff, he knows what we're trying to accomplish and that's why he's been effective.

He's the epitome of a professional. He brings a lot of confidence out on the floor, even if he hasn't played for awhile. It's reassuring knowing you have someone like that on the team.

Certain teams set your goals at a certain level. For this team, if someone would have told you at the beginning of the year that we were going to make the playoffs, it probably wouldn't have been much of a story.

He took control. He did what he wanted, on the pick-and-roll, he got to wherever he wanted, he found open guys, he got to the basket. He got to the free throw line. I think that's what really got his game going.

If I get an opportunity to play for a championship team, I'm going to go hunting for that. I have no loyalty.

If he hasn't let it go yet then you guys should be talking to him. It was an unfortunate incident that he got hurt. We moved on. Maybe except for Kenyon, who is no longer with our team. The biggest person he had a problem with isn't on our team anymore. It is no big deal.

I don't think Detroit was ecstatic when they won a division. I don't think San Antonio is going to be excited when they win theirs. . . . This is just one step.

I feel confident every game now. We have our whole roster, and we're playing well.

He's one of the most intelligent basketball players I've been around. This was a great idea. It worked ? right in the nick of time. If he would have said it a minute-and-a-half later we would have lost the game.

I do care about getting that All-Star respect. I would love to be an All-Star. I am playing with the best point guard. So a lot of times, playing with him, sometimes it is the quarterback or the receiver that is the All-Star. Hopefully at some point in my career I will be able to prove that I am one of the better small forwards in the league.

I do believe there are other teams in this conference that are very good. A shot here, a shot there, you never know what's going to happen.

He came up with the idea to go small. Bosh posts up, but he likes to shoot jumpers, and we were able to take that away from him. You need to crowd and use your quickness on him.

You come to expect it (playing 40 minutes).

Their backcourt definitely got better. But we try not to focus in too much on what the other team has.

A.J. has never done that before. He had a great game. To act like that's going to be the norm over the series, I think everybody knows that's not going to be the case. He got hot. He hit some big shots for them.

The guy (O'Neal) missed four shots, including free throws. The difference was that he was playing at home. A lot of things tend to go your way when you're at home.

The inconsistency was kind of frustrating. I think that's where we struggle sometimes in games.

I want to play for a championship team. I want to win a championship.

Businessmen... were not born chief executives. They were often people first.

I'm insanely optimistic. For odd, weird reasons, things always work out.

I try to be as efficient as possible.