Rick Carlisle Time Quotations

I can't remember the last time we had 25 assists. That had a lot to do with it. Everybody hung in and played an important part.

He is doing better, but it's not the right time to push it.

He hurt it at the end when he got that put-back, so we'll hold our breath and keep our fingers crossed that he'll be OK (on Thursday) and the next day. He's going to be sore, we know that, but if anybody will play hurt, he's certainly a guy who's done it time after time.

He's done a lot of good things, considering the amount of time he's been out. But also, you can tell there's an adjustment period here. This is going to take some time to get to full strength.

It does affect us not having Jermaine O'Neal for sure, but if you don't have him, you have to find a way to win without him. Right now, that has got to mean playing at full capacity all the time and playing with some real efficiency.

Three days ago it looked like it might be a possibility. He is doing better. It's just not the right time to push it. Also, if we would have did it, he would have been playing a game without almost any practice time leading up to it, which would have been hard. It makes it tough because he does a good job on (Shaquille O'Neal).

Those games were a long time ago. I don't think there's anything there we can hang our hats on. We've got to really work to get healthy and work to tighten up our game.

We're trying to hang in. We probably could have done a lot more things over the course of 48 minutes to put ourselves in a stronger position, but we didn't. We don't have much time to hang our heads about this. We've got another one tomorrow.

Those things work their way out. One thing about getting another quality player is you're going to have to earn your time on the court.

During this 15-game period, we had competed hard on a consistent basis. And tonight, we had a let down from that. We just didn't have it. Every time we would make a run, we'd make a defensive mistake and they'd get a three.

They got into the paint time and time again in the third quarter, and that was the story of how the game went. . . . You give up 29 points in the third and that tells you the momentum of the game, because we had put ourselves in a strong position before that.

It's essential that we have some time to get him re-integrated into our team. There's going to be an adjustment here because we've been running a lot more, we've been doing a lot more movement stuff. We're going to have to continue with that but at times the ball is going to have to go through him inside.

It's been like this the last two or three times he's come back. It's been hard to get what you call real practice time because of the frequency of games.

It's something I talked to A.J. about. At some point it was probably going to be time to make that switch. A.J. has been great about communicating back with me about it. Jermaine and Tinsley need to be together in the starting lineup on both ends of the floor.

This is a very important time for us if we're going to be a team that makes the playoffs. We can't afford to show up and not play a great game for 48 minutes.

Any time you're without your best player, it's going to present a challenge. There's no doubt Jermaine is our most important player, but collectively we're going to have to find a way to win games.

I don't know; it's not really a conversation until it's a reality. We'll see. A lot can happen between now and when (Tinsley) comes back. It's a situation that we'll resolve when it comes time to resolve it.

For the last 10 days, we've spent a lot of time on fundamentals, individual work, screening and footwork. We know that doing the little things at a high level is going to be key for us winning some games.

The first half was disappointing again and we have to solve that. This is a very important time for us if we're going to be a team that makes the playoffs.