Scott Skiles Guys Quotations

Shaq is on of those guys who if and when he really wants to get something done out there, there isn't a whole lot you can do.

My guys almost every night battle really hard. They've had a lot of things go against them in late game situations and we haven't been able to seize the moment. Lately, we've been able to do that and our guys appear to growing up as a team.

But the guys did what they do and fought back.

Fouling him and putting him on the line makes him theoretically shoot less field goals and puts him on the line, but it also puts their team in the penalty earlier every quarter. And then other guys are going to the line. ... So if we're just fouling Shaq sort of indiscriminately, it can be a long night.

I don't want to be changing the lineup all the time. In order to do that, we have to have a bunch of guys be consistent in their roles. We haven't gotten to that point yet.

We try to keep it reasonable. It's not necessarily that we don't trust our guys. We don't trust other people. We want to keep our guys out of situations where something (negative) can happen. I sort of look at it that, if you want to come to South Beach and have some fun, you have the money to do it in the summertime. Now is not the time for that.

Well, you know, I know a lot of times people think it's easy to just get the ball to a guy when the other teams knows exactly where it's going. Sometimes it's not that easy. Our guys are still learning. They're getting better at recognizing a hot hand and getting him the ball, but we're clearly not a finished product. But we had a decent look at a three-pointer with 18 seconds to go. We had our chances.

I thought the guys rallied. We came out in the third quarter with a lot more intensity.

Our guys always come back. But it was the second game in a row we weren't ready to play when the ball went up. We're still learning on the fly. We don't have guys with 30, 40, 60 games of playoff experience.

Some guys play hard, some guys play harder. He's a hard-playing guy. I have never seen him do anything that was out of hand, over the top. In a league where a lot of players feel a degree of entitlement, a guy like him that doesn't feel that can stand out.

My opinion has always been that whoever the top guys are in the rankings -- provided they have the attempts -- should go. I had that opinion the whole time I played, and my opinion didn't mean anything. They've got to get some guys they think are sexy.

We have yet to get serious about the defensive end and out-play people. Until we do that, we are going to be an up and down team. I thought by this point in the season a lot of our guys would learn that lesson, but so far they haven't.

The problem is our backs are against the wall every game right now. Somehow we have to convince the guys that.

We'll go down there and try to get other guys the ball on the move, whereas Eddy could sort of overpower people sometimes. We may have to be a little more clever about how we're delivering the ball.

We did what we had to do. We were able to get off to a better start. Our guys were confident and relaxed, yet focused from the start. We had good performances across the board.

We had some great moments and we had some shaky moments. I'm certainly happy to have the win, and we had some guys that played well. Then when it got tight, we had enough big plays to hold them off.

We were able to pick up a full game on the team right in front of us. I think it is important that the guys go home with a good game under their belt. Maybe we will have a little momentum coming out of the break.

We liked Stephen. It's just that we wanted to take a look at a big guy also with the 10-days. It's good for them and it's good for our guys to know we're not afraid to bring somebody in and give them a look.

Tyson didn't do much this summer, from what I've seen, compared to last summer when he was here almost 75 days. It's the old thing where your agent tells you don't do anything until you get a contract, and a lot of guys think that literally means don't do anything. It really means don't play basketball.

We have made it a point of emphasis all year. Our guys have to use better judgment about when to shoot (the ball) and when to drive and draw contact. There were some games when we were in the penalty (situation) for four or five minutes and still had not shot a free throw.

But Mike knows what's expected of him. Hopefully, I can get him a chance sometime here soon. I just happen to like the guys in front of him right now, the way that they're playing.

We've had our ups and downs obviously this season. But the way they closed the season speaks to what kind of group of guys this is. We had many opportunities to not be as sharp, let the last few games go by and go on vacation (today). Whenever that (possibility) presented itself, the guys fought their way out of it.

We have a bunch of guys who basically have to decide if they want to be sort of the typical NBA player, which nowadays is more of an excuse-maker and a blamer and has his agent telling him how great he is. There's not a lot of realism in that. Or, do you want to fight and scrap and claw for wins? I'm confident that our guys will eventually get that message.

This was a very difficult practice, and they're going to continue to be difficult. We're just not playing at an intensity level that's necessary for us to win. The guys know it. It's something we've got to get corrected.

What we are seeing is we have 1-1/2 guys who are not doing what they're supposed to do on a certain possession.

We were on the fortunate end of it. We did a nice job of getting our bodies in and not the silly sort of reaching, slapping fouls we've been guilty of sometimes. Overall, I want to give my guys credit. They had a very good defensive effort.

Every game he plays in, he's ... one of the toughest guys on the floor. He's got size, strength, athleticism, and he can play. He gives them one of the best players in the game, and you can see that they've played with a little more pop since he's been with them. He seems to have an effect on their group, the way they get after it a little bit.

At that point, you call an automatic timeout. All you have to do is watch a couple of NBA games to know it's a timeout. We had guys out there with enough experience out there to know that. It's inexcusable.

After it got to seven points our guys just hung in there. Our guys were fatigued after last night's game, so I'm really proud of how they all battled.

Antonio Davis can't help but be a good influence on the other guys and Jerome Williams hustles all the time. He gets up and down the floor.

Anybody that's involved in the league in depth and watches us play knows that we have more things in our offense for Ben probably than any other team in the league has for any other player. It's normally the guys who aren't playing well that are making those kinds of comments. So I don't put much stock in that.

A little bit over 4 percent. But knowing the guys like I know 'em, it would be shocking to me if they didn't believe in themselves.

The way they've closed the season speaks to what kind of group this is. We've had many opportunities to let the games go by, win a couple, lose a couple, and go on vacation (after the regular season). I think every chance, when that presented itself, the guys fought their way out of it. They've earned themselves a very good season.

All you need to do is watch a couple NBA games to know that's an automatic timeout. We have guys with enough experience to know that. It's inexcusable.

They made three's but the free throw disparity we could not overcome. We had a lot of head-hanging and guys feeling sorry for themselves. There are points in the game where there is a simple choice: you fight or you bleed. We did not fight our way out of it.

This is the time of year when the great players and the great teams elevate their play. We need all of our guys to elevate their play. He's certainly an important part of that.

It means the guys are working very hard at it and it's paying off. There's no magic in that, really. It's just that we have the a system that we teach, and the guys have spent the time getting it down. We've spent an awful lot of time on it.

I told the guys after the game, 'I'm going to find the lineups, as best I can, that'll help us win the game.

I told the guys a couple of days ago that whoever I thought played the best the next two days is going to start, so that's what we did.

It's no secret the last two years we've been trying to rebuild. For our guys to get in this is a tribute to the way that they have been resilient and stayed with it. We want to move up. There's an opportunity to move up.

It's no secret that the last couple of years we were trying to rebuild and redo our team, and there's a lot of teams that try to do that and can't get in the playoffs. For our guys to get in is a tribute to the way they have been resilient and stayed with it.

That's something I really can't complain about all year. Our guys -- every day in practice, every game, even games when we don't look real smooth offensively -- we attempt to play unselfishly and share the ball. It's a fun team to coach in that regard; the guys are unselfish, and they like to pass the ball.

It was kind of a typical exhibition game. We had a couple of guys who had trouble relaxing. I thought we had some really questionable shot selection and we struggled stopping them early in the game.

It was one of our best all-around efforts this season from beginning to end. The guys were in tune with the game plan. We came out in the third quarter a little bit off, but we quickly re-grouped.

It was one of our best all-around efforts of the season. The guys were really in tune with the game plan. Ben made some big shots, but it was Andres who made the difference in the game.

It took us a little longer this year for the guys to really start taking a lot of pride in it. But they did and they got it accomplished. I bet if you went back in the recent 20 or 30 years in the league, nobody's ever done it with guys this young. When you think about that, it's a great accomplishment for a young team.

This is kind of a team that's been getting geared up for this time of year. Our guys have been able to hang with them, but this is going to be a different animal.

I'm very happy about it. Our guys have done a great job of finding each other out there. We don't take many bad threes; most of them are off the ball movement. We've had games where we haven't made them as well, and we've still been able to win. But it's a nice weapon to have.

I'm not too worried about (Deng). I don't get caught in injuries. Injuries are injuries ? they happen. It's part of this (game). I can't be distracted, because I've got other guys to consider. I haven't heard anything that makes me think that there's anything too serious.

I'm happy we played hard, but that should be a given. Our guys fought right until the end, but at this level, there are no moral victories. It's a game we should have won.

I'm happy that we played hard, but that should be a given. We need to learn from these experiences and make progress. We've had too many times this year when we've come out in the third quarter and haven't been as sharp. It happened again tonight. I can't fault anybody's effort. Our guys fought right to the end, but at this level, there are no moral victories. It's a game we should have won.

I had 20 or something and guys have gotten into the 20s, so there's reason to think that at some point somebody is going to do it. But the opponent had an awful lot to do with that, and no one plays like that anymore.

In the third quarter we got up on those guys and made them penetrate. We were there to take the charge. When things stopped going our way for just a couple of minutes, that all stopped as well. We became very tentative on both ends of the floor.

These guys can go home with a good game under their belts. I think that is important, that we gain a little momentum coming out of the break.

The guys played much better in the second half. In the first half, we just didn't show up. We came back. The problem is coming ready to the building. We haven't done that enough this year.

The guys all went over to the workout facility and got a workout in. Some guys shot, some guys got treatment, some lifted.