From http://www.nba.com/sixers/news/postgame_report_060203.html
76ers Head Coach Maurice CheeksOn tonight’s loss “You saw the reason they have the record they have is because they do a lot of little things. I thought our defense was good; I thought we rebounded the ball well, but we had little timely turnovers and they would always get the ball in the person’s hands they wanted it too, which was “Rip” (Richard Hamilton) at the right time and he would end up with a shot. You see the little things that they do like Ben Wallace tipping the ball several times, getting three offensive rebounds at the right time; a lot of lose balls that they come up with, and they don’t hurry with a lot of things. They take their time. It’s a veteran team, with veteran players that understand about taking their time and doing certain things. The ball goes up on the board, and they go after every offensive rebound. Teams hang around; I think teams hang around and hang around, but at the timely part of the game, they come up with the right play at the right time.”
On the Sixers performance without Allen Iverson“I thought our guys played well. We throw Louis Williams in there against Chauncey Billups; I thought he played well. It’s a young group. When I’m talking about Detroit who’s a veteran group; you throw a young group against a veteran group. There are times when you can win a game like that, but more often a veteran group is going to use their brains a little bit. I thought certain times of the game that’s exactly what they did.”
On not getting to the line“You know when Allen (Iverson) plays he’s going to shoot foul shots. Allen (Iverson) gets a little respect going to the basket. He gets the calls and when you have a younger group, they’re not going to get the calls that Allen Iverson would get so that’s going to eliminate a lot of foul shots that we would get when Allen (Iverson’s) out there on the floor.”
76ers Forward Chris WebberOn tonight’s game “You have to worry about everyone on the court at all times because they are a team. That makes it even tougher because you can’t just concentrate on your man. We will get to the point where we can think just as clear as they can.”
On the confidence of the Pistons“I talked to the team after the game about it, and that’s great for the other team to have. When you look across and wink at each other and just say ‘OK, these guys are giving us their best tonight.”
“You can really think a win. You can play with people’s minds and think a win….and that’s what they did. And hopefully we will learn from that.”
On the loss tonight“I think every year you have about two losses you really can live with…this is one of them. I am proud of everyone on this team, I really am. We have to use this as a learning experience. If we learn from this, then it is one game in the ‘lost’ column that doesn’t matter if you learn from it.”
76ers Guard John SalmonsOn the plays Detroit ran“The two chest play they did, we knew it was coming. We practiced it this morning. If we could have taken that play away we would have been there right until the very end. But we played hard. We played pretty well, not great but pretty well.”
On Detroit’s Defense“ They don’t have to score a lot of points. We scored 99 points against Phoenix and if we scored that today we’d be talking about an upset right now. They just clamped down on defense. They pay attention to detail and they are disciplined. They trust each other.”
On thinking there was a point they could turn the game around“Yea we believed the whole time. We were fighting. But at the end of the game, we didn’t think about the game. We knew what they were going to do, but we weren’t thinking. We knew what they were going to do, and we could have stopped them but we were thinking more at the end of the game, we could have stopped them.”
Pistons Head Coach Flip SaundersOn tonight’s game“I thought we played really well early and went to our bench and it got away from us a little. We didn’t run as many of our sets at that time and they played hard, they got back in and we played hard enough to win.”
On playing the Sixers without Allen Iverson“You don’t really talk about it. You just go out and play. As players, they may have it as a mental letdown. The other teams when they’re missing a player they’re always getting a little more juiced up to play just because they know they have to play at a higher level and roles change for guys. Guys get more opportunities and something’s change a little bit.”
On his team playing well“I think it’s tough to play at a super high level for every game. I thought tonight we played very well at times. The first-quarter we played our A game. You’ve got to give Philadelphia credit they did some nice things. I thought they moved well without the ball. Webber looks a lot better as far as how he’s moving. More importantly, when we needed to make plays down the stretch, we made plays. When we needed to make shots, we made shots.”
Pistons Guard Chauncey BillupsOn losing a game this season“It happens, it wakes us up. It helps us get back to the basics and makes us come back with a strong performance the next night.”
On playing together“That’s what a great team is all about is when somebody is struggling, somebody else is picking up the slack and we’ve done that time and time-out.”
Pistons Forward Rasheed WallaceOn the fourth-quarter“It’s that veteran play. We knew what we had to do to go ahead and get a couple stops and hit some big shots. It’s one of those things we’ve been doing all season.”
On team unity“We just hoop. We’re all one unit. From the coaches down to the last player on the bench, we’re just one unit.”
Pistons Guard Richard HamiltonOn tonight’s game“It was a great night. We missed a lot of opportunities to put them away. I think we missed a lot of wide-open shots. But at the end of that night when it was time to dig down we did.”
76ERS PLAYER OF THE GAMEAndre Iguodala13 Points, 8 Rebounds, 6-11 FGIn the second quarter, Andre Iguodala drained a three that got the Sixers within 38-32 with 6:23 to play. In the fourth quarter, he helped to cut the Sixers deficit to 71-66 with a dunk with nine minutes left. Iguodala contributed 13 and eight rebounds in the effort.
POSTGAME NOTES With tonight’s loss, the Sixers have lost consecutive home games for just the second time this season … The first time was 11/1 vs. MIL and 11/4 vs. CHA.
The Sixers have now scored fewer than 100 points in each of their last four games (89.8 ppg, 2-2) and in eight their last 10 overall (92.4 ppg, 5-5) … That scoring drought matches their previous streak of four games done, 1/16 - 1/22 (85.3 ppg, 2-2).
The Sixers record when shooting better than 50.0 percent from the field fell to 7-4 tonight … They made 51.4 percent (36-70 FG) of their shots tonight.
The Sixers record when out-rebounding opponents fell to 17-4 … They have out-rebounded their opponent in each of their last three losses.
Philadelphia set a season-low in both free-throws (7) and free-throws attempted tonight.
The Sixers also tied their season-low in blocks tonight with just one … Their two total blocks in their last two games are their fewest in back-to-back games since they had a total of four over two games: 11/21 vs. NOK and 11/23 at MIL.
Allen Iverson missed his fourth-consecutive game of the season tonight due to a left ankle sprain … For his career, it was the 100th game (40-60) he has missed due to injury … Iverson will travel with the team to Cleveland for tomorrow night’s game against the Cavaliers.
Samuel Dalembert did not block a shot tonight, snapping his career-best 42 game streak with at least one rejection … His streak was recently the longest in the NBA.
With 10 points and 11 boards tonight, Dalembert recorded his ninth double-double of the season and second in as many games.
Louis Williams set career-highs in rebounds (3) and assists (2) tonight … Over his last four games, he’s averaging 5.4 points on 88.9 percent (8-9 FG) shooting from the floor in 10.1 minutes per game.
In his four starts, Kevin Ollie is averaging 7.8 points, 4.0 assists and 3.0 rebounds … In that span he’s shooting 50.0 percent (12-24 FG) from the field and has a total of three turnovers in 34.5 minutes per game.
Posted by John Mbugua
Source: http://www.nba.com/sixers/news/postgame_report_060203.html
Share THIS!!!: