Dwane Casey Quotes (126 Quotes)

The key is his health, above basketball, above anything else. He's a competitive guy. Don't let that innocent look fool you. He has to weigh those things in the decision.

He made the right read and the right calls a couple times. That's what he faces in the fourth quarter. He does not face single coverage. He faces double coverage, triple coverage a lot of times in the fourth quarter. The people around him have to make plays.

I want to win, for these young guys. If they go out and beat Memphis, we'll deal with the consequences later.

He thought he had an open shot. He was wide open. So he took the shot. I will never question a guy if he feels like he has a shot.

I remember I was so intimidated meeting him. I went into his office, and he had no basketball pictures. It was just all of his prized cattle. He was huge into raising Black Angus cows.

I was early (in the program's integration). I can remember a lot of times (recognizing) that it was a big thing to be a minority at the University of Kentucky. But it's totally changed now. They've got a black head coach (Tubby Smith).

We always want to have hope. Mathematically, we're still alive, so we're still playing for something.

It's a great opportunity for these young guys to do what they did today. To compete, to build, to grow and to fight. Most of all, to win without those guys.

We just couldn't regroup and then they got on a roll. The more we tried, the more they got on a roll and got going, so there's no answer. If you don't come out with a focus and effort for 48 minutes in this league, you're in trouble.

These are young guys and we're trying to win. For me to build a winning environment, you have to try to win every night. These guys were scratching and diving for balls and they deserved to win.

I'd like to see if he can get up 20 shots. You can't just walk through that and get that many shots up, quality shots. To get 20 quality shots, it takes work.

Marko made a decision. You can't question it.

Always, the back-to-backs are tough. You pick your body up to a level the night before and come back down. Then the travel, getting up and going through the same routine again, it's always been difficult. It's one of those things that's probably more psychological than anything else.

Avalanche. Offensively, our execution was bad. That's one problem you have against a team defense like that. They turned up the juice, and we couldn't execute.

He's doing a very good job of playing under control. He's got his passion back.

I see the difference in our team -- the speed, the quickness, the guys in attack mode. I liked our scrap, I liked our fight.

He brings a wealth of experience that I like, that we need at that position to go along with Kevin (Garnett at forward). We'll see how it goes. We'll see how quickly we can get Mark acclimated. His basketball IQ is high. I talked to a lot of people that loved him.

I thought defensively he was great. He stuck his head in there and got some tough rebounds. It's just an all-around basketball game that he is playing.

He's very competitive. He's edgy. I like that. He scraps. If the game is ugly, he can play that way. If the game is pretty he can play that way.

I asked Justin Reed if anyone had ever run an 'iso' for him in Boston, and he said no. We ran an 'iso' for him and he almost missed the whole goal he was so open. Those things you go through and hope the young guys build on that.

You want to put them in situations to see how they react under competition, with the referees, the crowd, time and score, fatigue, frustration, with no safety blanket. You don't have Kevin coming in, you don't have Ricky coming in. It's on you.

We've got to try everything to get better and in a groove. I've seen flashes of real good basketball from Mark Blount. I think getting him in the starting lineup will give him a little bit more ownership, a little bit more opportunity to score early in the game.

I think a lot of it is we've got to get another third guy. Luckily, the other night against Seattle we had a third scorer (Eddie Griffin, 24 points). Right now, Kevin and Wally are playing at an all-star level, and we just need another person to step up. I'm not discriminating who it is anybody can step up and get their minutes.

I don't differentiate between Orlando, Miami, nobody. We've got tough games coming up the rest of the season. We have to prepare and play at the level we know we're capable of, which I didn't think we did the other night against Orlando.

Decision-making down the stretch is so huge. Marcus is going to be a super point guard in this league. You have to take his good with his bad.

At some time we have to start getting a rhythm together and getting a feel for each other, and we wanted that to be this week.