Raja Bell Quotes (52 Quotes)


    Do we have the green light here As far as green lights go, it's about as green as you can get.

    My philosophy's going to be if I can make them quality, I don't have to finish the racks. I don't like to rush my shot, so I'm going to try to knock down the ones that I can shoot in 60 seconds.

    You see a guy and kind of bait him into taking that drive. Then at the last minute you step in there and they already have a full head of steam.

    I tried to front him so a lot of time they'd go away from him. That frustrated him and got him taking the shots we wanted him to take - deep threes and pulling up from 25 feet.

    We were able to keep the game at a pace that that rendered Yao and their other big men. If we hadn't pushed the pace, it might have been a different story, but we kept pushing and made them miss.


    Our game plan was to try to contain everyone else and hope that Kobe's whatever he wound up with wasn't going to be enough to beat all 12 of us.

    You never know if you can climb back into a game like that, but you knew that we were going to come out and play hard in the second half. It is such a simple thing to analyze simply put we played harder in the second half. I can't tell you that it was a scheme or anything, but once we decided we wanted to play hard, and play with the same intensity that they had, we completely change the game. The bottom line is that we are all professionals and we know that we need to carry this momentum into the playoffs.

    We're excited about what we have already, but we feel getting that last piece of the puzzle will put us over the hump. We want to make sure that he's healthy and ready to give us everything he can give us. We're definitely excited to get him back in the l

    We had a lot of guys knocking down shots. That's what happens when you have productivity across the board. It's hard for one guy to go cold. Everybody is going to have their moments of being hot.

    That tempo was as high and fast as we've been since the last time we played them. That tempo helps us. It's hard to guard guys when they're in transition. We weren't able to do it either.

    I don't have a whole lot to say about this one. That was a team that was hungry. . . . Sometimes, the wounded animals are the most dangerous.

    That's never an excuse because that's what we are. We'll run into shape as the preseason continues. For a lot of us who shoot a lot of jump shots, it's different when you're flying up and down the court as fast as we are as opposed to coming down and taking a second. It'll take some adjustments but it wasn't a problem (Friday). We'll figure it out.

    We've pitched in by committee, and it's translated into everybody having a good year.

    It's a fun building to play in. They've got some really rowdy fans and its one of America's teams.

    We understood that we had to come out and establish ourselves early and make sure they knew we were here to play. It's easy to let down going into the All-Star break, but we wanted to guard against that, and we did a good job.

    We expected the game to be slower without him. We thought that they would try to work Chris Webber a little bit.

    The best thing is we never felt down about anything. We just weather it and reinvent ourselves.

    I would assume the more aggressive Kobe will be out. I'm sure he'll be trying to still get other guys involved to a certain degree, but I expect him to be looking for his more than last game.

    That's a good question. It's been a challenge for us to be ready to play every night. What you're seeing (now) is a team that's not necessarily ready to go when the jump ball goes up.

    He gets 50 and we win the game. At the end of the day, I am OK with that. Even though it (stinks) to have 50 dropped on you, if we win, I've done my job. I really don't give a (darn) if he respects me. If I can keep him preoccupied on beating me 1-on-1, then the four other guys aren't getting shots and that plays into our hands.

    He's the icing on the cake, so we're just the cake right now.

    I think everybody knows who's going to show up. I think he's going to come out and be more aggressive. There's no guesswork involved with that. We've seen that four times this year and every other game he's played. So we game-planned it. We'll do what we need to do to get another win at home.

    This is the time when we'll see what we're made of. These are five games that we should win. It's going to be a long trip. Everybody will have to make sure we pay attention to detail out there on the road, get out to some good starts early hopefully. This is going to be a critical span of games for us here.

    It's damn irritating sometimes. I didn't think there was anybody out there who can be happy all the time, but he's an exception to my rule.

    I don't know, man. It's tough. Just understand that your time will come. A lot of guys who are superstars today went through similar situations, so you just have to grin and bear it.

    Sometimes in games, there's a play that kind of defines who wants to win the game more.

    That was a major reason why I wanted to come to Phoenix. I'm so excited about the style of basketball that's played here and the atmosphere and commitment to winning.

    He was barreling, barreling and started pushing me so I just pulled him down with me. It's a good thing the ref saw him pushing me first because I just took him to the ground so he wouldn't get a rebound.

    I thrived on not getting any kind of credit so to speak. For somebody to give it to you, you don't really know how to react. That's the way it is. My emotions are mixed.

    We're not doing anything different. Guys understand that if it's going to be a week or a month, we're going to have to pick it up without him.

    That tempo helps us. We don't get bogged down and it's hard to guard guys when you're in transition all night.

    I got to give a lot of credit to the (staff) around here who really helped me get out in the community and do some things. It's something special for me, because I was a guy who never got much recognition for anything around this league.

    That takes some wind out of your sails when you have a game in your hand. I've been on the other side of that. You're on a five-game losing streak. You can taste it. You're right there and you let it slip. We knew if we came out and got a couple stops (in overtime) that we had a chance to put a dagger in them.

    It's like they had us on our heels. That takes us away from everything we want to do. We can't be afraid to lose.

    I wish I could've got a crack at him. I just didn't feel like it was going to let me run or jump. I don't anticipate missing any more games. It kills me to sit and watch.

    This system is (tailored) to him. He's getting us into positions where he's stringing the defense out. He's always one step ahead of the defense.

    We sell to kids and people who are into the NBA hip-hop world. They may be marketing to the wrong people with this.

    It was embarrassing. We were getting beat pretty good. I had been struggling. I guess I had been moping a little. I just decided I wasn't going to do it anymore. . . . At this time of year, it's about being in attack mode. Win or lose, make or miss, you have to be on the attack. We have to be like that in Game 3.

    You never know what he's going to do. You can watch him on film, and obviously everyone has their tendencies. But you really never know what he's going to do.

    Its always nice to shoot a high percentage but I think we have to understand why we were able to shoot a high percentage - our floor spacing was awesome, we were running the floor and really playing unselfish. You're not going to shoot that well every night, we got to understand why we knocked them down, and that's a good thing to take away from the game.

    The last two years in Utah were a lot more methodical, a lot more structured with rules within that structure.

    We can play the same pace we want, but some of that has to do with them (the Wizards) just crashing the offensive glass. You can't run if you can't get a rebound.

    He's so good at breaking down defenses and making them collapse that all you have to do is find that open seam and get in his vision. You trust that once you're in his vision, sooner or later he's going to find you, and from there it's being in rhythm and shooting. His presence out there is what opens that whole thing up.

    We were going to try to engage him in a 1-on-1 battle and let him shoot as many times (as) he wanted and hope that the rest of his team won't be able to help, and that's what happened. In a series like this, you have to understand that and be professional enough to be able to deal with somebody who can score that much.

    I was excited that the game kind of opened up, and I was able to see where I fit in. I wasn't necessarily feeling that earlier in the week. We were really spaced, and the game kind of flowed (Saturday) night.

    You know that your time is going to come. It's an offense where you shoot it and if you miss, you won't have to worry about going seven minutes before you shoot it again.

    We are a team of spurts. Eddie really came in and got us going in the second quarter. We really locked down on defense in the third quarter. I thought that was one of the best quarters of defense I've seen this team play all year.

    He was settling for some shots I thought. As a defender, you hope he does that. But he got it going in the fourth quarter. A guy like that is just going to keep forcing the issue until he finds it, and you've just got to hold on.

    It was critical for us to get off to a good start against a team that was a little undermanned. I shoot the ball. ... People who know and watch the game know what you can do. If you get praised for it or not, it is irrelevant for me.

    We wanted to establish ourselves early and let them know we were here to play. It is easy to have a letdown the night before you go on the All-Star break, but we wanted to guard against that.


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