Rick Carlisle Quotes on Games (24 Quotes)

We're in a must-win situation every night. We have to win games. It's important to be a playoff team. We have a string of years and we want to keep that going.

The group that was out there was going good. I didn't want to disrupt that momentum at that point. You're getting into a high frequency of games. If you find a group that's clicking, you have to stick with them.

We'd like to get out and run and do some good things on offense. But if you can't get the stops, it's going to be hard to do that. We're going to have to be better at both ends, but after the last couple of games on the defensive end, that is going to have to become more of a priority for us.

Jermaine is a top player in this league and we all know he's missed a lot of games. Fortunately he's hitting his stride at a good time. We need him to continue to play at that kind of level for us to have success in the series.

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.

The emotionally charged and highly competitive nature of our games is one of the things that makes it compelling to our fans. The fine line you walk as a player or coach is that you have to channel those emotions in a way that's not harmful to your team or the game. That's the situation we're dealing with. My sense was it was getting better year to year.

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 guys got together and decided to make a stand. If we hadn't won three straight games, we could easily be out of the playoff picture.

Jamaal plays a big part of our success. We're going to have to deal with it. It's tough. We got guys that can step in. We'll re-evaluate where he's at after three games.

At the start of the game he struggled. Of all the games that he's played in it was the worst start to a game that he's had. He got three quick fouls.

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 have an 11-game season to make a push to make the playoffs. There's nothing guaranteed. We'll find out what we're made of during this stretch. The frequency of games is still there. We're a little banged up, but we have to find a way. I have a lot of confidence in our group.

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.

We're going to have to win a lot of games, starting with getting our first win, and that's really the only thing that concerns me right now.

After games, emotions sometimes take over a little bit. The bottom line is we have six games to make this right. We'll find out if we deserve it or not.

We're in a tough deal and we've got to fight our way out of a tough situation. We're celebrating tonight, but we've got to play Detroit in two days. That's not going to be much fun either, but it's an opportunity and you've got to feel that these games are opportunities.

The last six games, we've done a lot of things very well. We've done certain things better than we were doing them before.

Jermaine is a top player in this league. He missed a lot of games (this season) and it's taken him a while to get his conditioning and his rhythm back. Fortunately for us, he's hitting his stride at a good time.

We know any win we can get is really critical, especially on the road. We have a very busy month in terms of frequency of games. We're going to have to continue to hang in and fight every night and give ourselves a chance. We're right in the midst of this thing. There's a lot that's going to be going on over the next 25-30 games. You're going to see a lot of jockeying and a lot of position changes.

We had one of the best practices we've had in the 212 years I've been here. Guys really seemed committed to getting better. Little things like that are good signs. You hope it translates to the games, but you never know.

It's not an ideal situation, but Danny has started a lot of games (17) for us this year. We've been down that road.

It's been tough for Fred this year because of the thumb he's been in and out of it. He played great in the first two games, and I wanted to give him the opportunity to start and play a real significant stretch of minutes. We struggled to get him the ball (Saturday). I have to do a better job of putting him in a position where he can attack the basket and make plays. He wasn't able to do that, that's his game.

Our undoing was in the first half. I thought we played really well, really hard and really together. It's hard to dig yourself out of that big of a hole. We have to learn something from the last two games. We got fortunate in Chicago because we were able to pull it out when we played a poor first half. But we weren't able to get over the hump (Monday).

It's critical, let's face it. We're in a must-win situation almost every night. We have to win games. I just thought the guys came together as a team and did some really great things. It's important to be a playoff team. We've got a string of years we need to keep going.