Russ Bartlett Quotes (9 Quotes)

I thought the key was whoever got in foul trouble first between Jordan and Sean. We wanted to protect Jordan a little, and Sam and Max are competitive. Sam is 6-4 and Max is 6-2, and I thought if we could get through the first half with those guys doing what we needed them to do against Sean, then we could have Jordan match up with him in the second half. But it was effective enough to stay with it, and it worked.

The crowd isn't as on top of you. It's not as loud.

I told Max that I thought there was nothing wrong with his effort so far in this tournament, but he had been very emotional and it was hurting him on the court. I told him that he could play at a high level but he had to be less emotional and I thought he was Friday night. He was very effective for us.

We did exactly what we wanted to do. The pace was what we wanted, we rebounded the ball pretty well and didn't give them many second-chance opportunities. I told the kids we dictated the tempo, we just had to make shots and we didn't.

The last time he had 35 against us. I said if we could just keep him under 20 we'd control the game. He's going to score, you just have to make him work as hard as you can to take tough shots, be careful about not fouling and then go get the ball.

We went basically eight deep tonight, and I thought all eight did some good things, especially on the defensive end.

Other than (Kelly), I thought we did a great job defensively.

Offensively we're a much better team this year. Last year we won with defense and one really good offensive player, but this year we've had three consistent scorers night in and night out. Last year we had to search more for those second and third scorers.

Jordan's a much better player right now than he was last year, he's got to be a big concern for them.