Bob Hill Team Quotations

Now we have a whole bunch of committed players, where before we had too many dissident guys who just didn't want to be here. So there was no way we were going to build a team until now.

If they are the best team in our division... then our division is up for grabs.

Mike said if a running team ever gets the guy, he's going to be great. With those guys, he never had a chance to play. Mike was right.

Since the trading deadline, this team has come together just like that. We've had five really good performances in terms of togetherness and effort, caring about one another and all of the stuff that's so darn important.

If that's the best team in basketball, we're not far away.

Our guys wanted to win the game because of the butt kicking we took in Houston. It wasn't a 'get back.' Neither team is going to the playoffs. It's just two teams playing hard but not playing for anything.

Our goal right now as a team is to put ourselves in position to do something positive with the season.

I think if we don't make any trades, or we don't change the team at all, you have to look at playing Johan (Petro) and Robert (Swift) and throwing them the ball, putting sets in for them, developing them even further, getting Damien (Wilkins) on the floor even more. I think that is the direction we would go, total development of the younger guys.

We don't have many whiskey drinkers on our team. We've got good guys. Our defensive scheme has to be team oriented. ... That's a work in progress with a team like this that's also very young.

We needed Robert to have a good game. The team needed Robert to have a good game, the fans probably needed Robert to have a good game, so the second half was great.

We're good enough to be a playoff team with those two, no doubt about it in my mind. We're a different team with them. We're fast. We run and get out on the break. ... The entire climate has changed.

We just weren't there. This team has been through a lot, but we've had some pretty significant wins in the last 12 games.

To me, Seattle has always been a cornerstone of the NBA. It would be shame if the team had to leave.

There is a lot to be hopeful for and the focus is here. I wanted to keep the team focused on improvement and that was my goal when I took the job. I think it got to a point where I felt good every night about our chances to win. And that's what you want, to go into each game with a legitimate chance to win.

Finally, we planted our feet, defined ourselves and got the stops we needed. It's always good when you can hold off a team when you've got to make plays and you've got to make stops. I think that was significant.

After the trading deadline, I put in the whole thing entirely and we improved after the first five or six games. I've got to tell you, as long as this team is built the way it is, that number (points allowed) is going to be high because we're going to run and shoot the ball. We can't beat you just with our defense. We're not built that way. We have to beat you also with our offense.

The core of this team cares. They're playing hard.

I heard after the fact that Phoenix wanted him. The team that we really kept hearing was Golden State.

They are a team built to win a championship and I thought under the circumstances our guys did a good job.

We sorely needed to win a game. That was a team win. I thought we really got a lot of good performances from a lot of people. We got stops, we're not a great defensive team but the team we had on the court at the end did what they needed to get the stops. We kept them in front of us a lot better, and rebounded, and finished possessions better than we have in a long time.

We sorely needed to win a game. That was a team win. We got a lot of good performances from a lot of people.

This team when I first got there played defense with their hands down - the worst I've ever seen.