Maurice Cheeks Time Quotations

He is one player that I'm not concerned about (with) his minutes. There was a time when I thought about taking him out of the game, and he started getting in a nice flow.

Certainly, he's not as good as A.I. now, but as time moves on, maybe he will. Who knows that?

He catches the ball and releases it so quick. I think that?s what?s so impressive about him. I think if you?re not around Kyle that much, and I?ve been talking defense this whole camp, but any time you see a player with his ability to shoot the ball he?s got to be on the floor.

He's been great for us. Every time we've inserted him in a game, he's been great for us. Sometimes, he wouldn't play for a whole half and then we'd throw him in in the third and fourth quarters. Every time we've played him, he's made major contributions.

I think after a while, after we start missing the easy shots, I think we start pressing a little bit and trying to make up for the easy shots that we missed and we just continued to miss. At one point I remember looking at the clock when we had 33 points and I don't remember the next time we scored. Then, the same thing happened in the third quarter when we just could not make a shot.

We had some good players, we had some good guys on the team, but some things kept happening time after time and that's all people talked about, ... The things that they did, the dysfunctional things that happened, a lot of that became a part of the Portland Trail Blazers, and that was unfortunate.

We can?t rely on going home. We have to start building ourselves a little momentum -- take it one step at a time and take it one game at a time.

We see zone from time to time, but we certainly don?t see it for a whole quarter. If you make shots, if you make some dribble penetration against the zone, they come out of it. We never did. We never made a shot and they had no reason to come out of it.

When you play a team that has come back and beat you each time in some form or fashion, it can play little mind games on you.

Any time you don't have a player like Allen play for four consecutive games, you're going to miss him. You're going to miss his scoring, his drive, a lot of things.

Any time you lose and you continue to lose, you take it. You have to have something good happen to you to turn your mental state over, and the only way you do that is to win a game. As you continue to lose, you feel it.

Every time you're in an NBA game, a team is going to make a run and they're going to make some shots at some point. Early on they missed a lot of shots, which allowed us to get the lead that we had.

Certainly when I got the Portland job, there wasn't as much hoopla as there is here, ... I've spent time here. I've lived here. I grew up basically here. There's going to be a little bit more hoopla than there would be someplace else.

For me, it's a pretty sad moment, because I played for Jimmy. He's always been a part of my coaching, the reason being he's a guy who has been through every situation imaginable. Any time something happened on or off the court, he would either beat me to coming to ask him what I should do, or I'd be going to him anyway. That's the reason why he's going to be missed so much.

It was captivating, ... It was a long time ago, and I can remember it like it was yesterday.

I am not going to get upset over Johnny taking shots. I did say the next time he has that opportunity to drive the basketball. We were in the penalty, so drive the ball, maybe get a foul, or the defense collapses and kick it out.