Rick Ford Quotations

Fran and I spent a lot of nights watching summer league games throughout the D.C. area. I've got a lot of respect for him. You've got to marvel at the job he's done once he arrived there. His teams are very intelligent. They're not going to beat themselves. They're going to play extremely hard. They're probably more athletic than people think.

We told him all year to play more disciplined. It?s just a bad habit of him reaching. He is too good a player to let that happen.

He did as well as he could. He hadn't been working out that much because he didn't expect the trade. I thought he was winded and tried to get him some shorter minutes in the second half.

He's got to work on his body, to get stronger for the next level, but he's terrific. He doesn't get rattled; he's seen probably every defense.

Unless they became Detroit, Indiana and San Antonio rolled into one, a lot of it has to do with us. We are going to have to look long at why we aren't getting more production from everybody and getting better shots.

He's a very good athlete with a tremendous body and great speed. The question is: What do we have? ... We feel he has a big heart and will run through walls for us.

He's getting the job done; it's as simple as that. My hat's off to him. He's been in and out of the lineup. He keeps showing up every day and coming to work like a pro. He's kept himself ready for this opportunity and he's obviously taking advantage of it.

P.J.'s a tough kid. He's overcome a lot more than that in his life.

I see houses that are maintained to different degrees, I see gardens that are maintained to different degrees, ... One of the things that I would look for would be a design that very quickly would reveal individual enthusiasm of individual residents. ... Anything monolithic can, if it's designed well, look less monolithic.

I thought our guys played hard. We wanted to give ourselves a chance to push forward and we did that. We just couldn't make enough stops.

We were having trouble getting things started all night. It was just a little ground ball that I was able to hit in the right place to get on. Then a passed ball and Ruben Sierra deserves a lot of credit. After sitting on the bench, he rips that ball out there into left field. He did his job.

Winning a game like this might be better for us that if we won with an eight-or nine-point spread because we had to work. We didn't come in here thinking it would be easy.

That's a tough loss. We have to play just a bit better. We made the stops we needed to make tonight, and we certainly did enough defensively. We just have to play better.

We've lost to Charlotte, but we beat Phoenix (on the road). How that works, I don't know. It's a matter of us going out and playing.

We've got some girls that played their hearts out. We can build on it, that's just part of that growing process, but they had a couple of seniors that were really good.

When it was tied, we didn't do what you have to do to win a game like this. We were impatient and we forced the issue and it cost us the game.

We turned down some open shots, so we need to be aggressive. Being aggressive is taking an open shot. We're better when we run, and we haven't been aggressive enough in transition.

We watched tape of them and we talked about their quickness and ability to get in the passing lanes. Until you get out there it's hard to fathom how effective they are. They are a pesky team and they're going to be one of those teams that will always be hard to play.

You feel comfortable with either of them. They both have proved they can do it.

A lot of it is related to safety.

Everything we baked we gave to friends to find out what works and what doesn't work. It took us a few months to get it down right. The end result was a lot of products.

We had a day off (Saturday), so our players were ready to play them, ... We played with a lot of energy. The top 10-11 guys all got a good run in and played well.

I'm pretty optimistic about it. We know we can win this year if all seven players play their absolute best.

If you look at the East, just about every team on paper has improved. There's some teams out there that nobody's talking about that are going to be much better.

I just want to get into the playoffs. I don't care what the seed is. What's the best seed? The best is being in one of the eight spots and not being in the ninth spot.

It was just a really good win to get. It has to help our confidence and make us realize that we can be a good team if we keep playing the way we we're playing.

His arrest resulted in the cancellation of his contract.

They wanted to win this outright on the road. I'm proud of that. That's awesome stuff.

They hit us in every phase of the game. They overpowered us inside and they got us on the open court and we didn't get back. We did all right offensively for a while, but as soon as we turned it over and missed shots, they were outrunning us.

It was a big, big gamble, ... But it has been quite a stroke of business.

You can't let Pittsburgh come at you, ... You can't let Connecticut come at you. You can't let West Virginia come at you. You're not playing against bad teams.

They played great and we didn't give them much of a game tonight.

They are the ones who feel it most when any kind of heating price increases come along. Unfortunately, when they pay for their heat, they do without something else. You might have to cut back on medicine or food. With the clients we serve, it's a decision they have to make every day.

We weren't the second-best team in the country when we played Duke. We weren't.

He played well. He has an opportunity if he keeps developing and working to be a factor in our rotation next season.