Rick Carlisle Key Quotations

He's been a major key in this series.

He made a point tonight. He was a key part of the game.

That certainly was an important game for us. We were sloppy at times offensively. The key for us was our disposition defensively. It was there today.

I thought defensively we were playing soft (in the first half) and not playing the type of game we needed to play to give ourselves a chance. The third quarter we came out with a lot of more aggression, and the third quarter was the key quarter.

You've got to keep playing and stay the course. We were able to get some big stops and Jermaine had a couple of key blocks. We're certainly happy to get on the winning side of the game.

The key part of the game was the end of the second quarter. They did a great job finishing plays and giving themselves a chance to win. ... We couldn't get over the hump.

It's always good to win and we had a lot of good things happen. The way we are structured right now, we have to play more up tempo, but the key to the game was the way we picked up our intensity on defense in the second half.

They are a tough team to play at any time. But from a schedule standpoint, our fourth (game) in five nights, it's really tough. That on top of the fact that we shot poorly in the first half, and we're without some key guys made it tougher.

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.