Rick Carlisle Minutes Quotations

I'd like to keep him in the mid-20s if there's any way possible to do that, because that gives him enough energy to really pursue the ball and finish off plays on the inside. I thought the fact that we had to play him 37 minutes the other night in Houston had an effect on that one play late where he got to the rim, but couldn't quite get it in.

Jamaal came in early and went and shot, said he wanted to give it a shot, but after six minutes it was clear he wasn't 100 percent.

He just wasn't able to get enough minutes for us to keep him here. He played well and had a great training camp and was terrific in the locker room. It's just one of those timing-type things.

I thought in the second half, we did a good job of sticking with what we had to do to give ourselves a chance. Our undoing is not playing 48 minutes at that level.

Our undoing was the fact we're not playing 48 minutes at home at a high level. That's got to change.

We can't afford not to have him for 35-40 minutes in a playoff game. I'm not going to criticize the officials because they're working hard, but it is something that needs to be looked at.

We have to help him get into some more positions where he doesn't have to use his off-arm to get open. We have to adjust. He's going to have to adjust a little bit. We've got to have him on the floor. We're not going to be able to win the series with him playing 31 minutes a game. There's just no way.

We just can't afford not to have him available to play 38 to 40 minutes in a playoff game. It just makes it too hard on the rest of our team.

We're trying to hang in. We probably could have done a lot more things over the course of 48 minutes to put ourselves in a stronger position, but we didn't. We don't have much time to hang our heads about this. We've got another one tomorrow.

We're trying to condition him into a position where he can play with consistency. My decision was to play him heavy minutes the first half and then ice him down, have him for practice tomorrow.

We didn't play a full, hard 48 minutes of basketball and we left too much to chance. You have those types of let-ups and tempt fate with a Pierce bank shot. We're not in a position to do that.

As long as he plays with this kind of energy and force, he'll get minutes and make things happen.

It's clear off the last few games that he's a difference maker for us. I'm not going to look to play three guys just to play three guys. I'm going to look to try to have a rotation where guys can be comfortable. But you have to be accountable and play your minutes hard. Otherwise there are good players behind you; that's the fact. Our point position hasn't been this strong in a long time. It's good news for us.