NBA FINALS: PISTONS v LAKERS

June 8, 2004

Chauncey Billups

Richard Hamilton

CHAUNCEY BILLUPS: It was a huge shot. It was a big shot. He's been known to do things like that, make big shots. You know, we could have played that a little differently, which we talked about, but we didn't. This is the NBA. That's how the ball bounces sometimes. But we go into overtime, and, you know, we just couldn't really find -- we couldn't keep going. We couldn't continue to hit shots. We ran a couple of the same plays and just couldn't get what we wanted out of it. They started to execute better and they stayed aggressive. I thought they took the momentum into overtime and we just could never get going.

RICHARD HAMILTON: Yeah, I think I could have been a little bit closer, but he's so good with the ball, you know, herky-jerky, you know what I mean. I just try to press up on him. I had a hand up and he just knocked down a tough shot.

CHAUNCEY BILLUPS: That was big. That was big, because we were really dependent on Elden in this series. He's a tough cover for those guys because he's can pick and pop. He's a very good shooter up to 16 feet and we use him in the game -- he's the biggest body that we have to lean on Shaq. So for him to get his third foul and Sheed already had two, that was big. But with all of that, with all of that, we didn't play very good the first half and most of the second half, we got back into the game. We never gave up. We got back into the game, but, yeah, we definitely could have used a lot more had he not gotten the quick fouls.

CHAUNCEY BILLUPS: Well, on my shot, you know, I got it down, Fish kind of flopped a little bit, knocked me off balance. So when I was out of bounds I had to pick the ball up and that was a couple of seconds on the shot clock, I had to let it go.

CHAUNCEY BILLUPS: Not really. It was a flop but it wasn't enough to really call a foul. I usually make shots like that. I have the strength to take those hits and still be balanced and square up to the rim. It just didn't go. But, you know, I don't think that lost us the game, though.

RICHARD HAMILTON: That was never a question that we was going to foul. We was going to try to play everybody straight up, switch on pick-and-rolls and things like that. It was never a question of whether we were going to foul or not.

CHAUNCEY BILLUPS: Well, you know, we just try to make their big guys play on pin-downs with Rip, and with me, use them on pick-and-rolls. You know, me and Rip both have the ability to knock down shots and hit the jumpshot, so it puts pressure and makes it tougher on those guys to guard us. I think Sheed really came in for us tonight and made sure we explored that a lot more in that fourth quarter, but we, we had some situations and some different match-ups that we would like to go to. It's just a matter of what time, when to use it and when not to.

RICHARD HAMILTON: We're still a confident team. It's tough to lose the way we lost tonight. We got one. We wish that we could have got two, but now it's time to go to our home court. We're going to take total advantage of that and play in front of our fans which we think are the best fans in the world and just come out and play.

RICHARD HAMILTON: I don't remember. Like I said, he hit a tough shot. Me and Kobe have been going at it for a long, long time. That wasn't the first big shot he made, you know, but he made it. It's tough to take it. It's tough when you have the lead going, especially late in the fourth. When he makes a big shot like that, you've got to give him credit, he makes big shots and he made one.

CHAUNCEY BILLUPS: Oh, no. I definitely don't think our chance to grab hold of this slipped away. We had them on the ropes. There's no ifs, ands or buts. We had them on the ropes and they got out. They won this game, but I think we outplayed that team for three quarters, three quarters out of every game, we have outplayed their team. So I think we've got their -- we woke them up a little bit and they know this is going to be a dogfight. This is going to be a dogfight. We have to expect what they did. First game they said it was a fluke and whatnot. Today we came in and we didn't play as good, but we hung in there. We stayed within striking distance and kind of turned the game around and we had it. We had it to where we needed it. They made some big plays, made some big plays down the stretch. But this is going to be a good, long series, man, and we're gearing up for that. I'm sure that they know that. We're here, man, we're going to try to win, too.