NBA ALL-STAR WEEKEND

February 11, 2001

Vince Carter

Stephon Marbury

Dikembe Mutombo

VINCE CARTER: You know, he was defended, airtight. When he jumped, I mean, that's a hard shot, shooting over Mutombo and Tim was open. So we just helped him rotate it and got the win.

STEPHON MARBURY: I can honestly say that we are the best players in this world and the younger guys, they are young so they make mistakes and they do things that, you know, are stupid on the basketball court, but that is all part of it, that is all part about being young. I think the guys that played in the All-Star Game tonight, they have a lot -- we all have a lot of experience, and I think we really showed the world that basketball can be played at different levels and, you know, tonight we showed a lot of heart within the last two minutes of the game and we made the game exciting and fun. I think the people really came out and had a great time.

DIKEMBE MUTOMBO: Something Allen brings on the table is his speed. It's so fast, it makes it so hard for any defender to stop him, especially the team who does not have that much speed. Today, he kind of helped us, that's the reason why they call him the Answer. We had so many questions there on the bench and he just came out and he responded. (Laughs).

DIKEMBE MUTOMBO: I didn't have nothing to prove. All I was trying to do is to help my team win the ballgame, and was shorthanded compared to the Western Conference team, and they just came and took advantage of us at the beginning of the game. And we was down one time by 21 and nobody was laughing about it. Everybody was just keeping their composure and trying to find a way, how can we win this game. And the second half, we just came out and we responded great. We got our turnover and then we went and we win the ball game.

STEPHON MARBURY: I think the East is definitely the best Conference. (Laughs). But I think tonight, I think when you play against the Western Conference team, them guys have so many big guys -- and you know, Kobe and Jason Kidd at the point, you know you're there for the night. At the end of the night when we went small, Kobe was like, "You're going small now at the end of the game." I think Coach Brown had that plan. I think, you know, with Allen going the way he was going, you know, it was no way that we were going to lose. He pretty much put us on his back and at the end of the game, we just finished.

VINCE CARTER: We just wanted to show, we can do it all. That's why they consider us the greatest players. And we didn't want to lose, either, from the start of the game to the end of the game to still now. We wanted to win, no matter how much we were down or how much time, I don't care if it is 5:35 left in the game, we wanted to win this. And for us to be All-Stars and from different teams and to defend like we did and help and rotate, that's what it is all about, to show that regardless of the guys and how good we are, where we come from, everything, we all can come together and make it a great game.

VINCE CARTER: I was just out there having fun, taking advantage of the situation. But, you know, it happened.

STEPHON MARBURY: Me and my mom were talking the other night, she said to me, she said, "Stephon, there are very few people who get to live their dreams." And tonight, it was beyond living my dream. This is not something that I fantasized about or thought about. I never in my life, in my wildest dreams thought I would be playing in the All-Star Game growing up. You just want to make the NBA from where I'm from. And to be able to hit some big shots at the end of the game and go out with a win, you know, that's just a nice, nice script in my chapter of my book.