NBA EASTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: PISTONS v HEAT

May 23, 2005

Ben Wallace

BEN WALLACE: About eight, nine dunks, that's pretty normal right there.

BEN WALLACE: Yeah, for a number of reasons.

BEN WALLACE: It's tough. Man, any time you've got a big guy like Shaq, you've got to fight with him down there, a guy who can pass the ball and execute, can make moves on you. He's agile and light on his feet, and he's tough, man. You get beat up down there. All I can say is it's tough. Until you've been down there, you really can't understand what you have to go through.

BEN WALLACE: That's all the time. You know, you want to try not to get too close to him because he's going to move you around where he wants you to go, so you just try to keep a little distance between you.

BEN WALLACE: He came out with a lot of energy tonight. Sheed was fired up and ready to play, and when Sheed comes out and plays like that from the start, you know, we're the top team to beat because then we execute offense. They tried to take something away, you know, they've got to move up some. Rasheed plays like that, it motivates everybody else to play a little bit harder.

BEN WALLACE: You know, that's what it takes. You've got to be able to go on the road and get wins in a hostile environment. I think all the playoff teams that continue to move on are the ones that can go on the road and get wins.

BEN WALLACE: I thought what happened is early in the game, we did a great job on the defensive end, forced them to take tough shots. They was hitting some tough shots, but what it did for us is kept us out of foul trouble. Coming into the second half we were a little more aggressive. We let it all hang out on the defensive end. Nobody was in foul trouble, so we were able to get in the passing lane, was able to step up guys, force them to catch the ball out from us a little bit.