NBA EASTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: PISTONS v HEAT

May 24, 2005

Chauncey Billups

CHAUNCEY BILLUPS: I'm loving it, man, I'm loving it. And then with them not being on a successful team, and I'm feeling really responsible for bringing them here, I felt what it was about, playing in the Finals and having a chance to play for it all. You know, I'm just happy that it turned out like this for him. He deserves that. He's dominated for a long time without really winning in a playoff, and he deserves this opportunity.

CHAUNCEY BILLUPS: I talked to Joe. Of course I did a lot of talking to him. It was a process, but we got him down here, and I think everybody on both sides has benefitted from it.

CHAUNCEY BILLUPS: Well, experience, but I don't think that really matters. He wasn't that experienced last year, and he dominated. I was 30-something probably. I don't think that really matters. I think that they haven't faced a team like ours that plays defense and that tries to take things away from you instead of just running up and down, and when you go to the basket if we can block all those shots, they haven't played against a team like that. Like I said, it's an adjustment, and I'm sure that they will make that adjustment. But when they do, you know, we'll start to make our adjustments, too.

CHAUNCEY BILLUPS: Tayshaun, he's got the arms of a 7' 2" guy, and it's unbelievable that he's as quick as he is and athletic as he is. He bothers people. He can play against a guy and be five, six feet off of him and still be there contesting every shot just blocking it. I'm glad he's on my team and he don't have to check me.

CHAUNCEY BILLUPS: Not really prepare. We're playing it pretty much the same way. We're going to play Shaq, dig on him and try to help on it, and then there's nothing really you can do with him. There's no good way to play him. But Wade, like I say, we're going to just switch up a lot. Sometimes we trap him, sometimes we play him head up, sometimes we tilt on him. There's a lot of different schemes. But it's about the same way when we play those two great players last year in the Finals.

CHAUNCEY BILLUPS: Well, we talked about it yesterday before we came out on the court. This was the big game. This was the game we need right here. Because we just felt like they hadn't really been tested in the post-season. They hadn't been tested. They hadn't played against a team like us who played defense and who really believed in themselves. They hadn't played against us yet, and we felt like yesterday would be a good game to show them that, and I thought we did that, and like I said, now they have played against us and they'll make some adjustments, and the game will be a great game tomorrow night.

CHAUNCEY BILLUPS: Yeah, well, we wanted to deliver the first blow. We knew that this crowd was going to be crazy, they were going to come out with a lot of emotion, have a lot of time off. You know, the time off might have been just like a curse really. You're not as fine tuned most times. You really can't simulate game-type situations in practice no matter how hard you play. It's just different. It was a good opportunity for us to come out, and we stole one.