NBA FINALS: PISTONS v SPURS

June 14, 2005

Richard Hamilton

RICHARD HAMILTON: I think, you know, the one thing they did is come out and take care of home on their court. You know, I think that tonight, we wanted to do the same thing. We wanted to come out and play good with our fans and play with a lot of energy and things like and get the win.

RICHARD HAMILTON: Energy. We have to come out here and help each other out. We have to come out and hit first. We can't come out and allow them to hit us and react to it. We have to be the ones that are aggressive, and I think we did that tonight.

RICHARD HAMILTON: Well, I mean, we just tried to pressure him. We just didn't want him to get out front, allow him to dribble, you know, allow him to make plays for his teammates. We wanted to keep the pressure on him, because if we keep the pressure on him it gives guys the opportunities to take charges and guys the opportunity to get in the way.

RICHARD HAMILTON: He was great. In the first play, he got a steal and a dunk. He was unbelievable. He showed tonight why he was the Defensive Player of the Year. He showed a lot of energy and blocked shots and definitely played inside for us.

RICHARD HAMILTON: I definitely believe so, right from the beginning, because we didn't allow, you know, them to hit us first. We went out there with the first hit.

RICHARD HAMILTON: Oh, man, it was great. You know, I think in order for us to be successful, we need a big help from our bench. Them guys came in there with a lot of energy, Lindsey did it defensively and Antonio did it offensively and they did everything possible to put us in a situation where we can get a lead and win a basketball game.

RICHARD HAMILTON: Like I said, Chauncey is our floor general. We ask him to do so much, sometimes he needs to score, sometimes he needs to get everybody involved and he can definitely go out there and play defense. Chauncey is great for us, because he picked and chooses when he needed to score, when he needed to slow down and things like that, and that's what great point guards do.

RICHARD HAMILTON: I think the one thing we try to do is pressure him. We can't allow him, just sometimes -- you know, we think that we want to turn him into a jump shooter and we just keep backing off of him, backing off of him. Tonight we kept the pressure on him. We tried to make plays toward the basket and when he drove to the basket, guys tried to step up and take charges.

RICHARD HAMILTON: Chauncey was great. I love him to death. I would not rather have any backcourt mate than him. He's an aggressive point guard. Like I said, he picks and chooses when he's going to step up and things like that. He hit a couple big baskets, a couple big threes, made our fast break when he scooped it up left hand, that was a great energy play for us and he played great basketball.

RICHARD HAMILTON: Ben is going to be Ben. You know, I think like I said, he made a statement from the first play, when he got past, got the dunk and really got the crowd into the game. That's our emotional leader out there. You know, he doesn't say a lot, but he goes out there and plays hard. He gives it his all and he was up there rebounding, like I said, blocking shots, defending. When he got the ball underneath, he dunked in or made a great play, and that's what Ben Wallace does.