NBA FINALS: PISTONS v SPURS

June 16, 2005

Ben Wallace

BEN WALLACE: Our bench all season, when things don't go well for us, you know, they take the hit. They take it and they take a lot of the blame. But tonight, you know they stepped up big and they brought a lot of energy off the bench was able to make plays for us, you know and helped us get a nice win.

BEN WALLACE: Like I said before, Tim is one of those guys that you can't afford to let him get good looks early in the game. You know, I thought the first two games they put the ball on the floor, penetrated to the basket, we rotated too early, too much. We helped a little too much, allowed him to get more. You know, now we saw that, we sort of relaxed a little bit, you know and let the guys help, put a body on Tim, keep him off the paint and force him to shoot on top of us.

BEN WALLACE: I really can't say offensively. We put up numbers, a lot of people might think it's our offense, but it comes from our defensive play. We get in the passing lane, make it tough for them to put the ball on the floor, make them shoot against our set defense and the clock, you know, once you do that, it leads to easy transition buckets. So, you know, our defense has been clicking. Any time we get our defense going, it also helps the offensive end.

BEN WALLACE: You know, that's one thing about this team, I never worry about this team becoming complacent. I never worry about this team getting down on itself. You know, the unique thing about us is we're with our team, we're going to come out and play hard regardless of what the situation is, even when things are not falling for us, everybody still comes out and plays hard and give their all, all they've got and that's all we can ask. We know what type of game we're in for going into Game 5 and we're going to have be ready. They are going to bring their best game and we have to come out and match that effort to try to take it to the next level.

BEN WALLACE: I really don't come into games expecting it to be one way or another, close or blowout, I always expect it coming in to be a dogfight. That's the way we prepare, we come in here and fight for 48 minutes, that's all you can prepare yourself for.

BEN WALLACE: No, not really. As far as teams go, this is a great team and they are capable of getting it done on both ends of the floor. Like you said, all we have done is tied it 2-2. We've got a lot of basketball to play because they still have got a lot of fight in them.

BEN WALLACE: Yeah, of course. You know, it's one of those things where you know right now, we're feeling good, everybody got their legs back, everybody is looking fresh, everybody is coming out looking to make plays. That's the way we've got to be from here on out, you know, we know what it takes to win a championship. We have been there before. We try to get back, you know, to the top. So we definitely got to come from here on out with this kind of energy, you know, night in and night out.

BEN WALLACE: We still can play better. You know, everybody came out and, you know, for the most part they did what they could do to help the team win. You know, I try to tell everybody, we haven't played a perfect game. You know, we still can try to put together a perfect game, and until we do that, then we always can be better. I don't think we can ever, you know, really play a perfect game, so we always look for us to come out and try to match that energy.