NBA FINALS: PISTONS v SPURS

June 8, 2005

Richard Hamilton

RICHARD HAMILTON: I think it's very important for Sheed to score because I think he's definitely, you know, I believe that he's one of the best power forwards in this game. I believe that if we get our inside presence going, you know, it makes it easier for our guards. I think that if he's down there, you know, posting up, getting baskets, hitting low range, sometimes hitting threes, it takes a lot of pressure off everybody else because now when teams guard us, they have to worry about our big fellas inside and it makes it easier for our guards.

RICHARD HAMILTON: One thing about Bruce, he's a guy that really takes pride in his defense. He's not worried about offense at all. He's a guy that really comes out and tries to use every part of his body. He's not a guy that just wants to reach and try to get steals and things like that. He'll try to bump you with his hips, his legs, his knees and everything else. You know, it's definitely a challenge.

RICHARD HAMILTON: I know what he has done. It was something that, you know, when you're a guard in this league, you kind of figure out and you try to watch every guard in the NBA. To play in the NBA Finals, you know, like I said, any great defender, everybody can guard, you know, guys that want to post up, guys that want to play one-on-one with all of the rules changes and things like that. They can be guarded. But when you've got to chase a guy and run and try to chase guys off screens and play against a guy that moves without the ball and things like that, like when I played against Reggie (Miller), it's tough to guard because you can't ever set your feet. You can't really ever relax and things like that. So I definitely think it's going to be a challenge.

RICHARD HAMILTON: It definitely would be a great feeling. Winning last year was unbelievable. You know, we were all excited and things like that. Nobody believed that we could do it. This year, you know, now everybody was coming after us and, you know, it took us a while to understand that we were the champs and every team that we played against, it's their championship game, with the melee that happened in Detroit, with Coach being out, being sick and guys being hurt and things like that. At the end of the day, you can say that we're right back here again for another chance to win a world championship, you know, I would not replace all of that stuff we did earlier for nothing, because we grew up. You know, the one thing that we learned from that is that we all had each other's back. We stayed connected through it all and we're right back here again.

RICHARD HAMILTON: The challenge for us with our team is that we want to play. We would rather play. You know, it's good that, you know, we won last year and now we get the opportunity to come back and lay it on the line again. We look at it as a challenge. You know, they had about a week off or something like that. We just feel as though, you know, we're in a nice little groove right now, so we want to continue to stay in that groove.