2006 EASTERN CONFERENCE FINALS
MIAMI, FLORIDA

May 26, 2006


Q. I was wondering what must you do to impose your will to begin this game, Game 3?

FLIP SAUNDERS: Well, the biggest thing is the teams that have gotten off to a great start have made shots. Sometimes you can talk about a lot of different -- how to defend pick-and-rolls, how to do a lot of different things, but it really boils down to guys making shots. When guys make shots, it not only helps you offensively but helps you set up your defense, but it gives you the ability to dig in after you've made some shots and maybe get on a roll and get off to a great start. If your defense is at a high energy level, what ends up happening is now because of that, it makes it difficult for them to score and get on a run.

Q. Did you guys have another day off completely today?

FLIP SAUNDERS: Yeah. We met, we came in here. Some of the guys, we talked to the guys as far as -- we talked to guys on the flight down and everything.

Q. I was wondering if you could talk about what happened with the flight, and also is the fatigue factor becoming less relevant now?

FLIP SAUNDERS: Yeah, I don't think we ever said that we were fatigued after our series; I said more I thought what hurt us more than fatigue was lack of preparation, only having really one day and an hour and a half to really prepare. To try to change from playing one team for seven games for ten days and how they play, and now you're going against a whole different animal when you're playing against the Heat because they play a totally different style than the team you're used to playing against.

I think because of having a game, two games underneath -- seeing the team, seeing a lot of film on them, our guys playing against them twice, we're more comfortable getting back to now knowing how they're going to play. Even though you played against them during the course of the season, it's always nice to get refreshed a little bit.

I think the time off gives us -- as far as mental, to be more mentally alert, as far as that situation, at this point -- because you're playing every other day, you're not going to be in a situation where players are going to get out of shape, and it becomes more of a mental game than a physical game. We're trying to keep our guys mentally sharp and keep them physically as healthy as we can.

Q. What is your sense of how they are mentally and physically?

FLIP SAUNDERS: I think they're good. I think that we have -- I thought going in before last night we were in a good frame of mind. I thought that we understood what we needed to do to have success against them, and we went in with confidence. I think that's why we played well as far as to start the game.

I think that the game before, I think Miami felt the same way in Game 1 we felt going into Game 2. So now we're going to be in a situation where both teams understand each other, both teams know a little bit as far as at this point what they're trying to do to offset the other person's strengths, so Game 3 will be a good game to see who's going to be able to exert their will on each other.

Q. Did you get to talk to your team at all about stealing back home court advantage?

FLIP SAUNDERS: No, this team has been through so much as far as over the last few years, you don't have to talk to them much because they know where it's at. We approach the game just like we have every one of our games. We've been a great road team all year, had one of the best road records, have gone in with the idea of going out and playing our game and trying to know what's at hand that night to try to win that game.

We have won here in Miami, so it's not like we're going into a situation where we haven't had success here. I think we're going to go in in a good frame of mind and know that whoever is going to be the most aggressive team is going to have success. That's how it was the first two games; Miami was more aggressive than we were, they were better than us in Game 1; we were more aggressive in Game 2, and we came out on the upper hand Game 2.

Q. Going back to the shot making we talked about, what did you see work in terms of getting good looks and good shots off?

FLIP SAUNDERS: We went to more -- what I call more of an equal opportunity offense. We didn't zero in where one guy had to carry us the whole time. We took what they gave us. We got everyone involved, Ben got involved a lot early, and it was more of an equal opportunity offense, so it became more difficult to them to really lock in in one situation.

Q. It also seemed that things were maybe more desperate, came out with aggression. I was just wondering, how did you gauge the desperation in Game 3?

FLIP SAUNDERS: I think both teams are desperate to win because just you've got a chance to gain the momentum, whoever wins Game 3. By gaining the momentum, you're hoping that at some point you can get the team -- that you have the ability to carry that momentum into the next game.

As we won Game 2, we're hoping we can carry momentum from winning Game 2 into winning Game 3. I don't think that either one of these teams -- both teams respect each other so much, I don't think you're going to have it where you're going to have a letdown. I think they went through seven games last year. This whole season they were maybe 1 and 2 all year long in the Eastern Conference. People have been pointing at this series. Miami of course lost last year to Detroit, so they're going to point at us.

I don't think you're going to have what you would call a letdown from either team at this point. What we have now is we have a five-game series it really comes down to at this point with Miami having home court.

Q. Can you talk about the job that Rip does on Dwyane? What does he do to try to pressure him?

FLIP SAUNDERS: To guard Dwyane, it's not Rip, it's everybody. We put a lot of different people on him. Rip has been on him, Tay has been on him, Delfino has been on him, Lindsey Hunter has been on him, Chauncey Billups has been on him, Ben Wallace has been on him. Dwyane is a phenomenal athlete. I think he's the most dynamic player in the game right now when you look at someone who can just do things so explosively as he can. So one person cannot stop him.

We just try to give him different looks. Rip has the ability because he is 6'7", he can put a little bit of length on him, he's got pretty decent quickness, but it's still tough to stop him in one-on-one situations. You have to have help on the right and help on the left, and if you don't, he's going to be at the rim before you can snap your fingers.

Q. It seems like Rip and even Ben with Shaq, you guys got under their skin last night a little bit is one of the things they said. Obviously that's not your intended goal, but --

FLIP SAUNDERS: We just go out there with the idea of just playing how we play. I think that both teams -- as the playoff series progresses, as things become harder, both teams become more intense, things become a little bit chippy. When we're playing good defense, we're stepping in and taking charge. When they're playing good defense, they're stepping in.

Last night we had seven charges called in the game, so you had both teams saying -- the defense is saying to the offense that we're not just going to let you go where you want to go. So when that happens and you have a lot of confidence, there's going to be a little bit of chippiness, but that's what it's all about.

Q. How much was it your focus in Game 2 to stop the guys besides Shaq and Dwyane?

FLIP SAUNDERS: It was kind of our main thing. We didn't want them to get off to a great start and get easy buckets because that definitely gets -- role players have a tendency -- you definitely look at Gary Payton as being a role player when you've got a guy that's going to be in the Hall of Fame. They're using a lot of those guys because they're running a lot of things through Shaq and through Dwyane. So when you run your offense through two guys predominantly and the other players aren't involved as much, what you want to try to do is you don't want them to have high, efficient scoring opportunities when they do get the ball.

What we tried to do is we tried to make sure that we did not lay off those guys so much, and we basically respected them, and basically we wanted to make sure that when they got it that we didn't want to be in a situation just to have to give them open shots and give them the freedom to do what they want to do because they're all good enough players, both Payton and Walker, that if you give them too much freedom that they'll beat you.

In the two games we've gotten beat, we lost during the regular season here, and we lost Game 1, Payton had big games against us. We've got to make sure that we contain those people.

Q. It's been said on local radio that over the past two series that Chauncey has been playing with an injured ankle. What have you seen from Chauncey? Is he at 100 percent?

FLIP SAUNDERS: Don't let the facts get in the way of a good story. Tim is a good old CBA guy, so he's used to making up stories. There's nothing physically wrong with Chauncey.

Q. The reason he brought it up, he thought he was struggling on the pick-and-roll and that -- (Inaudible).

FLIP SAUNDERS: It's not what you think. In reality he's not hurt. He just didn't go to the pick-and-roll.

Q. But on offense --

FLIP SAUNDERS: You always tell people when you're playing a game people are trying to stop you; it's not like dummy offense where you can just go out and do what you want to do. There's another team. They're doing things to prevent Chauncey from having success, and Chauncey's job is if they're going to stop that, they're going to give us something else.

That's one of the reasons in the Cleveland series that Tayshaun had a huge series; that's one of the reasons you saw Rip go for 20 in the first half last night and Tayshaun get 24 because if they're going to stop Chauncey and put in effort to do that, then the other players have to make them pay. It has nothing to do with Chauncey, how he is physically. I think for anyone to say that, they just don't know what they're talking about.

Q. You talked about the lack of preparation heading into this series coming off a seven-game series. Was there ever any point where the confidence of this team took any kind of hit?

FLIP SAUNDERS: No.

Q. Can you just talk about that, getting over those three losses?

FLIP SAUNDERS: Like I said, it's a very unique team if you're around them. Anyone that's covered them and knows them, it's been very well documented that this team in Detroit has confidence in their abilities no matter what the situation is. They take it for what it's worth, and when the game is played and the game is done, they forget about that game and they worry about the next one. No matter if they've lost two games, they're ready to fire back the third game. If they've lost one, they're ready to fire back to win the second game.

Like I said, they have a lot of confidence, they've been together, they've been through a lot of battles together, and when you've been in the heat of a game in the heat of a series and you know how your teammates are going to respond, you have confidence, and I think they've responded in a very positive way, which this team has done over the last couple of years, and it puts you at a comfort level as far as playing with those guys.

Q. After Game 2, you dominated and didn't finish it off. Last night was almost a carbon copy where you didn't quite finish, and you didn't get it back for a while. Is there any fear of that happening again, or do you need to address that?

FLIP SAUNDERS: No. The Cleveland game was totally different. That was a quarter situation where we almost went a whole quarter. This was a minute-and-10-second situation, and basically what we did last night was what Miami did against us in the game prior. They were up big and they were waiting for the game to end and get it over with as we were waiting for the game to end last night and get it over with.

Our guys today, no one even talked about that. We just brought up the idea that we've got to finish games. I thought there were some situations down the stretch as far as some fouls and even delay of games that could have been called as far as when we were trying to get the ball that could have changed that whole thing, so I don't think that will have a bearing. How they played at that frantic pace, you can't play like that for 48 minutes with that pressure.

Our strength is our ability not to turn the ball over. We turned it over at those points, but usually that's not something we're going to do.

Q. You talked a little bit about Tayshaun. How important is he to the offense and defense of this series?

FLIP SAUNDERS: Well, he's important because Tayshaun has become a match-up, a nightmare for teams. He's long, he's got the ability to shoot the ball at perimeter, got the ability to get the ball in the paint, make plays for other people, very good offensive rebounder. He's been second team all-defense this year in the league. He's a multidimensional player that when you go out and start talking with guys, you've got to stop Chauncey Billups on pick-and-rolls, you've got to make sure you get off and get Rasheed Wallace off the pick-and-roll, keep Ben Wallace off the good boards, Rip Hamilton is their leading scorer. So he's kind of the afterthought, but even though he's kind of the afterthought, now all of a sudden he becomes a guy that they say we've got to really find a way to contain him.

COACH PAT RILEY

Q. Pat, is Tayshaun getting his stuff in the flow of their offense or is it off of isolations?

PAT RILEY: He gets -- they go to him, but I think he's getting it more off the flow, secondary, ball swings, he puts it on the floor. Last night he made some very, very big plays when our defense was really, really good. I think it was 75-69, we had cut the score to 75-69, and it was the play that Shaquille got hurt. He drove the basket, willed himself to get to the basket, then he got the second shot.

We have to make an adjustment on him mentally. He's a great, great, great player, and I think he's proven in Milwaukee and proven in Cleveland that he's making most of their big plays.

While everyone concentrates on Billups and Hamilton and on Rasheed, he's killing you. He's been a thorn in our side all year.

Q. You've got several guys who in their earlier lives who are used to be the leading man and now they've made a successful transition to being complementary players, but I'm sure it wasn't as easy as that. Can you talk about when they turned the corner this year?

PAT RILEY: That's an old story now, it really is. I think we've talked about it all year long. Everybody knows what Gary and Antoine and Jason are. Posey has always been a complementary player, everybody knows Zo and Derek and these players have had major roles in their career with other teams, and now they've really sort of subjugated their games or whatever. But they've done a good job doing it.

Last night we did not get it from our bench, as they didn't get it in the first game. It's taken some time, they've adjusted to it, and I think we'll be much better tomorrow night finding the shots they need.

Q. What gave you the faith that they could do it, because some guys can never do this?

PAT RILEY: I don't know, I just believe. I believe in them. I've watched them their whole careers. I don't pay attention to -- I pay attention to people who I talk to about them, who know them. I pay attention to our scouts and to Randy, the general manager and to people who know them, and we make an evaluation on players, but I've watched them long enough to think that they can help us, and I have great faith that they can help us, and they have. They have. We are here, and we have to make sure now that we don't as a team bring the same effort we brought last night, which is simply not enough to beat them.

Q. What did you tell the team today about energy and effort?

PAT RILEY: We're down 17 percent across the board, effort and defense, from the first game. In total and quarter by quarter -- it's really interesting, in the fourth quarter of both games, last night we had an 80 percent effort in the fourth quarter and we had an 87 percent effort in the first game in the fourth quarter to close that game out. So we came back last night in the fourth quarter with a great effort, but the first quarter we came out with a 67 and then we got a 65. It ain't going to win.

It's a subconscious thing more than anything else. Our players came last night knowing they had a chance to really put them and their backs against the wall. It wasn't conscious that they came and said we're not going to play hard, it's a subconscious thing because they secured the game they needed.

It just is human nature. I've seen it throughout my career. I have a hard time accepting it. When I present the numbers to them today, they go, oh, God, no wonder we didn't play well. I'm not not giving Detroit credit because Detroit played great. But if we make that kind of effort, then usually your efficiency and your execution are going to be lax, also. That's what happened.

Q. What goes into your effort percentage?

PAT RILEY: There's a lot of things, there really are. We have what we call super effort and then we have effort plays. There's at least 25 categories.

Q. What's the minimum percentage that usually correlates to winning a game?

PAT RILEY: Well, I do know this: The percentages over the course of the season, okay, if we're over 75 percent effort and over 73 percent defense, we'll win 80 percent of our games. We'll win over 80 percent of our games. That's proven out.

When we're below that, then you might win 70 percent, from under 50 percent, 60 percent, 70 percent, 80 percent. In my career that's how I've sort of measured effort and defense, and if you meet these criteria every night regardless of how you are offensively, you have a chance to win, and if you have a great offense with those numbers, you never lose.

Q. Before you broke it down, did you think it was worse than --

PAT RILEY: I could see we weren't making the effort last night. I didn't see what the numbers were, but I could see we weren't making the kind of effort we made in the first game. In the first game we had 15 out of 18 shots, so we were front running a little bit, and it's easier to play defense when everything is going good for you offensively, but they cracked down on us offensively and got into us a little bit, and when our effort dropped you can't stay in the game.

Sometimes you can play poorly on offense, but if you continue to make the effort, you can stay with them, which is what we should have done. We shouldn't have been down 25-12, it should have been 21-18 or something like that, but it wasn't.

Q. How tough a call right now is your forward lineup? You've had Ud struggling; the Posey-Walker tandem you've gotten some use out of.

PAT RILEY: They've been good. Last night we didn't shoot the ball well, we really didn't. We were 2 for 12 on threes -- 2 for 10 on threes on the inside-out tried and kick game, and 2 for 10 on threes that were skip passes or threes in transition, and so we have to take a look at that. We took four or five threes that were really contested that should have been drives. Pose and Antoine are a big part of this thing, and Jason Williams.

Q. Has Haslem's game been affected beyond shooting or are you happy with everything else?

PAT RILEY: He's 1 for 12, and Ud has always been someone that's come back and bounced back. He's only got -- zero offensive rebounds, either, so he needs to step up tomorrow night big-time in the effort area. He's got to get his head under the rim and play the kind of game that we know he's capable of playing. Defensively he's still doing a good job for us.

Q. Shaq said last night you guys relied too much on the jump shots. Are you going to try to make a concerted effort to go inside to him?

PAT RILEY: We tried to go inside to him. He gets a lot of touches. He was 0 for 5 from short range. He's got to make plays out of the post as much as anything, so we did not rely on jump shots, we took what the defense gave us, and as I've said a lot of times about Shaquille, you can't just come down and always just get him the ball.

They fronted him last night eight times where we couldn't get him the ball, and we did not do what we were supposed to do in swinging the ball to the weak side and have him track the ball. He's got to take responsibility for showing his body to the ball early in transition. It can't just dribble down the left side and throw into him. They're not going to let us do that all the time comfortably. He knows that. But yes, we'd like to have him touch it more in a very favorable position if we can get it to him.

Q. It was about a year ago that Tayshaun Prince said that he can't guard Dwyane and they put Rip on him. Why is Rip more qualified?

PAT RILEY: He's quicker. Tayshaun has a length and plays off of him, but Rip does a good job. He's very committed to staying in front of him, moving his feet, he's always putting his body on him.

Q. Is that irritating to Dwyane do you think?

PAT RILEY: I think any offensive player that has somebody that gets in his cage, so to speak, and commits himself to him puts him in a position where he's got to work harder. As Dwyane can do, also, to players when he's committed to doing it.

Q. Do you view any of it as dirty, illegal?

PAT RILEY: No, he's just into him.

Q. With Prince's height and size, can you use your three-guard lineup as much as you'd like to as you did earlier in the season?

PAT RILEY: Sometimes.

Q. How has the technology changed over the years with your percentage, your effort percentage? Are you now doing Excel spreadsheets where you used to do it all by hand?

PAT RILEY: Yeah, just walk down to this room down here and you'll see it. It's become a lot easier for us to compile. The data that we need and all of these numbers that we think are relevant, it gives us things to bring to the team that are also coherent messages to them that means something, and they understand that.

So besides just the video recall of being able to -- 25 minutes after the game, I have everything I need on my laptop, everything is all broken down, organized in transition, early offense, post-ups, pick-and-rolls, Dwyane's plays, Shaq's plays, Rip's plays, they're all right there.

I remember the first time that I was an assistant coach to Paul Westhead, and he said, you have one responsibility besides helping him. He said, you've got to break down these tapes. Back then they had the Sony beta, industrial three-quarter-inch tapes with no visual rewind. So I used to hit the rewind, go to black, it didn't have any numbers. For me to do a 20-edit tape, it would take all night. Now these guys are just pushing buttons and having everything programmed and it does it on its own. It really helps us a lot in compiling the information that we need.

Q. Do you have notebooks or paper? They didn't have computers then.

PAT RILEY: Just write it down and diagram it. Bill Bertka back in the '70s when I played for the Lakers, and Bill Sharmin was the coach, Sharmin used to tell him, back then we had .35 mm. Bertka used to go home and he would splice the tape, cut the tape, and there it was, it was like hanging down, and he's looking at it through a microscope.

And then he used to splice it together and tell Bill, he said, okay, I have something for you, and so back then players were not at all aware of or familiar with this, oh, we're going to watch film today. But every now and then, Bill used to put a very visual picture in there to wake up the players to see whether or not they were awake or not. I'll leave it at that.

Q. On nights that Walker is not shooting threes like last night, is the rest of his game impacted? Do you want him to continue shooting from distance?

PAT RILEY: Well, if he's wide open we do, but last night they were closing out real hard. I've got to get him more involved. I've got to get him a little bit more involved than just have him living off of them. Last night in the beginning I didn't.

Q. More in the post maybe?

PAT RILEY: I don't know, maybe just get him more involved where he's got some more opportunities than just playing off them. There's three or four things I'd like to do that we have to go to him.

Q. Last night you had Zo against Rasheed --

PAT RILEY: It was a mistake. I put Zo in and they had Wallace and McDyess and he brought Rasheed in. I can't remember exactly. It's not a mistake. He hit one long three, real long three on them, but what Zo does, as do most centers, is they will give players room that face up on them, and he gave him room twice to pull up and make little jumpers. I don't think that's a good match-up to be honest with you.

Q. Did you put Zo in because Detroit seemed to be going more to the basket last night?

PAT RILEY: Yeah, we had guys in the foul trouble and I thought maybe we could work the offensive boards, keep the offense a bit simpler, run Dwyane off pick-and-rolls with the two of them rolling to the rim.

Q. Ideally you want Zo against McDyess?

PAT RILEY: Well, you probably don't want that match-up because he doesn't stretch. Even though McDyess will face him and drive him, he doesn't stretch him to the three-point line.

Q. You said earlier that the team had to change its mental approach with Prince. Does that mean five guys all paying attention to what he's doing?

PAT RILEY: No, individual awareness, real personnel strengths. He's done a great job, I think, five or six times of when he drives to the basket, his drives and momentum does not take him out of bounds. If he misses, he gets his own second shot. He did that twice last night.

I mean, there are some things that he does that really hurts us on the offensive boards and you've got to respect him as a shooter, but he's turned out to be a great player. He's not a good player, he's a great player and very efficient. Smart as hell, and our players have to look at him in that context.

Q. You said these guys need to come out with more effort because of the percentages --

PAT RILEY: Well, we have that, but the visual -- the objectivity of it is that watching it matches the numbers, also. We just did not make the effort that we had to make last night that I felt we knew they were going to make, and they were very efficient, very good.

Q. They said before Game 2 that they knew they had to make that effort, so if you stress that to them again before Game 3, how do you motivate them to go out and do it this time?

PAT RILEY: How do I get them to do it? You know, I've always felt that motivation is a big part of this thing. Taking the word motivation and simply breaking it down, having a motive to take action. If the players feel that this is important, the world champions San Antonio are no longer in the picture anymore, and they have a desire to win a world championship, and they have to beat the last team that won a world championship before San Antonio, and that should be enough motivation. I should not have to hit a veteran team over the head.

You paint the picture, you get them ready and you turn them loose, and you hope that isn't an issue. I don't think it will be. I just didn't think we played as hard as them last night, and they played very well.

Q. Some of us that just came back from the Pistons today, and they admitted that their motivation was trying to shut down everybody else, that maybe Shaquille and Wade would get theirs. As far as getting the, quote-unquote, role players more involved, is that a coaching thing, or is it just the effort thing that we go back to, or how do you get them more involved in Game 3?

PAT RILEY: They had a lot of opportunities. Our guys had good opportunities last night. I mean, they did. We traveled with the ball, made layups. I think Shandon had layup, Antoine had a layup, got called for a traveling violation. They got good looks, they've got to make them. I think Jason, Antoine, they were 2 for 12 on threes. They got good looks, they've got to make shots.

I'm sure their consciousness is to try to take some of these guys out of it, and it's not a new philosophy that, okay, let's make sure that Shaquille and Dwyane are under control, but let's not let these other guys have big nights. That's nothing new. It's a focus on our part to do it, and our players have to be aware of that, be more alert, more strong, and drive the ball and attack the basket when we're in that mode.

Q. Is Shaq's leg okay? He looked fine at the end.

PAT RILEY: What happened?

Q. When he fell on it.

PAT RILEY: He got hit in the neck. Antoine actually, as he went down -- it was about a 7.8 on the Richter scale when he hit the floor. Antoine caught him in the neck, but he's okay. He's a little stiff.

Q. He shouldn't have any playing problems tomorrow?

PAT RILEY: No.

DWYANE WADE

Q. Even though you guys came back but you lost last night, you can't be too unhappy splitting it with Detroit?

DWYANE WADE: No, we're not happy about losing Game 2. We didn't go there for a split. We take every game for what it is. We know we've got to get over it now, Game 3 tomorrow on the home floor, so we're going to come out with a lot of energy and effort early on, and we'll see where that gets us.

Q. You seemed a little angry about some of those tactics after the game last night. Did the team share your anger? Do you guys just generally feel the Pistons are not an above-board bunch?

DWYANE WADE: I'm not here to talk about what they did. Whatever they did, they did. We've just got to find a way to get around it. That was last night, and we'll move on from that.

Q. Gary was just over there saying that you guys have to start doing more of the same thing?

DWYANE WADE: That's Gary. I'm trying to be on the court and not get in foul trouble. I've got to continue to be smart.

Q. Shaq was saying last night that he thought you guys relied a little bit too much on the jumper and didn't give him enough touches. Do you agree with that?

DWYANE WADE: Yeah. You know, a lot of times he had the guys on his back, I thought that guys settled for jump shots. But at the same time, they had open shots. A lot of them weren't contested, so you can't really blame them. They just didn't fall, but at the same time you want to keep the big man happy, and he wasn't. He wanted more touches, so that will be a focus going into the game tomorrow.

Q. Can you describe when Coach Riley talked to you guys and what he said?

DWYANE WADE: I mean, the gist of the conversation was just how he can't believe we didn't come out with the energy and the effort that we needed to come out with in Game 2 to really put a hurting on the team, winning two straight teams on their home floor, but we didn't do it. That was pretty much the gist of it. We watched what we did wrong, now we've got to go and correct it.

Q. Did he address you guys when you first got here today?

DWYANE WADE: Yeah, when we got here today.

Q. And then you guys watched film?

DWYANE WADE: Uh-huh.

Q. Clearly Rip has not stopped you. What does he do when he defends you? Is it any different than anybody else as far as the grabbing and holding and stuff like that? Is it successful in that area?

DWYANE WADE: I don't know, man. I'm not a complainer, man. Y'all see it. Y'all watch the games. I don't complain about whatever goes on. I help the team and try to get the ball the way I get the ball, and make my move. I'm not worried about him.

Q. Did they do as much trapping on you as you expected last night?

DWYANE WADE: At times they did. They brought -- like I said, Detroit does a great job of switching defensive looks. You never know -- you can't really get into too much of a comfort zone, so there are times they kind of shocked me with different things, but at the same time I made some crazy plays. We turned the ball over four straight times in the third quarter, so just being careless with the ball more than anything.

Q. You said last night that you give them credit for playing well, but they don't offer you credit. What do you say they don't offer you credit?

DWYANE WADE: Who, Detroit? I mean, they feel that they're the best team. They feel that any time that they lose it's because of them, and every other team, too. The Heat, we've got to earn it. We don't deserve any credit evidently, so we've got to go out and continue to earn our credit, and that's by going out and winning the series.

Q. How much does getting off to a fast start in a game matter in this series? It seems like it just always comes down to the end with these two teams.

DWYANE WADE: In a playoff a lot of teams are going to come out to the end, as you seen in the Jersey series. Still, getting off to a fast start is key for confidence-wise. They got off to a fast start in Game 2 and their confidence was just up, plus they had a lead and we had to fight back from it. To get off to a fast start helps your confidence, but at the same time all games normally come down to the end of the games, what plays you make on both ends of the floor.

GARY PAYTON

Q. What was the big point or points that Pat made today, the things that have to be done differently?

GARY PAYTON: Everything. I mean, there was everything. He made a point about everything, about effort and all this stuff. It was not one thing, just things that we did in the first game that we didn't do in the second game. We went and had a lot of video, and he just told us we had to have a lot more effort.

Q. When Rip is defending Dwyane, what is it that he does? I mean, I know there's a lot of grabbing and holding and stuff like that, but what does he do to Dwyane?

GARY PAYTON: He doesn't do anything. He's just locking and trailing on him. I think he's just being a little bit more aggressive than we are against him. We've got to do the same thing against him. When he locks and trails, we've got to do the same. We let him go either way and we let him put his hands on us, push us off. We should start doing the same thing and make the plays the same way, make it happen the same way.

Plus they're setting picks. They're setting picks on us, hitting us. I think we've just got to go back and do the same thing. We've got to set picks the way they're sitting picks, and we'll be fine.

Q. When a guy plays Dwyane like that or any player, you know, how much does that -- can that serve to bother you if a guy is just grabbing on you? Did you ever do that to try to get to mess with a guy?

GARY PAYTON: I think he's just taking a Reggie Miller-like tactic. He's doing the same thing. I think that right now the rules have changed so much that they're letting people grab and hold like that, and in the day, about ten years ago, there would have been fouls on him a lot, especially a player of this caliber. There would have been fouls and we would have been able to do it back to him. He's just taking advantage of what he can handle.

Q. Is it hard not to think that this series will go, depending on how Ud and Toine and Zo play when you're in the game?

GARY PAYTON: It might go that way, so we've got to come out and play every night. We have to get it going. I think our first team has to get it going, too. When we go in there we've got to keep the momentum and the energy up. I think even if it's a 50, 55 game but we get in the game, we've got to change the momentum to get us going a little bit more. I think this we can't be coming in there when we're down 20 points. We can't change that and try to make a spectacular comeback. We were trying to do that and getting in the games to do that, but sometimes it's going to fall short, especially against a good basketball team. We've got to go in there with the mentality that we've got to keep the momentum, even if we have to give a boost to get us to win.

Q. Offensively or defensive?

GARY PAYTON: I think both. If they're struggling defensively we've got to give them offense. I think on defense we've got to come every night. Offense doesn't have to be there for us all the time because we know we're going to get them from them guys. We've got to be there defensively every night to hold them down.

Q. How hungry are you right now or how much do you sense that this is your chance right here?

GARY PAYTON: I thought it was my chance every time I went to the finals, but it just didn't happen. I feel that it's a good opportunity for me. We've got a great basketball team. If we can make it to the finals, we've got a good chance of winning it.

Right now I don't think about it as much as I did in the beginning, in the beginning of my career. What I think about it right now is I take one game at a time, and it'll come. If we get to the finals, we've got to get by this Detroit team for me to even think about that. Once I get into the finals then I can start thinking about it more, but right now I think we've got to get by this great basketball team right here, and once I get my foot in the door then I'll start thinking about it.

Q. You've had to make a lot of adjustments over the years. How big of an adjustment was it to work yourself into this team?

GARY PAYTON: Well, I've got to take my time. I'm adjusting from the Lakers to Boston and here. There's three teams that I've had to adjust to. This year was an adjustment -- no, Milwaukee wasn't an adjustment, George Karl. I went right into it, and when I was scoring and doing everything, I had to. I was getting looks, and it was basically me and Sam Cassell, and then I had my old coach.

Here the other three teams I was on I had to adjust to because I had Kobe and Shaq and then I had Paul Pierce, played with him, then you have Dwyane and Shaq here. It's a big adjustment when you don't get to get looks 20 times or 15 shots a game. I knew what I was coming into this year, so I'm fine.

Q. (Inaudible).

GARY PAYTON: We both didn't have to do it before. This is my first time coming off the bench and doing any type of adjustment. Antoine had been the go-to guy for the last six, eight years of his career. It's hard for him, but now he's back at the starting lineup of the playoffs. He's adjusting to it a little bit more, but he's still got to adjust to the fact that he's not the go-to guy on the block. They're not going to give him the ball 15, 16 times. He's done a good job till now.

Q. It always kind of takes all year for you to come together.

GARY PAYTON: Basically, yeah. You can't put seven or eight guys together, four or five are always the dominant ones on the team who get the ball a lot and then you have to adjust so you're going to take four or five or six shots, and then the shots that you take have to be counting shots. You usually get six shots, and if you go 1 for 6 you know you're going to get 15 looks and then you'll go 8 for 15. It's a big adjustment but it's an adjustment that you've got to think about, if you want to sacrifice and be a winner or sacrifice and be a loser. We decided we wanted to be a winner and we adjusted to it.

Q. It looked like you guys had been making an adjustment, sort of turning a corner but kind of fell back. Was it mostly kind of Detroit's tactics?

GARY PAYTON: I mean, no, I don't think so. When they missed shots in the first game, was it our tactics, no, it was just that we made shots, they missed shots. When you miss shots, things happen.

We're not really worried about it. They made shots in Game 2, we missed shots. We made them in Game 1, they missed shots. It was one game that equaled out. Now we've got to come back here and give a little bit more effort and a little bit more energy to the game.

Q. In Game 1 you could see the chemistry was working but last night maybe it wasn't working. Is it that changeable or have you gotten to a point where you have figured each other out?

GARY PAYTON: We have figured each other out. Just like tomorrow if we win you're going to write we've got our chemistry back again. Every game is not going to be perfect. I'm going to tell you that, everyone is not going to be perfect every night. We had lapses in this game and Game 2. I think our effort and our energy wasn't there in Game 2. We missed a lot of shots, we did not rebound the basketball. They had a lot of second opportunities. They did a lot of things -- I didn't see too many of them shoot that well; one was 7 for 18, one was 5 for 14 or something like that. It's not that, it's just an effort thing, and that's what happened. The game wasn't the way we wanted it to be, we didn't bring a lot of energy to the game, and they took advantage of that.

Q. What about Shaq saying that you guys relied too much on the jump shot last night?

GARY PAYTON: I don't know what we did. I think we were relied too much on turnovers. I don't care about the jump shots. We turned the ball over and let them get a lot of shots. You understand they've shot 20 more times each game than we have, so that's a problem. You're going to have to overcome something like that, if they get 20 more shot attempts than you are. That's because we're turning the ball over and giving them more opportunities. I don't know about that, but I just think that if we don't turn the ball over we're going to get more looks at the basket.

UDONIS HASLEM

Q. Are you pleased with the rest of your game?

UDONIS HASLEM: I mean, I've been defending the rebounding with the opportunities I get to be in the game. Besides that, I've been doing everything else I've been asked to do.

Q. It seems like the team that had the most urgency was the one that was able to jump off on that lead. What is the key for you? What do you need to do at the beginning of games to kind of impose your will on the game?

UDONIS HASLEM: We've got to come out with a lot more energy. That's all we've got to do. Shots are going to fall, shots are not going to fall, but we've got to control our energy, that's something we can control.

Q. I was wondering in the back of your mind did you feel we got what we needed and then get complacent?

UDONIS HASLEM: No, we weren't complacent at all. We wanted to try to get the next win. We couldn't get it, but we'll come back out and try to get one tomorrow.

Q. Do you think it's just mostly about imposing your will?

UDONIS HASLEM: I think so. I think the team that has jumped out so far these two games has sustained it and kept the lead to win the game. Obviously I think it's important to get off to a good start.

Q. In Game 2 of Cleveland, the Pistons had a hard time closing them out. Again, they had the same problem with you and they didn't quite get it back for three or four games. Do you think that's possible in this situation or do you think the circumstances are different?

UDONIS HASLEM: Different team, different circumstances. We play a different style than Cleveland. You know, we definitely don't want to get in a situation where we have to try to come back or when we put pressure on them to try to close us out. If possible, we want to try to lead from beginning to end.

Q. I was over at their hotel today, and they admitted they want to shut everybody else down. They know that Shaq and Wade are going to get their points. What do you have to do to be more aggressive? I'm talking about the guys outside of Shaq and Dwyane.

UDONIS HASLEM: We've got to make shots. I haven't been shooting well. I can't say they've shut me down, I just haven't made shots, that's the bottom line.

Q. You didn't think they did anything differently against you or the other teammates?

UDONIS HASLEM: No, not at all.

Thanks Roscoe for the recap. D Wade has turned into the biggest whiner ever.

When he came into the league, Shaq spoke about his humbleness, well I think that has all changed.

I am really glad that Flip addressed the issue of CB being hurt, great sht at Tim Legler who is notorious for putting out bogus info.

I got the hookup for the interviews. My wrists won't let me type that much.

I thought GP and Riley were the best interviews. Riley with his % effort and efficiency scoring system (as well as thoughts on motivating a veteran squad), and GP reflecting on his career.

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Nov 13 LW Milan Lucic had an active night. He scored his first goal in eight games since his Oct. 25 hat trick and also pounded Michael Komisarek in a third-period fight. Lucic cut his hand in a fight with Michael Komisarek. "I'll be fine," he said. "(X-rays are) negative, but there's so many broken bones in there from before you can't really tell."