He took control. He did what he wanted. Once he started to get to the foul line (he was 10 of 12), I think he started to get into a groove.

It gives us a hidden weapon.

He is showing the league that he can accept the double team, he is starting to get a lot of attention. Him standing up for himself, him being recognized for his growth as a center,...

Vince had a big tip-in that gave us the lead. Then it became a free-throw game.

For me it’s not surprising. He’s competitive, he loves to be in this kind of atmosphere and he’s playing extremely well.

We’re playing from behind each time. Ever since the All-Star break, we’ve played from behind. We’ve got to find a way to turn that where we’re not chasing and (instead) being chased.

[Collins] is huge for us. He helps out defensively. He might not show it in the offensive stats, but he gets guys open. He’s very solid. That’s what you need, someone to be consistent and...

We understand what it takes for us to be successful. If we don’t play any defense we won’t be successful. So I don’t know if it’s the same or not, but we’re confident that we...

It showed a lot of character. Getting in late after an emotional win, we could have just made it respectable but we did our job and wanted to win and that showed.

That just shows the confidence. He may have thought the game was getting away from him, but then he stepped up. I think that’s what we’ve been talking about all training camp.

We expected them to make a run in the second half. The crowd got back into the game, but we kept our composure, got stops when we needed to, and Vince carried us down the...

The big thing for us is to get back to winning and look at what we’re not doing. That’s taking care of the ball and having a better first quarter, defensively.

This was a character check for us to come back and protect home and beat a team playing extremely well. We didn’t panic, we had good looks and we got stops when we had to.

There are some talented backcourts out there. We just want to be one of the best at the end of the day. If we can continue to build on what we’ve had the last two...

We learned from the last game that we’ve got to defend if we want to have any chance to win in this league,

It gave us a chance to regroup and understand what got us there, and that was playing defense.

I think this team thrives in the half court, more than the first three or four years I was here, when our offense was in the open court, and we struggled in the half court....

This is only his second year, and his personality isn’t one to demand the ball, but we were joking he needed to be a little more vocal, to ask for the ball because he was...

They’ve got a very good team, a great coach. I think it’s just a matter of time before they start clicking. [O’Neal] is always there; he’s a force. They have two of the best players...

He took control. He did what he wanted. He ran the pick-and-roll, he got to wherever he wanted, he found the open guy, he got to the free-throw line.

We fell asleep at the wheel.

We’re clicking. Every team goes through these stretches. You just try your best to keep the flow.

Jermaine O’Neal is the responsibility of everyone. We can’t leave Jason on an island by himself. We have to help him as much as we can. Hopefully, we can slow him down, but we can’t...

I think he might be in the best shape he’s been in since I’ve been with him.

Right now, the ball isn’t going our way. We have to stay together.

Vince has been playing at a high level and the team is playing right there with him at a high level. But team defense has been the key. It’s always been our defense. It’s never...

I thought A.J. was going to have a tough shot at the end. Once he got past me, I couldn’t see. I just heard the whistle. We had our chances. We have to regroup and...

We went to small ball,

No effort. From top to bottom, we just didn’t come with any effort.

Vince is so talented, he makes the game so easy for his teammates. He puts a lot of pressure on the opponent. He’s not settling … We are going to need that in Game 6.

You’ve got guys on this team that could average 25 or 30 points a night. R.J. has been patient. He has waited his turn.

You won’t see a game like that from Shaq, very rarely. We were waiting for him to take control of the game.

I got fresh legs. We understood what was at stake. We didn’t want to go out on the road, losing a game after a long layoff.

We probably will be looking at tape of our defense, … When we play defense, we can compete with anybody. Unfortunately, we weren’t all on the same page. By that I mean we had guys...

We’ve just found that when we play defense, we go in the right direction. When we don’t play defense, we go in the wrong direction.

As you get older you appreciate the triple-double a little more. It would be really nice to get one and its always good to get one against those guys.

He used every piece of the rim.

This was a more pivotal game than most people think because of (it coming) after the emotional game against San Antonio, not playing our best. To come out against a team that is playing well...

It was a heck of a play.

We got good looks, but we missed some shots we normally make and it led to them scoring. We didn’t defend early on and that opened the floodgates.

I don’t know what’s going to happen. The business always gets in the way of basketball. If there wasn’t any business and it was just strictly basketball, then there would be no issue, it would...

My objective was to get out and try to run and speed the game up as fast as we could so that we could get that rust off. As much as we simulated or had...

I think he has a little bit more to show. He’s shown he can have a triple-double. He’s shown that he can play all aspects of the game at a high level. I think he...

We were talking about that in the locker room. We felt that we had maybe two games that were close. Once at their place and once here, and besides that they were no contests.

It was kind of like we didn’t miss a beat tonight.

We’ll take the shots that Vince takes out there on the court because we all have the confidence in him.

He was the tallest thing out there so he had the advantage.

It was just a scratch. When I saw the blood, I didn’t know how bad it was. It was an accident. I stuck my head out and Crawford came back. I saw butterflies.

It started when we gave up 36 points in the second quarter. We were playing uphill from that point. We got it down to five, and I thought I had a good look on a...

That was a big win for us. We ended the year right and now we have to move on.