Tersk

Was it surprising how tough the fourth quarter was after you after being up by 25?
I guess that’s Toronto’s pattern. They let you get up and feel good about yourself and get down by 20 and then they show you the real team. You have to take your hat off to them. We had them down really big and they fought back and fought back. We saw it against Indiana and we saw it against Washington. I guess the guys didn’t believe me, that’s just me being a coach and talking crazy. We tried to support it with some film. I think they thought the guys in the Toronto uniforms were impersonators. We finally got the message, held them off and you have to take your hat off to our guys. We talked about being persistent before the game and we were persistent. It was a good win for us.

You had a tough time at the free throw line. That helped the Raptors come back a little:
Yes, but we’ll take 32 free throws (attempts) anytime. We got our guys to the line, that’s something we talked about in our film sessions. Normally if we get 32 free throws, we’ll make between 28-to-32 of them. We didn’t shoot free throws well in Indiana so we’ll just keep getting there and that’s what I’m hoping.

On Michael Finley:
His stroke hasn’t been there the past couple of games and he made some shots for us at the right times (today) He’s a veteran and a pro and we needed him to come through for us because Stack ended up getting hurt for a minute and couldn’t finish the game. So Mike really came through big for us. It was good to see one of the veteran players step up.

Mavericks Forward Dirk Nowitzki
I thought they made a great run at us. You know, they’ve got plenty of shooters out there and that’s how they’ve been coming back. The spread the floor, make those big threes and they’ve got good players. They made a hell of a run but I think we stayed tough and got the couple of stops we needed, and offensively we kept executing. Offensively, we pretty much got what we wanted all night long. We shot 60 per cent from the floor, that really doesn’t happen very much. I think offensively we did fine, just on defence we let down a bit and we made a couple of turnovers. The next thing you know, they’re right back in the game. I think it was a good win for us, especially after just lost at Indiana, so we’ve got to move on.

On his shots that put the game away and getting into a grove:
I tried to be aggressive early. Next thing you now, I had two fouls and I had to sit down and that was frustrating. I had to watch the first quarter from the side and came back in and was lucky to get one or two going right away. That usually helps to find your rhythm quickly, and just stay aggressive all night. Since last week I haven’t really been shooting the ball well. I had a couple of outings that weren’t really what I was looking for so it was good to be back in the groove and hopefully I can keep it up for the next couple of games.

Mavericks Guard Jason Terry
On Finley’s play:
Finley is a catalyst for us. In order for us to be a good team, we have to get Fin going early so we can get a rhythm on how we play. When he knocks down shots, there is just no one out there that you can just leave. So he is key for us, and he played big tonight. His strength is just catch and shoot and taking advantage of smaller defenders on a mismatch. He’s great player for us and like I said, he is the key.



Raptors Head Coach Sam Mitchell
On the team’s defensive effort:
They just had good defense. I thought we were better when we started trapping but we got over-extended. The problem with their team is, when we were trapping, you get over-extended and when you’re down eight or nine points and you are trapping you have to leave a Jason Terry and Michael Finley open for a three. Now you have to hope they miss shots. Every time you need a big shot you are going to give up things when you have to trap and rotate a lot. We put ourselves in that position early where we had to scramble and maybe we’re better and we’ll do more of that but it’s just tough. It’s tough for our big guys because they’re our best rebounders and when we have to trap with those guys it puts them out of rebounding position. Then we started getting killed on the boards, it’s just kind of a catch-22. If we trap we do a better job on the perimeter but then we open up the offensive glass. If we don’t trap then guys are getting in the lane on us. In the last four or fives games we just had breakdowns. We work on defense everyday.

On possibly making adjustments to the starting lineup:
Every time we do something everyone wants to change the starting lineup. We scored 113 points, why would you want to do that? For what, to score 100? We weren’t down because we couldn’t score.

On team defense and rotations in the first-half:
Chris Bosh had some fouls; we were trying to save him. It’s basketball, you bring guys in and out, I don’t understand what rotations – other guys playing on the floor – has to do with defense. We are all supposedly doing the same thing.

Raptors Forward-Guard Jalen Rose
Was it just too late to make a run?[/b]
It’s only a problem I guess when you lose. We were playing with fire and anytime you spot teams double-digit leads, especially at half-time, that is tough to overcome. You have to play perfect basketball to get back into the game. A team like Dallas is game for that because they want to get up and down and score points. They have multiple guys that can get hot at different points in the game. You give those guys that type of lead, like you saw today, even when we are back in the game, they are one ore two shots away from opening the lead back up and that’s basically what happened.

What is not happening on defense?
Defence starts in the paint and just the presence of guys that understand it, that they can’t drive in there and get lay-ups and get offensive rebounds and things of that nature. Offensive rebounds and lay-ups, what they do is they demoralize your defence and allow you to help, sink in so much to give help, that it leaves guys open for jump shots. Defence starts in two places – in the paint and on the ball.

Raptors Forward Chris Bosh
What happened to get down so much?
I think it’s figuring out a better way to play defence on the guys. Because, after a while, the way we shceme things, we don’t execute as well as we can. After a while, we figured we would figure out this is how they are doing, so this is how we are going to do it. The second half was better.

By the time you figure it out is it too late?
Well it’s a good thing. I’m making a positive out of a negative. If we put two halves together we can make a serious run, and that’s what it is all about – putting two halves together. Of course we are playing badly in the first half, but at the beginning (of the season) it was the third quarter and now it’s the whole half. We have to come out and make sure we are focused and more prepared.

On the run in the fourth quarter:
We were almost there, we were down by four and unfortunately I slipped under the basket.