Chauncey Billups
Chauncey Billups
Chauncey Ray Billupsis an American retired professional basketball player who played 17 seasons in the National Basketball Association. A star at the University of Colorado, he was selected third overall in the 1997 NBA draft by the Boston Celtics. A five-time NBA All-Star and a three-time All-NBA selection, Billups played for the Celtics, Toronto Raptors, Denver Nuggets, Minnesota Timberwolves, Detroit Pistons, New York Knicks, and Los Angeles Clippers during his NBA career. He won the NBA Finals MVP in 2004...
ProfessionBasketball Player
Date of Birth25 September 1976
CityDenver, CO
No doubt about it. That team is one of the best teams in the West. They've been struggling a little bit but that's when it's toughest to play teams, when they're struggling. They're looking to get back right and what better team to beat than us? We didn't look past that team, came out and took care of business.
No disrespect to anybody, but it's always fun to play the other elite teams in the league. It makes a difference.
We go back to the hotel instead of to the airplane.
To have those nerves to make those plays at the end of a game isn't something you really can be taught. It's instinct I think.
We always knew a championship ring means way more than being an all-star, although we wanted to be all-stars. This is just secondary. It's not going to make me feel the same way as I felt when I was on that big stage in the finals when I won a championship. At the same time, it's going to be up there, because it's going to validate what I always felt about myself.
When you have to take the ball out, you can't run. This last couple of weeks our defense hasn't been the same. When you have to take that ball out, you can't get transition baskets.
We love playing on the road. We love the idea of 14, 15, 18,000 people all being against you and being able to quiet the crowd. We love that. We feed off that.
We will be fine. I guarantee we will be fine.
This was a very big win, but we won't know how big for a while.
We're never out of the game. You can just never measure pride. We're never out of the game, no matter what the score looks like. Tonight was a great example of that.
We knew that they would come in fighting. We had control of it, but we kind of let up a little bit in the fourth quarter and they brought it back, but we pretty much controlled the game.
We knew it was going to take time to mesh. We're starting to get our swagger back.
We're not into it. Because we know once we do get into it, it's a long grind. We've played until June the last two years, and that's long. That's three months. When it's time, we'll be ready.
We wanted nothing but a win, not showboating or any of that. That's just how we play. ... We don't have the personnel to play that other way.