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
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're healthy. A couple of our guys sat out, a couple of our young boys got an opportunity to play. They all played well, so we're fine.
Our last game was Tuesday, so I had a couple days to soak it in. That's when it kind of hit me that I made it. I'm an All-Star. It's still a little surreal right now. It's something that I always wanted.
I think we'll be a lot better offensively. Defensively, we could be as good. But when you play a faster-paced game, naturally, that other team is going to score a couple more points.
You know what I mean, just waiting to collide. There were some struggles in my first couple of months. There were definitely some struggles with Coach Brown. But we both sacrificed a lot. We came to a happy medium and it's been a perfect marriage ever since then. My game has definitely grown playing for Coach Brown. I think I look at the game in a different light. I understand that I can dominate a game now without having to score as much as I usually do on most nights.
We had control, but we missed a couple shots, they made a couple, a couple of calls didn't go our way and they got back in it. They won it with a good shot from Paul Pierce. Tough shot.
We had a nice little streak, but it's not that we lost it, it's the way we lost it. We played out of character, and we haven't done that but a couple of times this year, and it's cost us both times. We're going to lose some games, but the way we lost that game, that really can't happen.
That is something that you play for, to be recognized as one of the best. I've felt like I've played like that for a couple of years now and it's nice to finally get that validation.
It was a good win for us. To come back, especially after a tough loss against Miami (Sunday) and playing a team that beat us a couple weeks ago. We came out focused today and took care of business.
They're probably one of the best shooting teams in the league. They usually hit a lot of those shots that they were missing. We try to take a couple things away. Take a couple guys out of their sweet spots. Still, they've got guys that can knock it down. So we haven't seen their best punch yet. But I don't think they've seen our best yet, either.
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'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.