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
We don't like to rely on it, but everybody knows we can turn it on. We're one of those teams that have an extra gear on both ends.
I welcome it, I welcome it. I let everybody else talk, I'm not going to talk about it.
I think they're playing well as a unit... they're tough when everybody can contribute like that. You have to give them credit.
When he's aggressive and he's playing like he's playing, it just takes pressure off of everybody. Rip (Hamilton) doesn't have to worry about scoring so many points, I don't have to worry about (it). It just takes pressure off everybody, and we can really spread that offense out. Everybody can get 10, 12, 14, 15 points, and you win going away.
When we come to him late, he always delivers. Tonight he hit some huge shots. It's huge for me and everybody on this team to know that when it comes down to these situations, it doesn't have to be me.
Their trigger might be a little quicker with us than everybody else because of our reputation. We're not just going to let you do whatever you want and not say anything. We're vocal.
He's one of the great ones, and the great ones make it easy for everybody. When he's rolling, everybody has easy shots and everybody gets the shots they want because they have to gear their defense to stopping him. They have to shift their whole focus.
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'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 got longer, younger and more athletic. This year we played a little more up-tempo than we did last year.