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.
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.
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.
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.
We talked about it in the locker room before the game, that this was the game we needed. We felt they hadn't been tested in this postseason, they hadn't played against a team like us that plays defense, believes in itself and tries to control the tempo of the game. Yesterday was a good game to show them that.
We just want to get another win. We let one slip away down there, and we want to get it back.
We just wanted to go out there and protect our home court. We knew they played a tough game last night, so we wanted to jump on them early and take care of business.
We just stepped up to the challenge. I didn't ever think they were going to miss, and we couldn't hit anything, but we knew it was a matter of time. We're never out of a game, no matter what the score. You can't measure our pride. We just had to chase them off the 3-point line and start hitting some shots.
We just had a tough shooting night. We got all the shots that we wanted, but they just didn't go down.
We felt we had a chance to win this series, but nobody else felt that. We knew we were the only ones who believed in us.
We changed up our scheme a little bit defensively and made them take tougher shots. Once we made our adjustments and changed our scheme a little bit at halftime, we started hitting some shots as well, and our defense picked our offense up, too.