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
It feels great to get some rest. We worked hard for that and we're going to cherish that right now, even if that means losing a few games, you know what I'm saying? We're all trying to get rest and the guys that are out there are trying to stay healthy more than anything. I mean, so what? We did what we've had to do so far.
I thought he played good. He was active. ... He had blocks. He played physical defensively and picked up a few fouls.
I'm so excited that our team is finally getting the credit we deserve. We've been dominating the league for a few years and not gotten the proper notoriety and attention. We've kind of come full circle with that.
We are finally playing a team that's fighting for something, just like us. That's something new for us. The last few weeks we've been playing teams that are out of the race and have nothing to play for, and we sort of let our guard down. When you play against tough teams like Miami, there's no room for error. You can't let your guard down. I am looking for to it, man, I really am.
We're just looking to be consistent now. Hopefully we can keep being good defensively and keep working offensively. That started a few games ago; we had a good win last night so we just want to keep it going.
The second game is usually the game you can steal most of the time. In any series, really. We know that. We're aware of that. We've lost that second game a few times. We have to come out knowing that and doing the right things.
I knew it was going to be tough. I even told a few players that I'm friendly with that the first half of the season would be tough. Just getting to know what (Larry) likes, getting used to how he coaches. But I didn't know it was going to be this tough. I didn't know they'd struggle this bad with the players they have. They've got some great talent on that team.
They've got some really good young talent on that team. They just need some experience to play together for a few years and they will, they could be a force.
Also, a part of this whole thing will be me getting my degree and working toward that, which I take a lot of pride in -- obviously, I haven't taken enough pride in over these last few years, but it's time for me to buckle down and get that taken care of, too.
Our defense is going to stay the same. Teams might score a few more points because we might play a little bit at a faster pace, but our defense will remain one or two in the league.
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.