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 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.
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.
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.
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.
We got beat at some of our own things. Energy, aggressiveness, hitting the boards, they beat us at all of that.
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.
A lot of those shots were contested. They just hit some tough shots.
Every time we fought back they hit big shots. We have to give them credit.
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.