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
Man, it was ugly. We were getting good looks, too. But at some point, I always feel we're going to get it going and make a run or two that leads to a win.
We were running around having fun. We were pretty much playing pre-season minutes, which is working out well.
We came out aggressive, trapping and running around, having fun, and guys were making shots. It was fun.
That run we went on was so fun and so unbelievable, we let our guard down and thought it would be easy.
It was a good one. I was just feeling good. I was being aggressive, knowing I had a tough match-up with Steve Francis. It was just a good game. They guys were telling me to run the plays that we were running, and I just stayed aggressive.
It takes a while -- a long time, because we have so many different sets, options. It's not just the regular old sets that every NBA team runs. We run a lot of stuff. It's kind of complicated.
We're going to run some decoys for him. We're not going to run plays for him.
I get a lot more confidence winning games playing defense than winning the run-and-gun game.
I just didn't want to let him run free, ... He's a tough cover. Every time he puts that ball, he's got a chance to make that shot. He missed some shots. It was good D, but he missed some shots.
They live and die with their three-point shot; they got a lot of great three-point shooters. We're just trying to run them off that line -- either go to the rack or shoot mid-range shots. Because we know if they get it cooking from that three-point line, you could give yourself a long night.
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.