Raja Bell
Raja Bell
Raja Bellis an American retired professional basketball player who played in the National Basketball Association. He was twice named to the NBA All-Defensive Team in his career...
ProfessionBasketball Player
Date of Birth19 September 1976
CitySaint Croix, VI
bogged guard guys hard helps tempo transition
That tempo helps us. We don't get bogged down and it's hard to guard guys when you're in transition all night.
came chance couple dagger game knew losing sails side stops takes taste wind
That takes some wind out of your sails when you have a game in your hand. I've been on the other side of that. You're on a five-game losing streak. You can taste it. You're right there and you let it slip. We knew if we came out and got a couple stops (in overtime) that we had a chance to put a dagger in them.
coming court excuse fast figure flying jump opposed problem run shape shoot taking
That's never an excuse because that's what we are. We'll run into shape as the preseason continues. For a lot of us who shoot a lot of jump shots, it's different when you're flying up and down the court as fast as we are as opposed to coming down and taking a second. It'll take some adjustments but it wasn't a problem (Friday). We'll figure it out.
bait full guy head last minute step taking
You see a guy and kind of bait him into taking that drive. Then at the last minute you step in there and they already have a full head of steam.
obviously watch
You never know what he's going to do. You can watch him on film, and obviously everyone has their tendencies. But you really never know what he's going to do.
bottom carry change climb decided game hard harder intensity knew line momentum played scheme second simple simply
You never know if you can climb back into a game like that, but you knew that we were going to come out and play hard in the second half. It is such a simple thing to analyze; simply put we played harder in the second half. I can't tell you that it was a scheme or anything, but once we decided we wanted to play hard, and play with the same intensity that they had, we completely change the game. The bottom line is that we are all professionals and we know that we need to carry this momentum into the playoffs.
attention critical detail early everybody five games good pay span starts sure time
This is the time when we'll see what we're made of. These are five games that we should win. It's going to be a long trip. Everybody will have to make sure we pay attention to detail out there on the road, get out to some good starts early hopefully. This is going to be a critical span of games for us here.
exciting game groove name opportunity people showing
The name of the game is getting an opportunity and showing what you're made of. It's pretty exciting to see people like that get in the groove and show what they're made of.
above definitely double eight feet good grabbed job screen sent shooter shooting switched
They set a double screen and I sent him high. I switched with Shawn and I grabbed Lewis. Shawn did a good job of contesting the shot. We didn't want the shooter to necessarily be Allen, but you definitely want them shooting from eight feet above the 3-point line.
fear leave physical
It is a physical game. I am not going to say anything about that right now for fear of being fined. I'll just leave that all alone.
beat contain game hope plan whatever wound
Our game plan was to try to contain everyone else and hope that Kobe's whatever he wound up with wasn't going to be enough to beat all 12 of us.
knew
If we lost, we knew we were going to go out swinging.
basketball finds forcing fourth guy hold hope issue settling shots until
He was settling for some shots I thought. As a defender, you hope he does that. But he got it going in the fourth quarter. A guy like that is just going to keep forcing the issue until he finds it, and you've just got to hold on.
good ground pulled pushing saw took
He was barreling, barreling and started pushing me so I just pulled him down with me. It's a good thing the ref saw him pushing me first because I just took him to the ground so he wouldn't get a rebound.