He has a great sense for the game, he has a great sense for when the opponent is off-balanced. His vision on the floor is tremendous and he showed that.

Before the game when (Foster) was warming up, before we went out for real warm-ups, he moved a certain way and it went out on him.

Michael Redd was a guy we talked a lot of about before the game. (Jackson) did a good job at the start and our whole team reacted to him.

[In late August, Rick Carlisle was in an Atlanta studio auditioning for TNT by doing a mock game telecast with Kevin Harlan. He'd also been in touch with ESPN, and his transition from head coach to talking head seemed all but certain.] Something was going to be done in the next three or four days, ... But then I got the call from Larry [Bird] saying this situation was going to change.

I'm just hoping that when he wakes up he isn't feeling too bad because he's the cornerstone of our team.

We run that (offense) sometimes, but we're going to be doing it more, obviously, when he and ( Stephen Jackson ) are in there. Now that you don't have Jermaine, it necessitates some adjustments offensively. We'll do what we need to do.