Washington Wizards Blog

Antonio Daniels – Click To Play

UPDATE:
From the Associated Press: “‘(Caron Butler) is not in our plans, right now — not as a player,’ Eddie Jordan said after practice Monday. ‘If we get deeper in the playoffs, possibly, but not in the first round.’”

MORE QUOTES:
WIZARDS HEAD COACH EDDIE JORDAN
On Larry Hughes knowledge of Washington’s system:
“Everything is a challenge, and it is a welcomed challenge. Everybody knows what everybody is doing. We are calling out their plays too, so there is nothing different. When we hear a call we know exactly what they are doing, but can you stop it? That is the second part of it and Larry Hughes knows some of the counters of what we do and that is probably the most important thing. We understand that people know what we are going to do. Sometimes you have to coach around that, but it is no different than what we know about what they do.”

On shooting 36% from the field in Game 1:
“They are a good defensive team. They have guys coming off of the bench who are good defensively. Larry is a good defender, but I thought we executed well enough to put ourselves in position to get drives to the basket and open jump shots. We just did not knock them down.”

On production from big men:
“Hopefully they are a little bit relaxed, especially Etan (Thomas), because he is a starter and we are looking for him to score. He understands that we need him to be more aggressive down in the paint. We are calling plays for him, and we are singling out some play sets for him.”

On Caron Butler:
“He’s not in our plans right now. If we get deeper in the playoffs, possibly, but not in the first round – to me.”

WIZARDS FORWARD ANTAWN JAMISON
On Larry Hughes:
“He has been doing it every since he left, so we knew that this was not going to be anything different. It is something that we talked about before we went Cleveland and we worked on a few things as far as not letting them know what we were doing. Realistically, a lot of teams know what play you are going to run once you make a call. It is just a matter of making the proper decisions so that we are getting the ball in certain situations and taking advantage of matchups.”

On the mood of the team:
“It is upbeat because we played hard and it was a tough game for three and a half quarters. We just did not play smart in certain spurts. There are going to be certain times when you do not play smart and you make mistakes, but you cannot do it for extended periods of time like we did yesterday.”

On the possibility of Caron Butler returning:
“My mind frame is that if there is a chance for Caron to comeback, it is pretty much going to be in the second round. My job and the rest of my teammate’s jobs are to find a way to get us in the second round and then we can get some help and take it from there. He has been out for a while and to put that pressure on him as far as coming back in this series is a lot. We want to make sure that his hand is healed and not to try to rush him back too quickly.”

WIZARDS GUARD ANTONIO DANIELS
On the offense:
“If they take something away on the floor, the Princeton offense is setup for countering. If there is something that we are running and they take it away, then we have to go to something else.”

On Game 1:
“It was another game where there were certain things that we can obviously improve on, but in the fourth quarter we have to score. We had the opportunity to make some things happen, but some turnovers in the fourth quarter got them going a little bit. With the team that we have now, without Gil, and without Caron, we have to be almost flawless in the fact that we cannot turn the ball over. We have to make our free throws and do the little things as well.”

WIZARDS GUARD DESHAWN STEVENSON
On Game 1:
“It was a big day, we were excited, it was a playoff game and we were ready to get out there. Shots were on line, but they were just coming in and out. Everybody has days like that, but you just have to come back and keep going.”