HEAT Head Coach Stan Van Gundy

Opening Statement:
"Obviously a good, hard fought win for us. You know, we primarily did it with our defense, I thought our guys fought real hard. I thought they fought through some foul trouble in the first quarter, and then I thought that, you know, we fought through losing Dwyane in the second half, only got nine minutes out of him and hung in there and played well. Really pleased with all of them and particularly just very happy for Rasual. He's been through some tough moments. He started the year starting for us and then it was a blow to him to come out of the starting lineup. Then he saw his minutes diminish a lot, wasn't even getting minutes a lot early in the playoffs here, but kept working. Now we've decided to use him, which some people keep questioning me on, you know, why he's playing and the whole thing. But he had a big game in Game 3 hitting three threes and he had a big game tonight, and it's really a credit to his perseverance and I'm very happy for him.
So we will move onto Detroit. We know it will be very difficult up there, and we're going to have to play extremely well and at least as hard as we played tonight. "

What was going through your head when you saw ten minutes in, Shaq and Dwyane both on the bench with two fouls and can you talk about their ability to play most of that second quarter without picking up that third foul?:
"Well, I think that was key, that they stayed out of foul trouble in the second quarter. And again, you know, I said this after Game 3, when we made the run at the end of the game without Dwyane, we don't like playing without him, we don't like playing without Shaq, but our guys have been through enough of those times. Our other guys are very confident in their abilities, and I think they are also highly motivated at those times. No. 1, they know, you know, they are short handed without one or even both of their stars out. They know they have got to fight harder and they know they have to do it at the defensive ends. They have really got to play together and I think they are also motivated because, you know, a lot of you try to paint this as a two man team and that obviously gives the other guys a great deal of motivation when they have moments and opportunities to step up."

What is Dwyane's condition, I know it's only 48 hours away, but can you anticipate him playing? Will it be a problem?:
"I have absolutely no idea. I was told what his condition is. I'm not smart enough to remember and be able to repeat it with all of the medical words, but it's a strain in the muscles in the rib cage area, very, very painful. Feels like he's getting stabbed when he breathes.
He tried to go. I give him a lot of credit for that. Went up and down the court about three times and said he couldn't go.
We'll just have to wait and see. You'll probably get more from Tim Donovan, our trainer either tonight or tomorrow, but I don't have any more information right now."

HEAT Center Alonzo Mourning

Zo, your defense was outstanding tonight. Can you talk little about it?:
"We just did what we didn't do in Game 4. I mean, they shot like 38 percent and that had to do with our defensive intensity. We just played with a lot more sense of urgency. The approach to the game was, you know, tremendous. When you play with that type of intensity and aggressiveness, defensively, then that's the result. You get those results and across the board, everybody came in the game and did what they had to do to contribute on both ends of the floor, offensively and defensively."

What you see when Dwyane went down?:
"It looked kind of freakish to me. He hits the floor so much. I wonder if he's okay every time he hits the floor, you know. But this time he was a little slow getting up, so I just hope it's not as serious. He had that this look on his face that he WAS going to be all right. Just seeing him sitting here in the locker room. Obviously we have the best doctors and they are going to do what they can do to make sure everything was okay."

HEAT Guard Damon Jones

Damon, can you talk a little about what your mentality was coming into this game. You were much more aggressive, taking shots, challenging, can you just talk a little about that:
"Well, I wanted to come out and be aggressive, help Dwyane out as much as I could. In Game 4, it seemed they was throwing the whole kitchen sink at him and it was tough on him to get great opportunities at the basket so, I just wanted to come out and try to get in the paint, create for Udonis and some other guys, and shots was there for myself, try to complete them."

It seemed like Shaquille was moving around better tonight and came out dominated early. Did that ease your minds that the Big Fella is back?:
"He's been getting better with every game. I think tonight he came out and he's moving better than he's moved in probably a month now. That's definitely good for us to see that he's moving without the limp. He's making aggressive moves in the paint. Defensively, he's making his rotations and he's coming to contest shots."

What was the mentality on the court when you guys saw Wade when he took that offensive foul and hit the ground?:
"It was a tough situation because at any point in time you never want to see anybody get injured. You really don't want to see anyone leave the court because of injury. Being he's one of our key parts to what we do here, it was a sight for sore eyes. He's been able to step up for us whenever we need him and he gave us some positive energy. Udonis, did a great job, double figures, rebounding, points, and a lot of other guys came in and filled that void."

Zo was saying that it gets to a point with a player that sometimes you say "enough is enough" and he said basically that you told Chauncey "enough is enough" so to speak. Did you come into this game knowing that you were going to be aggressive, that you were going to challenge him?:
"This is not about Damon Jones and Chauncey Billups. It's about the Miami Heat against the Detroit Pistons. Like I said before, I wanted to be aggressive and help my teammates out. That was my mindset going into the game. It wasn't that, you know, Chauncey was scoring a lot of points and I wasn't. I just wanted to take advantage of some opportunities that I thought I had watching the game tape from Game 4 and earlier in the series."

HEAT Guard Dwyane Wade

Can you just take us through what happened and what you're feeling right now in terms of the injury?:
"Well, right now I'm just feeling pain. You know, I just made a quick move on a crossover and I guess I pulled a muscle by doing that.
It's just pain right now. I expect that, so hopefully I'll feel better in the morning."

Did you try to continue playing, is that what happened? Stan said you made a couple trips up and down the court and decided you couldn't play through it:
"Yeah, I tried to come back because we've got a lot of guys on our team that's playing through a lot. I tried to come back and see if I get out there and get going that it will feel better, but I couldn't, and I didn't want to make it any worse. And I had confidence that my team could get this victory, and they did."

When exactly did the injury occur? Was it the jumper to make it a 20 point lead, is that when it happened?:
"Yes."

HEAT Center Shaquille O'Neal

Shaquille, why was there such a difference in energy and effort compared to Game 4?:
"We knew that we couldn't let this slip away, especially here on the home floor. Played well, played with a lot of energy and good defense."

What did you think when Wade went down?:
"I just hoped he was okay. We knew that we had guys that want to play and we knew we would step it up."

What are your thoughts on George Mikan one of the greats men of the game?:
"My condolences go out to his family. Me and him had a lot of personal conversations and he was always very, very nice to me. I said on the air (TNT) that I heard he was having problems. If his family contacts me, I would like to pay for the whole funeral and I would like to take care of them."

HEAT Forward Rasual Butler

When Dwyane got hurt, puts you in there a little bit more, do you have a different mind set knowing that you may be in there for the rest of the way and you don't know if he's coming back:
"Just suck it up and play hard. You know that with someone going down that you're going to get more opportunity to play. You'll get more shot attempts. You'll get more minutes, more everything. Once Dwyane went down, my mindset doesn't change. It just raises my focus. I was nervous. You don't want to see anyone get hurt. It's definitely difficult to make up what he brings to the table."

Talk about those two shots you hit, you hit the fade away, and the one you beat the buzzer on; what kind of a charge does that give you personally to hit those shots?:
"I mean, it feels good, but those are shots that I've been taking my entire life. They were my go to moves in high school and college and even here last year. For it to go down in Game 6 like that with such an electric crowd, it felt really good. I never experienced anything like that before. It's not like I went to the NCAA Tournament or anything coming out of the south, so it felt good."

HEAT Forward Udonis Haslem

Talk a little about this position right now, 3 2, obviously you've got to get one more win but because you know you can win in Detroit. Is there any more comfortable feeling knowing that you've closed out on the road before?:
"Not at all. We know we can't afford to let up. These guys have a lot of fight in them and they are going to give us all they can and we have to prepare for it."

What was different, your intensity and energy as a team?:
"Just come out and just put all the energy on the floor and let everything take care of itself and that's what we tried to do tonight."

Detroit Pistons Head Coach Larry Brown

Can you explain the lack of offense from the big men, especially Rasheed, Antonio, Ben, Elden. They had 16 points combined for the whole game:
"I'm not a genius, but I think our guards took 40 something shots. So I think a lot of that is they didn't get a lot of touches, and you know, when Carlos took eight, Lindsey seven, Rip and Chauncey, so there wasn't a lot to go around. Rasheed wasn't out on the court a lot, so I think that's a factor, as well, and they defended great. Their effort was phenomenal. I thought defensively especially, you know, they fronted the post. They fought harder to defend us to get post position. We didn't roll hard, that had a lot to do with that. They put bodies on us and really pushed us out.
But I really think we didn't share the ball, either. I wish I could play back every time out, just said, got to make one extra pass or hit the big guy when they show, and maybe that will change a few things, but we had a hard time doing it and I think Miami probably had a lot to do with that."

Could you talk about how crucial the end of the second quarter was when they went up from 3 to 14 at the end and also the contributions of some of the surrounding players like Butler and Damon Jones and Udonis?:
"Well, I told Gar in the middle of first quarter I thought Haslem was killing us on both ends, but again, we lost our poise a little bit in the second quarter, and they played great. Rasual came out, had a time out, hit a couple of big shots, posted us up. Alonzo gave them a lot of energy, controlled the paint.
I don't always think a shot block is everything, but just his presence there, you know, we missed a lot of shots. We shot in the 30s again.
I thought right from the get go, even though we were only down 28 26, you know, their energy was a lot greater than ours. Then when we got back in the game, we let a couple of things really affect us again, and you look up, we cut it to three and next thing you know, we're down 14 at halftime."

Before the game you said you didn't really have a feel for where this team would be tonight. Are you surprised that this was the effort that came out tonight; that they were not as focused as you would have liked and they didn't have the energy you would have thought for a Game 5?:
"I don't buy that. We didn't maybe match their energy. Our guys tried. You know, I said again, a few of them got a little frustrated, but Miami's energy was great, you know, everybody. The biggest thing I kept preaching is whenever we struggle offensively, our defense suffers. When we move the ball and make the extra pass, get everybody involved, it seems like our whole game picks up, and I didn't think we did that. That first question about, you know, our big guys not making a contribution, well, it's hard when you don't touch the ball a lot, and it's hard when you don't fight to get yourself in position. We didn't get any run outs. I think in Game 4, our big guys got four or five dunks on the break. We didn't see any of that tonight. They just played a lot better."

Pistons Guard Chauncey Billups

It seemed like you guys didn't match their energy, is that disheartening that you guys were not able to come out and do that?:
"Yeah, I mean, it is, but, you know, like I said, man, they came to work. They came to work. We did too, but I mean they just got it going. I mean, they got it going. Guys that you don't expect to have big nights had big nights tonight, you know what I mean, and that was good on their part."

It seemed like there were some interesting calls out there, did you see the officials getting into your heads a little bit in the second quarter?:
"It was a little frustrating but I don't think they got into our heads. We kind of prepared ourselves for it, so, you know, wasn't surprised."

Have you ever been through a series like this where game after game it seems that not only the calls are uneven but inconsistent?:
"No, I haven't. No, I haven't. After this series, I can say I've been in them all, you know what I mean."

Pistons Forward Tayshaun Prince

You guys have been in this situation before, down 3 2 in a series and been able to come back and win. What's the key to coming back and winning a series when you're down?:
"Like I said before tonight's game, we haven't put a 48 minute game together yet besides the last game, even Game 1 I don't think it was 48 we played for the whole time. We haven't done it yet and obviously it's an important time to do it now. Now the situation where we want to win this series, we've got to win it on the road. But Game 6 is obviously important and we've got to start there."

You guys got 16 points out of your four bigs, what's going wrong there?:
"It's difficult when we get in foul trouble because, you know, that way when you're in foul trouble, you're less aggressive and you can't really do the things you want to do. Obviously whenever they are in foul trouble, it's tough on them, so there's not much that you can do. Obviously."

Pistons Center Ben Wallace

Obviously you wanted to play real well:
"They won, we lost."

You were in a similar situation last year, you went to New Jersey and won the series; do you draw on that come Saturday night?:
"I don't know. We got a good win tonight and we're going to take it down to Miami and see what we do down there."

What did you think of the effect of putting Rip on Dwyane did for you guys defensively?:
"I don't know. Just go out and play basketball. Forget anything else, just go out there and play ball."

Pistons Guard/Forward Richard Hamilton

Rip, it seemed to me like both teams had an easy time getting to the hoop in the first quarter. What happened after that? It seemed like the Heat continued to get some easy shots and you guys struggled offensively to get to the basket:
"I think that, you know, we just need to really continue to run our sets. I think that we probably needed to do a better job of trying to get Rasheed and McDyess and Ben and them guys involved a little bit more, so their big guys can't help out as much. I think in the first quarter, I think second, third and fourth, we need to do a better job on getting them the ball."

Chauncey said the other day it seems like, in his words, unfortunately you guys play your best when you have your backs to the wall. Did you see that as the scenario and do you think you'll play a lot better?:
"Man, that's crazy. Like I said, I don't believe we played like it tonight. I think we let the refs get into our head early, kind of messed up our flow of the game, but we still need to go out there and play the game we want to play. The crazy thing about it is, you know, we play better in these type of situations, and right now it's either win or go home.'"