Cassell: Hopefully Our Defense Will Take us Where We Need to Go

None of them were easy. We had to play our asses off to get where we are. But it ain't over yet. We know New Orleans is going to be ready for us. Hopefully, our defense will take us to where we have to go.

--Sam Cassell

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Very interesting coming from he who supposedly doesn't play a lick of D.

Even before he made this statement, you could see he was on board with the need to play defense. His hands have been very active, both in passing lanes and for opposing players taking shots within Cassell's reach.

Doc must be noticing, too:

“I made a decision in the middle of the third quarter that this was not going to be an offensive game, and whatever unit was playing the best defense I was going to stay with,” Rivers said. “You think about it, we had Sam (Cassell) on the floor over Rajon (Rondo) for defense. It wasn’t that Sam was great defensively. It’s just that for whatever reason that five clicked defensively, so we just stayed pat.”