HEAT Head Coach Pat Riley

On the game:
“One of the most difficult things you do as a coach is to try and end the season. It doesn’t make any difference how it ends especially when you are competitors and you really want to win and you don’t win. It’s not easy when you don’t fulfill your personal expectations. It’s not easy, it’s never easy. It’s one of the most miserable experiences a man will ever have and that’s how I think we feel now. We ran into more than a formidable opponent. They are a great team. I wish John (Paxson) and Scott (Skiles) my best wishes. They put together a hell of a team, a very competitive team. A team that is on the rise and they deserve to win there is no doubt in my mind. They can go a long ways if they continue to play like they are playing. My hat goes off to the Chicago Bulls. We tried to do a lot of different things. Every second half there was just something that didn’t go well for us. They just kept pressing on and pressing on and nothing ever discourages them. They should be very proud of what they’ve done. As far as the game today we had our opportunities again. Too many things go wrong and you don’t have much of a cushion with the free throw shooting and with the turnovers. They shoot 38% and win and we shot 35 percent in the second half and that pretty much did us in. Our one year reign comes to an end. It was a great year and a great experience. It was an incredible experience, this team took me to a place that I haven’t been to in a long time. When you get to the top of the mountain you don’t camp out, you come back down and have to climb it again. They beat us eight out of nine games this year. We could never get a handle on them. We could never get a handle on their speed, quickness and their energy. We just couldn’t even get a handle on that. The fact that they shot the ball well is what they are, they got 18 points in the paint and beat us by 13, it’s an incredible display of basketball. Last year was last year and this year was this year. I made a point to the players that there were 10 games last year that could have gone either way in the playoffs. We got the free throws, we got the turnover or a timely three point shot and this year we didn’t even have an opportunity to even get into those kind of games.”

Do the HEAT need to evolve to compete next year with the Bulls:
“I am not going to go through my normal morose, depressed, beat myself up month, I am not. I am not going to do that. In another couple of days I will meet with Randy (Pfund) and just start talking about the roster and what’s coming up, that’s next. As far as any other assessment or decision we will just have to wait. The first thing is to just decompress after a long season. I have to meet with my players and meet with my staff and all of our scouts and get ready for the draft and free-agency.”

On how the season ended for Dwyane Wade:
“Great players take it all on their shoulders and maybe we put a little too much on him and he puts a lot on himself so things will have to change from that stand point. I think he showed some fatigue and every time we tried to rest him, it was very hard for us to sustain things. I love him like a son and he doesn’t ever do anything wrong. He took us to a place last year, if you think about his performance and what he did for this franchise. He average 39 points in the Finals, its incredible basketball and you never see anything like that. This year he just couldn’t do it and maybe he probably wasn’t ready to do it. I give him a tremendous amount of credit playing with an injured knee and I think the tendonitis bothered him more than anything. He went out there and played like a man, he puts himself in that position all the time; he will have a hard time sleeping on this one.”

HEAT Center Shaquille O'Neal

On the loss:
“It was very difficult. We had a good run. It was a different year for everyone. It was a different year for a championship team. I felt the guys played hard today. We just couldn’t get it. Before you can succeed you must first learn to fail. We won it last year. We let it slip away this year. Now we just have to live with this, and try to regroup.”

On the Chicago Bulls:
“They played well. They played hard. They shot the ball well. They played defense well. They had our number the first game of the season. They had our number the last game of the season. They did everything better. They played a lot harder. They caught all the loose balls, got all the rebounds, and just played well.”

On the entire team coming back from last year:
“It was worth it. You have to bring your guys back to try to defend it. We tried to defend it hard. It just didn’t work out our way. I always say in times like this, good thing about America you can always come back next year.”

HEAT Guard Dwyane Wade

On the season:
“One thing I’m grateful for is that I had an opportunity, to come back and play in the playoffs.”

HEAT Guard/Forward James Posey

On the game:
“We started off good for the most part, but we just didn’t finish it. You have to give them (Chicago Bulls) credit. They just stuck with it, and gave themselves an opportunity to win it.”

On being eliminated from the playoffs:
“It’s tough. I couldn’t imagine it happening like this. You have to give them credit for four straight (wins). You have to take your hats off to them.”

On the injuries throughout the year:
“That’s the nature of the game, but you still have to go out there and play hard and play to win. We fought it out. We got hit from every angle, but we still weathered the storm for the most part and it got us to this point.” On the Chicago Bulls:

“They were the better team in this series. They won four-to-nothing.”

HEAT Forward Antoine Walker

On the game:
“The better team won tonight. They executed down the stretch when they had to. In two to three point games, we thrived in those situations last year. We won so many games down the stretch like that. This year we didn’t come up with the right plays. We didn’t execute well, we turned it over. We’ll be back next year, hopefully we’ll get healthy over the next couple months and get back in the championship contention.”

On sweeping the defending champions:
“They are the defending champions. They are a team that has two superstars and a great supporting cast. We expected a battle and we got it. I think we just wore them down later on in the half and that’s why I think we swept [the series].”

On getting to the second round:
“It’s huge. For a lot of us it is our first time getting to the second round. We are definitely excited but we know we have another tough task ahead of us. We have to start focusing and getting ready for Detroit.”

On the importance of closing the series out today:
“It’s very important because now we [the Chicago Bulls and the Detroit Pistons] have the same amount of rest time. All the running we have been doing this series has taken a toll on us, so for us to have come in and take care of business was huge.”

On winning on the road:
“It was huge because we don’t have home court advantage against Detroit and we are going to have to win at least one there in order for us to win [the series]. I think this gave us confidence. I don’t think we won a road playoff game in a couple of years and for us to get two back-to-back, in a hostile environment is going to give us confidence to play in any arena.”

Bulls Forward/Guard Luol Deng

On sweeping the defending champions:
“It feels great. It’s a great feeling. We’re in a place we have never been [the second round]. Some of us have been there, but for the core of us it has been a goal for the entire season.”

On the confidence level of the team:
“We are a lot closer as a team. I think this series we played as a team. We played together and we always played the same way. No matter what they did we never really changed what we did. We never changed our style of play.”

On winning on the road:
“It was big. A lot of people say we can’t win on the road. It was good for us to come out and show our maturity as a team.”

Bulls Forward P.J. Brown

On their defense:
“It just shows that we can grind it out on the road. We are going to have performances like that offensively, but when you’re on the road in a tough environment on an opposing team’s floor, it’s really tough out there. We can win on the road, I think we have proven that we can win on the road. Hopefully that can continue to carry us.”

On sweeping the defending champions:
“I definitely thought we could get one [road victory], but after how we played Friday, I thought we would have a good chance of taking the game today. It just feels good to get this series over with. I’m glad that we are moving on and now we can concentrate on the Detroit [Pistons].”

Bulls Center Kirk Hinrich

On winning the series:
“We have bigger goals then this. Hopefully this is just a step. We feel good, we’ll enjoy this, but we realize that we are still in this. We to have focus and get ready for a great and experienced Detroit [Pistons] team.”

“We felt confident coming into this series. We felt like we could win. If you don’t have confidence, you might as well not show up. We just took it one game at a time, played hard, and fortunately we were able to win.”

“I think, in this series, that we showed a lot of composure.”

On playing on the road:
“It’s something that we have gotten better at as the year has gone on. At the All-Star break we had a horrible road record. Every time we played a road game, we tried to minimize our mistakes and just play smarter.”

Bulls Guard Ben Gordon

On the series:
“It shows a lot about how this team has matured over the course of the season. Throughout the season we were not really that great of a road team. We were really a home team, but it shows a lot when you can come and win two games in a row and sweep the defending champs.”

On Ben Wallace:
“Every year that he plays he has to be mentioned as the best defensive player of the year. I can’t even explain all the things he has helped us with that don’t show up on the stat sheet. I think he is the best big man passer in the league. He likes to tell me he is a point forward sometimes. He likes to throw no-looks. He does a lot besides the usual things everybody expects. He brings a lot to the team.”

Bulls Center Ben Wallace

On intentional fouls:
“We knew that if it came down to it, they would do it. They had a lot of success with it last season and in the regular season. Tonight the guys just encouraged me to go up there and just shoot the basketball, and not really think about it. They told me they had my back, regardless of what happens. Sometimes you need to hear that. It just showed how mature this team has become. I am supposed to be the cool head, I’m supposed to be the veteran, but these guys stayed cool and stayed focused. When they take the pressure off of me, you can’t help but to make a shot.”

On dealing with Shaquille O’Neal early in the post season:
“It’s a tough challenge, but I have to tilt my head to my teammates. They did a great job of helping me, and not just leaving me down there by myself, and asking me to go out there and stop the big fellow by myself. They did a great job of helping out, and making things hard for him. Having this week off will give me the opportunity to heal up a little bit. I definitely can use it after a battle with Shaq.”

On the team maturing from the beginning of the season:
“We started off the season a little bit rocky. We started off a little rough. At that point in time it would have been easier for guys to throw in a towel and say we aren’t as good as we claim to be. These guys kept playing and kept fighting. We kept pulling for each other, and we just found a way to make it happen. Anytime you have a group of guys who believe that they can win, a good thing can happen.”