We started out so poorly. You can't do that against a team like Dallas. We were climbing uphill the whole game.

We see zone from time to time, but we certainly don?t see it for a whole quarter. If you make shots, if you make some dribble penetration against the zone, they come out of it. We never did. We never made a shot and they had no reason to come out of it.

When you play a team like Miami, you cannot start the way we started. You put yourself in such a hole, and you have to climb out of it. You can't do that against a good team. They space the floor, they have a great post player. ... Then they spread the floor with their shooters.

We just had a very brief meeting, and we realize that we have to win (tonight) against Boston and it?s tied up again and realizing we?re going to Chicago. So ..I think everyone still feels like we?re there. We just have to win the game against Boston.

The zone hurt us quite a bit. It was poor, poor execution against the zone in the fourth quarter. We couldn't make a shot and they never went back to man-to-man. They stayed with the zone and packed it in.

It certainly will give us a boost to get ready for the second half. We needed a boost to get us back feeling good about ourselves and playing against a team like San Antonio, the defending champions, gives you a chance to feel good about yourselves.

No, we lost four of five games and it didn't matter who it was. We had to win a basketball game and it so happened to be against Portland.

I thought our guys played well. It was a young group. When you throw a young group against a veteran group, you may be able to win a game like that. A veteran group is going to use their brain a little bit, and that's what they did.

It is a tough way to start the game when you put yourself in a hole against a team like the Mavericks. The pressure bothered us a little.