Lou Williams Quotes

When you bring one of your top scorers, your top players off the bench, it really gives your team balance.

You don't cut anywhere, don't pick down anywhere, don't double screen, no weak side picking. All these things that should happen in a game of basketball don't happen anymore.

They will not fight you all except within fortified cities or from behind walls…

Guys try to take you out of the game if they know they can. So especially if you've got a playmaker, guys on the defense would do that.

In football, you don't hold on to the ball just to hold on to the ball. When you have it you need to be dangerous, create opportunities and score goals. And when you don't, you make sure the opposition doesn't.

There's two sides to the game, and you have to do the ugly side as well. If you're getting beat, and you're conceding the goals that we're getting beaten by, then it's because you're not defending and shutting people down well enough.

If seven or eight players play offensively, then it's clear that the offensive force is greater than the defensive stability. That's what I often say internally.

Different players play you different ways. Some players might be slow-footed so they got to backup. Some players might push you up. You've got to have a go-to that's a mix for both of them.

The bigs are there on the help-side if the guy goes by me, and I'm able to switch to other offensive players.

In Italy, they are incredibly competitive. It may be that their game is more defensive, but they defend so well; here in Germany, there is more speed and intensity. In England, they are more direct, very box-to-box.

In the NBA they've taken away so much of the hand-checking and the physicality of how guys are able to guard you. So if you touch me, I'm gonna throw the ball toward the rim and get shots.

Most teams won't really focus on one player because they've got multiple players to defend and that will open up a lot of things for me.

I wanted to prove that I could be a starter. And then once I realized I was gonna be a sixth man and it wasn't gonna change, I just relished the role. I just said, 'I'm going to make it really hard on whoever it is that has to guard me these next 10-11 minutes that I'm in here.' And after a while you just create an identity.

When we have a defensive situation in which we are conceding too many goals, it is not just a problem in the defense but the entire team, starting with the coach.

In the past, you would have been classed as a sweeper if you were put in the middle of a three-man defence.

Anytime you get to play a team twice, you have a feel for what they do and how they play.

I have a lot of respect for Wenger. But a player needs playing time. And a coach has to put his faith in a player if he feels that he needs it.

I'd been at Chelsea for a while and progressed quite quickly until I got to the first team, and then it was different. I was used to playing every minute of every game, but when you get to that level, the step up is massive. There are world-class players in front of you, and no matter how talented you are, breaking in is difficult.

It's all about being sharp and not taking too much damage. That's always the game plan.

The defensive phase is about the team, so it's about balance.

I know teams are gameplanning against me, trying to not let me shoot pull-ups, basically trying to take me out of the game as much as they can.

I think you just have to be more aggressive when you come off the bench.

I'm a defensive-minded player.

It's one of those things: we've got guys that are very offensive and can take down anyone, and we've got guys that don't shoot at all but are very hard to take down. It's one of those things. You've got to decide what you're good at.

Regardless of how well you can be offensively, if you have a great defense, you can deal with any offense.