There were mistakes that I made that I did learn from. When you don't have responsibilities, the only responsibility is for yourself, but when you have someone there to mentor you, then you don't make stupid mistakes.

There were butterflies, otherwise, you're not really ready to play. The locker room, I remember, was quiet and we were very focused on playing that game.

Not having a father helping you grow into manhood and teaching you those things about how to be a man hurts. It hurt my brothers because their fathers weren't involved in their lives.

I had a lot of maturing I had to go through. I consider myself a smart individual in seeing that this is not the road I want to take.

You look at the assistant coaches under [Pat Riley] that played and they have become prosperous within this game. It triples all the way down from the assistant players to the coaches. Patrick Ewing went into coaching as well as myself.

To me coming up short as a team and for me not having a great particular game was tough to swallow, but your life doesn't end there. You must put your life into perspective and keep moving on.

Pit Riley had a lasting effect on us as players and the coaching staff.