We couldn’t sustain it. And they got a lot of kids that can shoot. We just couldn’t close out well enough.
BILL RUSSELLIf a guy pays you five dollars, you give him seven dollars worth of work.
More Bill Russell Quotes
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If Shakespeare can compare all of life to a stage, maybe it’s not odd to believe that part of the play can take place on a basketball court.
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Success is a result of consistent practice of winning skills and actions. There is nothing miraculous about the process. There is no luck involved.
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I’ve been fortunate to meet and work with a lot of really smart people. The thing that strikes me most about them is how they continue to explore and learn every day. I have tried to apply that approach in my modest career as well.
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We overreached our decision power. Sometimes our decisions have to fit the reality of the outside world.
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The only important statistic is the final score.
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The last five or six days, I’ve been running. The last two days, I’ve been running pretty hard. Everybody’s got to be someplace.
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To me, the most important part of winning is joy. You can win without joy, but winning that’s joyless is like eating in a four-star restaurant when you’re not hungry. Joy is a current of energy in your body, like chlorophyll or sunlight, that fills you up and makes you naturally want to do your best.
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Durability is part of what makes a great athlete.
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The idea is not to block every shot. The idea is to make your opponent believe that you might block every shot.
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People say it was the greatest individual rivalry they’ve ever seen. I agree with that. Let me assure you that if either Wilt’s or Russ’ coach had ever told one of them he couldn’t guard the other guy, he would have lost that player forever.
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The morale and the camaraderie that we had for one another earlier in the year is starting to come under duress because of all the losses. Some of the guys are feeling the pressure now from the last year when they were not successful.
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Don’t knock the ball in the stands, keep it in your hands!
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The most important measure of how good a game I played was how much better I’d made my teammates play.
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Friendship is a full-time job.
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I think what has happened to our basketball team, we’ve been badly distracted. They’re not reading too many positive things in the paper.
BILL RUSSELL