That's what he can do when he wants to. When he plays like he did tonight, we're tough.

His half-court man-to-man defense put the clamps on us. We started rushing our shots and lost our composure.

This is about the fourth game in a row where Thomas has pulled down a double-double or close to one.

I thought our defense was good the whole game, our guys stayed under control, they didn't turn the ball over much and we rebounded well.

We just played really good defense. They can flat run. This is a team that came out and scored around 80 points on us the last time we played, and we held them to 55.

After what this team went through last year, to be 17-8 and one game away from playing in the state playoffs, I'm overwhelmed. All my kids are still here and they seem to be having fun. Heck, they even try to execute stuff now when I call out a play.

Twice (late in the fourth quarter), we had one-and-ones, and we got the rebounds. That's big. We get that rebound, there goes another 10 seconds off the clock.

In the fourth quarter, our kids just wanted it more. We put on some full-court pressure and forced some turnovers.

Honestly, this is why we worked so hard to get the number two seed, to get this first game.