Quotes & Sayings About Playoffs

I've been fortunate enough to do pretty well in playoffs. I feel pretty comfortable in them. — Sergio Garcia

None of the teams that actually probably were offering me a job from the getgo, actually in spring training, are in the playoffs right now. — Pedro Martinez

The QB is going to be judged, fair or unfair, on success in the playoffs. You remember QBs who have won 3 or 4 Super Bowls — Aaron Rodgers

I think your goal is to win every single game you play ... I'm not a guy that just puts a number on it and says we're going to do this, or makes a bravado statement like, "We're going to the playoffs and I guarantee it." I'm not a guy that talks about what we're going to do. I'm just, "Let's do it." And what it is is, we need to work extremely hard. — Chip Kelly

My God ... What are the headlines going to be like on Monday if the Yankees don't make the playoffs? — Wade Boggs

I think you should have a mindset of getting to the playoffs, because once you get in the playoffs, it is kind of a crapshoot. — Orel Hershiser

Life would be better if the Leafs would make the playoffs. Life would be perfect if they'd win the Stanley Cup. — Tom Earle

As you've progress further in the Playoffs, the ice usually gets a little softer. It's tough to keep it that cold. We could make it hard, but it would be about 4 degrees in the building. I'm sure the fans wouldn't appreciate that very much, wearing parkas in June. — Chris Pronger

War of attrition, war of wills. That's what the Stanley Cup playoffs are - more intense, more physical and more prolonged than the playoffs of any other sport. — George Vecsey

Everywhere I went during those days, the streets were filled with talk of the Mets. It was one of those rare moments of unanimity when everyone was thinking about the same thing. People walked around with transistor radios tuned to the game, large crowds gathered in front of appliance store windows to watch the action on silent televisions, sudden cheers would erupt from corner bars, from apartment windows, from invisible rooftops. First it was Atlanta in the playoffs, and then it was Baltimore in the Series. Out of eight October games, the Mets lost only once, and when the adventure was over, New York held another ticker-tape parade, this one even surpassing the extravaganza that had been thrown for the astronauts two months earlier. More than five hundred tons of paper fell into the streets that day, a record that has not been match sense. — Paul Auster

I played in the playoffs with teams that were known for flopping and you do not get respect. — Chris Webber

I want to help my team get to the playoffs, win, and run wild. — Adrian Peterson

It's been a long time since I've been in the playoffs. I want to get back there. — Rafael Soriano

In the playoffs will beats skill. — Kevin Constantine

It would be easier if I didn't even make the playoffs, it would hurt less. But then I start thinking about how much fun it is. — LeBron James

We're beating a lot of poor teams. So what? We won a lot of games last year, too. Will Horace and Bill still be playing at this level in the playoffs ... Can Pip keep it up? — Michael Jordan

Ultimately, if you can say that I'm a bad owner and we're winning championships, I can live with that. But if we're not making the playoffs and we're spending and losing money, then I have to look in the mirror and say maybe I'm not taking the necessary steps to doing what it takes to run an organization. — Michael Jordan

Everybody wants to play in the playoffs. You don't know how good the good times were until you hit the bad times. But sometimes success is just around the corner. — Trevor Linden

There are many reasons why I hate college football. The 4-hour games drone on longer than Steve Lyons during the American League playoffs. The ever-expanding season threatens to creep into early July. Boise, Idaho, hosts a bowl game. And it's played on blue artificial turf. — Stephen Rodrick

Name the eight men who made the final out in games that sent the Mets to the playoffs. Joe Torre, September 24, 1969. Glenn Beckert, October 1, 1973. Chico Walker, September 17, 1986. Lance Parrish, September 22, 1988. Dmitri Young, October 4, 1999. Keith Lockhart, September 27, 2000. Josh Willingham, September 18, 2006. Jay Bruce, September 26, 2015. — Greg W. Prince

After referees negated a line change that led to Tampa Bay"s winning goal in the Stanley Cup Playoffs: After all these years in the league, am I that stupid that I would put four forwards and one defenseman in a 3-3 tie, in the third period? I think everybody that knows me here knows I"m not that stupid. I might be halfway stupid, but not that stupid. — Pat Burns

The goal every year is to win the Super Bowl, not just to get to the playoffs, not just to win a few games. — Calvin Johnson

I'm not going to make it the all - everything. Our (the Saints) goal is to get better, make the playoffs and win the Super Bowl, but I'm not gonna anguish over it like I have in the past. — Mike Ditka

Making the playoffs three consecutive seasons is a great accomplishment. — Pau Gasol

I'm a firm believer that the wild-card teams, because they're grinding it out until the final days, have a tremendous amount of excitement. That excitement carries over into the playoffs and really helps. — Tim Salmon

There's nothing less than that. I don't care about just going to the playoffs; I've been to the playoffs before. — Allen Iverson

Playing in the playoffs is the best basketball in the world, and if you can learn under that pressure, succeed under that pressure, it gives you more confidence the next year. — Tony Parker

I lost control of myself a couple times in the playoffs. I have to keep cooler in the future. — Dirk Nowitzki

No matter how noble and special people want to make the playoffs out to be ... it's a crapshoot. — Orel Hershiser

Obviously, not playing a game before playoffs is something that happened, but especially going into the playoffs, you try to feel yourself out, where you're at, and then get right into game tempo and jump right in and play where you were before the injury. — Patrick Kane

At the end of the day, I've played six years, haven't made the playoffs yet, that burns me and hurts my heart, so I really want to be playing. — Kevin Love

The fact that we're in the playoffs doesn't mean anything to us, to be honest with you. Hopefully, we can accomplish our goal of going into the playoffs on a winning note. — Michael Strahan

The game against the Vikings back in my second year stands out. It was kind of a turnaround for us. It allowed us to make a run at the playoffs for the first time in quite a while. The memories are so many it's hard to pin one down. — Drew Bledsoe

I think when you saw this year's playoffs, Miami and Detroit have a pretty fierce rivalry now. Also, the Suns and San Antonio look like they're starting to develop something there. I look forward to seeing those rivalries continue and develop. — John Starks

I'm going to make the playoffs. You can believe that. To never play in the playoffs, that will not be my legacy. — LaDainian Tomlinson

I will not dream anymore, you said. I will not set myself up for the pain. But then your team made the playoffs, or you saw a movie, or a billboard glowing dusky orange and advertising Aruba, or a girl who bore more than a passing resemblance to a woman you'd dated in high school - a woman you'd loved and lost - danced above you with shimmering eyes, and you said, fuck it, let's dream just one more time. — Dennis Lehane

We've played with a lot of confidence and that's been the key so far. Hopefully, we can take more confidence into the playoffs. — Teemu Selanne

The playoffs are the playoffs. You just play who is put in front of you. — Steve Nash

Now, I'm an apolitical person (which I realize is its own kind of misleading political posture, but I think you know what I mean). I do not have conventional political affiliations. I follow presidential elections the same way I follow the NFL playoffs: obsessively and dispassionately. But Sarah Palin was (and is) a real problem. Her nomination for vice president in 2008 represents the most desperate inclinations of the Republican Party. In two hundred years, I suspect historians will use Palin as an example of how insane America became in the decade following the destruction of the World Trade Center, and her origin story will seem as extraterrestrial and eccentric as Abe Lincoln jumping out of a window to undermine a voting quorum in 1840. — Chuck Klosterman

I don't want to just go to the playoffs, I don't want to go to the playoffs and win the first round, second round, and not win the whole thing because it's bittersweet. — Allen Iverson

If I continue to just get to the playoffs every year, I guess you could say I arrived, but right now I'm just trying to find my way. — Kevin Durant

I am right where I want to be-in the playoffs, and happy about it. — Bobby Abreu

In this millennium that we live in, the 'Hack-a-Shaq'has proven not to work. It might work a couple games every now and then, but when it comes to the playoffs or a championship series, it doesn't work - not at all. — Shaquille O'Neal

Westbrook: 10 triple-doubles and carrying that team, injury-prone, into the playoffs. LeBron being the best player in the world. But I think right now I would go with James Harden because of what he's done. He's stepped up his game defensively. He's not a great defender but he's competing on the defensive end. — Mark Jackson

I have people that I'm close to that give me things to read throughout the season, and in particular in the playoffs and the postseason. — Derek Fisher

I felt like calling attention to AIDS. I had the AIDS ribbon colored into my hair during the playoffs in '95. — Dennis Rodman

The playoffs are the wedge between the season and the World Series. If you lose, it means you won't be going to the greatest sports event in this country ... You're forgotten by Thanksgiving. — Tim McCarver

My first year in baseball, there were only one or two reporters. My second year, I got to the Triple-A playoffs, there were four or five. When I came up in 1984, I never saw so many people. — Dwight Gooden

To me, it's like we're already in the playoffs. Every game is important for our position. We can't relax at all. — Peter Bondra

Tim Duncan's foot issue, I think, is a major factor in this year's playoffs. That's not the kind of injury that gets better over time playing NBA basketball. — Bill Walton

People judge you by the way you play in the playoffs. — Jaromir Jagr

Hed been to the playoffs before. I was asked last week what I thought this season has felt like for Coach Gibbs. I would think it must seem very familiar to a man with all those playoff wins. Hes a great coach who understands how to get his team to play. — Mark Brunell

My favorite event each year is the Yankees-Red Sox series. Love seeing passions run hot among the fans, especially when both teams are in the running for the playoffs. — Elizabeth Banks

I could play through anything. But just thinking about I have kids, longevity, I probably would have made more of a conscious effort not to hit the floor, but at the end of the day in the playoffs, you can't play that way. You just have to play and give it your all. — Rajon Rondo

Everything can happen in the playoffs. — Red Auerbach

In 1999, I got fired as coach of New England. In three years in New England, we actually did better than most people think. We were 27-21, won the AFC division title, went to the playoffs twice. — Pete Carroll

I don't remember those early playoff games. Keep it positive. I'm a different player. More focused. I know how important it is to score in the playoffs. — Pavel Datsyuk

Whether it's in the playoffs or not, you have to keep proving yourself. — Marc Bulger

Well, of course you question it, especially when you get to this point. I always look at it would I rather not make the playoffs or lose in The Finals? I don't know. I don't know. I've missed the playoffs twice. I lost in The Finals four times. I'm almost starting to be like I'd rather not even make the playoffs than to lose in The Finals. It would hurt a lot easier if I just didn't make the playoffs and I didn't have a shot at it. — LeBron James

You want to be the guy who makes an impact in every game. In this sport it's all about results-winning games and making the playoffs. — Martin St. Louis

I don't think I was a year too late or a year too early in retiring. If the Seahawks had been in the playoffs a year later, I might have had some regrets. — Steve Largent

I went to a couple of Rangers games at the Garden, and someone at the NHL had seen me and figured I was a fan and decided to approach me about having a blog during the playoffs. — Eddie Cahill

Famed basketball coach Phil Jackson, a meditator himself, arranged to have his players - first the Chicago Bulls, and then the L.A. Lakers - learn meditation as a way to improve their focus and teamwork. Jackson finds that mindfulness assists players in paying attention to what's happening on the court moment by moment. Such precise training in attention has paid off during tense playoffs; Jackson has led more teams to championships than any coach in NBA history. Meditation — Sharon Salzberg

It's the playoffs. You find a way to get through. — Steve Finley

The model for an NHL without fighting is right there in front of us. The [playoffs are] the time of year that fans love best; when the best hockey is played ... [The] enforcers don't play. Even mini-enforcers ... remain on the bench. Teams and coaches can't afford anything stupid and unpredictable ... With no one to fight back for them, players go harder into the corners, more determinedly to the front of the net. If they want to fire up the crowd and their teammates, they have to do it themselves. And in the playoffs, they do. — Ken Dryden

Toughest [lineup] I've faced. Hopefully, if it comes down to the playoffs, I can get my revenge. — Mark Buehrle

But then I lock back in and I start thinking about how fun it is to compete during the playoffs and the first round, the second round, and Eastern Conference Finals. If I'm lucky enough to get here again, it will be fun to do it. — LeBron James

I've been in just about every situation as a player and coach and manager. I've been in the playoffs, World Series, and I know how to get there. — Don Baylor

I haven't been back in Montreal, at all, since the playoffs ended two years ago. It's been a while. — Saku Koivu

This is why you play
to get an opportunity to play in the playoffs, — Derek Jeter

We are a terrible defensive team right now. We're not putting forth the maximum effort that we need to put forth, especially in our position. You'd think that we'd put forth that maximum effort to not only win the game, but to get a good rhythm to get into the playoffs. — Jermaine O'Neal

I've been on teams that lost a hundred games in a season. I've been on teams that had a shot to make the playoffs and fizzled out at the end. — Chili Davis

The NHL is the best league in the world, but it's a grind. You sometimes forget, especially if you are losing, or missing the playoffs ... how fun this game can be. — Thomas Vanek

The football playoffs feature one-off affairs, without bad feelings building from weekend to weekend. In addition, football uses platoons for offense and defense and kicking, so only the interior linemen have a chance to really get up close and personal with one another. — George Vecsey

What I've learned so far from researching is that to win the Stanley Cup, you have to make the playoffs. — Ted Leonsis

You've got to be in the moment, especially in the playoffs. If you're worried about the past, worried about what happened last game, that's a lost cause. — Drew Storen

Over a 10-season stretch from 1967 to 1976, eight Super Bowl champions either were the Raiders or had to beat the Raiders in the playoffs. The Jets, the Kansas City Chiefs, the Baltimore Colts, Miami, the Steelers each of the first two times ... we all had to deal with the Raiders. — Joe Greene

Everyone who loves pro basketball assumes it's a little fixed. We all think the annual draft lottery is probably rigged, we all accept that the league aggressively wants big market teams to advance deep into the playoffs, and we all concede that certain marquee players are going to get preferential treatment for no valid reason. The outcomes of games aren't predeteremined or scripted but there are definitely dark forces who play with our reality. There are faceless puppet masters who pull strings and manipulate the purity of justice. It's not necessarily a full-on conspiracy, but it's certainly not fair. And that's why the NBA remains the only game that matters: Pro basketball is exactly like life. — Chuck Klosterman

[The Angels are] a team that gives you an opportunity always to be in the playoffs. This time, my first time with them, I was very close to getting to the World Series, so why not stay? — Bobby Abreu

I arrived in Dallas two days before the party and planned on leaving the day after. I hated the city as much as I thought I would. All anyone could talk about were the Cowboys and their chances in the playoffs. Charlene was happy. Joe was not, or so it seemed to me, in spite of the fact that he had finally gotten exactly what he thought he wanted from a wife: she gave him an adorable boy, she did everything in their home including laundry, and most important, she did not embarrass him. Whenever I was alone with Joe during the two days I was there, Charlene would send her son into the room with us. The first time I carried him, Charlene made sure to mention how surprised she was that I had motherly instincts. She probably used the pronoun we more in one day than I have in my whole life. I did not blame her. Most plain women stake their claims clumsily. — Rabih Alameddine

My dream was to be in the NBA. I wasn't really focused on being a star player on a team. I just wanted to make it to the NBA. I've been blessed for the opportunities to be in the Finals, been in the playoffs ever since I've been in the NBA. — James Harden

Which brings us to a little book that may provide a clue to the cure. My wife got it as a gift from a friend. It is titled Porn for Women. It's a picture book of hunks, photographed in all their chiseled, muscle-bound, testosterone-marinated, PG-rated glory. Lots of naked chests and low-cut jeans, complete with tousled hair and beckoning eyes. And they are ALL doing housework. There's a picture of a well-cut Adonis, and he's loading the washing machine. The caption reads: "As soon as I finish the laundry, I'll do the grocery shopping. And I'll take the kids with me so you can relax." There's another hunk, the cover guy, vacuuming the floor. A particularly athletic-looking man peers up from the sports section and declares, "Ooh, look, the NFL playoffs are today. I bet we'll have no trouble parking at the crafts fair". Porn for Women. Available at a marriage near you. — Anonymous

The excitement of the fans in Montreal, especially in the playoffs, I don't think you can get that anywhere else. For a hockey player, I kind of wish everyone could go through that and experience what it is to play there. It's very unique. — Saku Koivu

That's our race. That's our playoffs. — Tim Salmon

You always want to feel better but I'm good. My thing is once you get to the playoffs, you do whatever it takes. You've got to lay it on the line. — Brian Jordan

When I was playing, there were only eight teams in each league, and you didn't have any playoffs. — Red Schoendienst

I know winning 20 is a special kind of thing, but I'd rather get into the playoffs, and be strong for the playoffs. — Tim Hudson

I don't care much about my personal record. I just want to be able to pitch in the playoffs. — CC Sabathia

As an organization, would we like to be in a better spot Everybody would like to know they're in the playoffs. But that's not a reality, year after year being in a playoff spot with 10, 12, 15 games left. We don't have that this year, so our playoffs have started. — John Tortorella

I'm not a guy that believes you've got to have a lot of experience to have success in the playoffs. — Phil Simms

The playoffs is all about showing heart and playing together. — Dirk Nowitzki

It's funny, but when there are dominant teams, there are a number of people who rail about the fact that they're always seeing the Dallas Cowboys or the San Francisco 49ers or the Green Bay either in the playoffs or in the Super Bowl. — Al Michaels

The best part of basketball, for those people on the inside, is the bus going to the airport after you've won a game on an opponent's floor. It's been a very tough battle. And preferably, in the playoffs. And that feeling that you have, together as a group, having gone to an opponent's floor and won a very good victory, is as about as high as you can get. — Phil Jackson

What I've talked about the entire series and throughout this playoffs is about intensity and effort, desire and will of our players. — Bill Laimbeer

Every team in the NFL is hard, but when we play our own division it's a fight. Our goal is to make it to the playoffs and to do that we have to win games within the division. We match up well against this division, it's just a matter of getting on the field and doing what we know we can do. — Giovani Bernard

Pat Riley, Dave Checketts and Ernie Grunfeld - they brought the Knicks back to the glory days. It started with Rick Pitino. We took our first step with him, making the playoffs. When Pat came in we just kicked the door open. — Patrick Ewing

I don't just want to play in the playoffs. I want to win the World Series. — Robinson Cano

It's not how you start the season, it's how you finish. If you wind up helping the team make the playoffs, that's what you play for. You don't play to put up your numbers, but to try to get a chance to make it to the World Series. — Albert Pujols

You don't realize the atmosphere in the arena until you're down on the ice for real, especially during the playoffs. You come out of the gate, you hear the fans going crazy, you know you're at home and in for a good time. It's something special, that's for sure. — Joe Thornton

I'm not trying to put any more pressure on me because it's the playoffs. — Monta Ellis