Game 5 quoteboard -- Thunder's Russell Westbrook: 'We stuck together'

Dallas coach Rick Carlisle: “Oklahoma City is a great, young team. They played with unbelievable fight and spirit…This is as hard a game as I've ever been involved with, just because of some of the adjustments they made; how they attacked.”

Thunder coach Scott Brooks: “I thought that was a heck of a basketball game. That's what you want. We wanted this game to be a tough, physical game, and it was. I'm proud of our guys. They battled for the entire 48 minutes.”

Thunder guard Russell Westbrook on the series' biggest lesson: “Just how tough we are. We stuck together, and most of the time it didn't go our way, but we stuck together and that shows something to us as a team.”

Thunder forward Kevin Durant: “All of us expected to go far. We had high expectations for ourselves coming into this year, and we knew we worked hard enough. After a good first round, hard-fought second round, we put ourselves in good position to fight for a Finals appearance and thought we had a good chance.”

Thunder guard James Harden: “We let our last two games slip away. We had leads going late into the fourth quarter, and we couldn't grasp it. We had a great season.”

Thunder forward Nick Collison on Dirk Nowitzki: “After this, I feel like he's the toughest guy in the league to guard for a big guy. He has counters to everything you do…He's got the total package.”