- Detective Robert Goren: [pulling a new iPod from a teen athlete's pocket] You pay for that out of your paper route?
- Coach Perry Powell: [addressing Goren's partner, Detective G. Lynn Bishop] Does he always beat around the bush?
- Detective Robert Goren: I can be direct. You're divorced. You've got no kids. And basketball is pretty much it for you, Coach. You haven't won a championship in the past seven years. You might be hungry for a big win to cap your career. Hungry enough for you to get into business with Curtis Romney?
- Coach Perry Powell: I can be direct, too. I see a problem with authority figures. You defy them. You disrespect them. The truth is, you're intimidated by them. It's the mark of a boy with an indifferent father. His absence took the joy out of playing basketball.
- [Powell dismissively turns his attention back to Detective Bishop]
- Captain James Deakins: You play ball in school?
- Detective Robert Goren: [after a pause] JV power forward. Gave it up.
- Detective G. Lynn Bishop: [looking at Coach's photographs] These must be his former players - and their kids. It's beginning to look a little like "Goodbye, Mister Chips" in here.
- Detective Robert Goren: [picks up a potted plant] At least Mister Chips had a wife... Cranberry seedling. With my dad, it was avocado pits in a glass of water... TV. He stands over the kitchen sink and he eats while he watches TV. I found the same arrangement when I cleaned out my dad's apartment.
- Coach Perry Powell: [bitterly] "Heads-up," huh? You really got the old man good, didn't you.
- Detective Robert Goren: Yeah, well, that's how I beat all my men on the court, Coach: head fake.
- Detective Robert Goren: When my father died - he had just enough money to, uh, cover his funeral. That shouldn't happen to you.
- Coach Perry Powell: Thanks for the heads-up.
- Detective Robert Goren: [to Mrs. Watkins] Coach started paying more attention to Ben; you started paying more attention to Coach. You paid attention to him; Coach paid attention to Ben; Ben's stats kept improving. It's nice how that worked out, isn't it?
- Curtis Romney: It's called grass-roots boosterism - giving the community a team they can be proud of.
- Detective Robert Goren: Well, I call it a long-term investment. You recruit the players. You touch their young lives with your "generosity." And then you leave a stain that they carry through their college or professional careers. A taint that you can threaten them with any time you need to shave some points.
- Detective Robert Goren: I know this guy. He's a lonely man, with a shot at happiness. He's gonna fight for it.
- Detective Robert Goren: A guy can only - spend so many nights eating over the kitchen sink. He can only look at so many pictures of his former players, with their wives and their kids - before he's gotta grab that brass ring for himself.
- Detective Robert Goren: Picket-fence play, that's - that's a classic of teamwork.
- Coach Perry Powell: They all play the one-on-one game now.
- Detective Robert Goren: Oh, listen to Coach. He's just moldin' that clay. Moldin' it until he gets what he wants out of it.