HEAD COACH TERRY STOTTS“It was a pretty gutsy win. To win a game like that, our defense in the second half was tremendous. The energy was great. Obviously, Thomas and Will came in and gave us the energy that we needed. Thomas did a really good job on Cousins in the second half. He competed defensively as far as contesting his post ups and catches and created a lot of steals. We won it with our energy. We didn’t shoot the ball particularly well and obviously LaMarcus being out affected the game, but I think it was a credit to everybody that played that they contributed to the win.”
On using small lineup late in the game:“With LA out, we’re undersized anyway. I thought Will’s energy and Thomas’s energy would have a chance to change the game. The fact that T-Rob guarded Cousins as well as he did, obviously I kept him on the court because of that. I anticipated going back with Chris, but T-Rob deserved to be out there. Will brought some energy. We needed a spark and he gave it to us.”
On aggressiveness of defense:“I wanted to be smart with our pressure. I didn’t want to gamble, but being more aggressive – I thought we had good length, we had good athleticism. We were kind of forced to play a smaller lineup with all our big guys being out. They kind of matched up with us. But I give credit to the guys that were in there, when you have Williams, Thompson and Gay out there, they’re still a pretty long, athletic team so we did a good job rebounding the ball and created some offense with our defense.”
On no turnovers in fourth quarter while forcing 8 from Kings:“We’ve had games like that on the other end, but for us, it was a different style of game for us. With the guys who were playing and being relatively undersized, we had to create some things and kind of change what we were doing. I thought Wes did a very good job on Gay for the second half. He was bodying him up, contesting his shots and he kept him away from the rim. That was very important for us.”
WESLEY MATTHEWSOn win:“There’s no question, that was a gut check win, a must win. It didn’t get any easier. I kept looking at the end of the bench and I thought LA had gone to the bathroom and I was waiting for him to come back. Guys stepped up. T-Rob came in and played big, Will changed the game, D-Wright, Meyers and Vic came in and made plays for us. It was a gutty performance for everybody.”
On small lineup used late in the game:“That was a get the win by any means. We had never played that lineup before. I don’t know how much that lineup will ever be together, but it was necessary at the time and it got us a win.”
On playing and winning with guys out:“Last year we were blessed and frankly lucky. You rarely go through a season where all starters are healthy… It’s been everything but that this season. We’re continuing to fight, continuing to pull together, continuing to trust each other and finding ways to win. Tonight was evidence of that and it was a big time win for us.”
DAMIAN LILLARDOn level of concern with Aldridge’s injury:“It’s a huge concern of ours, obviously with him being our best player. But like I’ve said, it’s not like we can not go out there and not play the next game, so guys just have to be ready to step up.”
On getting to the rim late in the game:“I still would raise up and shoot the three if I needed to, but tonight I took what they gave me. I knew Jason Thompson was showing really hard on pick and rolls and there’d be an opportunity for me to split. So that’s what I did. When I split, the defense was kind of off balance I guess and I was able to get to the rim. The time before that it was just an offensive rebound. I know Wes is one of the better shooters in the league so if he misses, I know it’s not going to be a bad miss and I just crashed on that one.”
On Cousins fouling out of the game:“That was huge. We weren’t trying to get him to foul out, but in my opinion, he’s probably one of the best bigs in the league, top two, top three bigs in the league and it would have been a handful down the stretch to stop him. That’s why I thought T-Rob was so huge for us because he fought him down there. That’s a big guy, a physical guy, and he fought him and made things hard for him. When he fouled out, it was him trying to fight through T-Rob fighting with him and it turned into an offensive foul and he’s out of the game and now that’s a problem we don’t have to worry about.”
HEAD COACH TYRONE CORBINOn what went well in the game:“I thought we did a good job. The pace of the game was good. I thought we defended very well after we got ourselves going. I thought we fought hard in the game. The focus and the energy we had tonight [were good]. I thought we had ourselves a good chance of winning the game. It’s a disappointing loss but I’m happy with the effort from the guys.”
On losing Demarcus Cousins:“He’s an easy guy that we use—he, Rudy [Gay] and Darren [Collison]—to put the ball in their hands and close the game out for us. To lose him when we did, cut some options down.”
On defense’s positives:“As I told the guys inside, ‘Look if we compete and play this hard every night, we got a chance.’ We made some mistakes. We rushed it at times when we should have slowed the ball down a little bit. We made some turnovers that we probably shouldn’t have made. I thought the guys fought their tail off to have a chance to win the ball game.”
On decreasing turnovers:“We just have to slow down a little bit…We want to increase pace, and that’s one of things we want to do especially early in terms of possession, but when it’s not there we got to make sure we pull it out to give ourselves a chance at executing at half court.”
DARREN COLLISONOn turning the ball over:“We could say it’s turnovers but we’ve got to be better with the ball, as far as execution down the stretch. I thought we played hard down the stretch, just some things didn’t go our way.”
On how they as a team can bounce back from a tough loss:“You’ve got to learn from it, you’ve got to be better. It just seems like a common thing throughout the whole season and it’s tough because these are games that we’re up and have a lead against very good, solid teams. They’re actually very good teams but we just aren’t able to finish the game.”
On where he feels they are at halfway through the season:“I think we’re fine, I think we’re playing much better right now than our past couple games. Even though we didn’t win I think we’re playing fine because we’re showing the effort. We’re playing more like a team right now and we’re fine and focused on basketball right now.”
DEMARCUS COUSINSOn what they have to focus on fixing going forward:“Just being consistent, find a way to be better about taking care of the ball. Those are the big issues.”
On what positives there are to take from this game:“We played a good game, Rudy [Gay] got a good look at the end. Unfortunately he didn’t knock it down but we know Rudy can make that shot with the fade. If he had that shot again, I would totally believe that he would knock it down. There’s a lot of positives but some things changed in that game.”
On if he felt LaMarcus Aldridge hit him when he injured his hand:“I didn’t.”