On the game:“We got another tough one. Again in the fourth quarter, it wasn’t on the defensive end, it was on the offensive end. As I told our guys, we just got to keep competing like this. Sooner or later being in this situation this many times, we will find a way to break through it.”
On missing Kyrie Irving:“I think Tony Allen is one of the best perimeters defenders in the game, and he is guarding the two so he made it very tough in the last quarter, so we just didn’t have anybody else who could really create. And we got stagnant. That is the other thing. We just got stagnant on the offensive end. [We] started the fourth quarter with turnovers and things like that. Again, if we just keep putting ourselves in this position, we will get better.”
On the last two games:“I feel that we are doing a lot of good things right now. We are getting better on both ends of the floor as we have been talking about for the past week or so. Our guys are focused and committed to what we are trying to do. We just still have those lapses that most veteran teams don’t have. That is what is killing us right now. It is always the fourth quarter. We win all three quarters tonight and, then we get killed in the fourth quarter because we can’t score. I think we shot 20 percent in the fourth quarter. So am I surprised, no. I think we are headed in the right direction. Our guys, number one, are playing hard and competing, and that is what we need them to do on a night to night basis. We just got to find a way in the fourth quarter.”
On having similar problems against the Heat and the Grizzlies:
“Both teams are really good, Miami and Memphis. We have to play smarter. We took some bad shots. We only shot 20 percent, I believe, in the fourth quarter. They outscored us 22-9. It was just bad decisions and then we had to find a way back into the game. We are playing as good as them for the whole game and the last two or three minutes are where we are losing. We have to watch the film and see what we did wrong, and try to do a better job next game.”
On the winning on the road:
“We had a chance. We gave ourselves a chance to win those games. We have been playing hard. I believe if we keep playing like that we are going to find a way to get some wins.”
On moving forward:
“We are going to our fourth game in five nights, but we have to get there tomorrow and play as hard as we played tonight. We had a big lead last time against Phoenix. We were up 26, but we lost the game. We know we can beat them. That is what we are going to do tomorrow. We are going to play hard and try to beat them.”
On the game:
“I thought the group with Darrell Arthur, Zach Randolph, Quincy Pondexter, I think it was Jerryd Bayless or Wayne Ellington, along with Rudy Gay, they did a great job of picking up the energy and intensity. I just told them it’s up to you guys if you want to win it. You’ve got to go get it. It’s going to be a dog fight. They went out and got some steals, got on the floor. We still turned the ball over a few times and then finally Quincy Pondexter hit a few big shots for us. Zach Randolph hit a couple of shots and then I came back with Marc Gasol. Then I came back with Jerryd and Jerryd hit a couple of big shots for us and Zach hit a couple. It was just a good team effort. We overcame a lot of adversity and showed a lot of pride. As I told the team, when you play these teams that are up-and-coming, you remember what we were trying to get here. When we play somebody who’s good, we want to show that we belong. They play hard. They just had a trip to Miami and they gave Miami all they could handle. We were just fortunate to get the win. We made enough plays, made enough stops. Tony Allen’s defense on Dion Waiters was outstanding. Then he came up with a couple of steals down the stretch that just iced it for us.”
On offensive performance:
“Well we only scored 84 points. We had some bad execution, not knowing where we’re supposed to be, not knowing how the play was supposed to develop. I’ve got to give a shout out to Mike Conley and all the haters of Mike Conley. He’s one of the most valuable players we have on this team. He’s not a flashy guy, not a big scorer, not a big name but helps make us go and we missed him big time. Jerryd (Bayless) did an admirable job. We had Wayne (Ellington) handle the ball a little bit. We had Rudy (Gay) handle it a little bit. You limit what you can do when you don’t have a guy that knows all the nuances of what you’re trying to do, and we were fortunate to get a win tonight.”
On the defense:
“I was just trying to get our team to play with a lot more energy and a lot more focus on defense and finish the defense that we did do with some rebounding. They were hurting us on the glass. (Anderson) Varejao had 22 rebounds and they outrebounded us by eight. I will say this, in the fourth quarter alone I think we had seven times that we stopped them three times in a row, which is huge. Then we had 19 deflections, 13 in the second half so we picked things up in the second half and we started playing better. Offensively, we were just out of sync.”
On the game:
“I have to give the guys a lot of credit. We worked hard tonight. They are a good team, better that what their record shows.”
On moving forward:
“We have got to come out and play. We knew coming into this game it was going to be a tough game. Guys didn’t play too well tonight. It was a fight. It was a fight to the end. Jerryd (Bayless) hit big shots. Marc (Gasol) hit big shots. We got the win at the end of the game.”
On Anderson Varejao:
“Varejao has a motor. He is moving non-stop. He reminds me of myself a couple of years ago. You have to give him a lot of credit. He works hard. He is non-stop.”