(On tonight’s game): “I’m disappointed. After the effort we had in Atlanta, to come back and play this way, I’m very disappointed in the way we played. They just didn’t show me life. Like I said, the energy and effort wasn’t there for whatever reason. After praising how hard we played in Atlanta and then we come back and play this way. We’ve been talking about consistency all season in so many different areas, and that’s one of them as well.”
(On his team’s zone defense): “We were doing stuff in our zone tonight that we weren’t doing last game, giving them wide open shots and things like that. Again, our zone against Atlanta, we had much more effort than we did tonight.”
(On playing hard): “Nowadays, playing hard seems to be a skill. To be playing hard is your job, simple as that. Basically, that’s all we ask of you is to come out, just compete and play hard every single night. Not every other night. Every night. I don’t know why we came out the way we did tonight.”
(On what went wrong tonight): “Effort, that’s it. Things went from bad to worse. Once we got down, our entire game plan went down the drain.”
(On if he felt Brooklyn came into the game with a playoff mentality): “I felt like the first few minutes went well for us; we were in the game. Coming out in the second quarter we didn’t play with the intensity and they picked it up. We just didn’t meet their intensity.”
(On what needs to happen in order for the team to keep its intensity up): “I feel that we have to come out with the mindset that we’re a good basketball club, no matter what our record shows. We’ve been in a lot of games this season no matter what. We know the potential of this team and I feel like these ten losses in a row can be given to a couple of us for not mentally being ready and guys not coming out with the same intensity. I feel like right now we’re not playing to win.”
(On why he thinks the team lacked energy and effort tonight): “I don’t know. If I knew I would have been able to say something to help change it. Both ways we were trying to find our rhythm tonight and I think when they finally made contact on one of their swings, we laid down. I don’t feel like we swung back or even tried to get up. I think it trickles down through everyone too. For the bench to come in with a team rolling like that, it’s tough to dig out of. We just didn’t compete as a team.”
(On the Nets’ offensive efficiency): “We shared the ball. We had close to 20 assists at the half. We made shots. You always look good when you make shots…The ball movement was very good in the first half. There were a lot of extra passes. Guys made shots.”
(On MarShon Brooks’ performance): “His first half was really exceptional. He went backwards a bit in the second half. His first half was exceptional because he defended. (He) moved the ball. When he went one-on-one, it was appropriate and at the right time.”
(On his performance tonight): “It was huge. These last nine games are huge for us, especially because everything is so tight in the east between (playoff seeding’s) three through six. That was a huge game for us, so I just tried to come out and be aggressive. As you guys saw, my shot was just falling today.”
(On his career high seven assists): “When you start off hot, you are going to draw more attention and you attack the rim. I was attacking the rim and trying to make the easy play.”
(On dunking for the first time this season): “I didn’t really plan it. It was just something that happened. (My teammates) know I can dunk. (The media) makes a big deal about it.”
(On tonight’s game): “We just finished off a long road trip and now we’re on the road again, it could be another let down. We did the opposite, we came out determined to get a win. MarShon (Brooks) came out, played great basketball and got us going. We never really looked back.”
CAVALIERS NOTES:
- Cleveland shot 23-26 (.885) from the foul line tonight. The Cavaliers have shot at least .800 from the charity stripe 26 times this season.
- The Cavs bench contributed 43 points. Since Marreese Speights and Wayne Ellington played their first game as Cavaliers on January 25th, the reserves have scored at least 30 points in 24 of 31 games. Cleveland’s bench is averaging 37.2 points per game over that span.
- Marreese Speights recorded his fifth double-double of the season (third with the Cavaliers) with 16 points on 7-13 (.538) shooting and 10 rebounds in 22 minutes off the bench. Over his last three contests, Speights is averaging 17.0 points on 24-37 (.649) shooting from the field and 7.3 rebounds in 22.3 minutes per game.
- Kyrie Irving finished with 16 points, six assists, one steal and one block in 28 minutes. On the season, Irving is averaging 23.0 points, 3.6 rebounds, 5.7 assists and 1.6 steals in 34.9 minutes per game.
- Tyler Zeller tallied 14 points on 5-9 (.555) shooting and four rebounds in 26 minutes. Zeller has scored in double figures in four of his last five games and is averaging 11.0 points on 23-36 (.639) shooting and 6.2 rebounds in 26.0 minutes per game during that stretch.
- C.J. Miles recorded 11 points on 3-4 (.750) shooting, three rebounds and one steal in 13 minutes off the bench. Miles has made at least one triple in 19 consecutive contests, the second longest active streak in the NBA (Korver-69 games) and is averaging 12.2 points, including shooting .430 (43-100) from beyond the arc, 3.1 rebounds and 1.1 steals in 20.9 minutes per game over that span.