On the game: “Not bad. We know Kyrie has had games like that, but Tristan in his second start, to come out and play that way was very encouraging. Again we talked about with him his learning curve is pretty quick. To have a career night like he did tonight was big time because the first half he really kept us with that lead because he played so well. I thought all of our bigs did an excellent job at passing the ball and sharing it with one another and really understanding our space a lot better tonight. We were really a lot more focused offensively on what we had to do and some of the spacing that we haven’t had in the last couple of games was so much better tonight and that gave us a lot of easy scores tonight.”
On him and Tristan stepping up: “It was definitely a game where we were both hitting, and some of the reliance fell on me and Tristan. You know, Tristan was making big plays, like you said with the tip-in, so it felt good. Everybody contributed tonight. I think a couple of people on our team were in double figures. So when we’re contributing like that, and everybody’s on the same page, it feels good.”
On keeping their composure down the stretch: “It felt good having the confidence in my teammates, especially going down the stretch. In previous games they’ve always trusted me down the stretch, especially in the last two or three weeks, so it felt good.”
On if he thinks he and Tristan will have many more nights like this: “We’ll see. You know, he played really well tonight, so hopefully he can have a lot more nights like this, and he can be a contributor as well as he did tonight. He played really big for us especially down the stretch on the defensive end.”
On how much easier it is to rebound with their good shooters: “Yeah, most definitely. Especially with shooters like ‘Tawn (Jamison), AP (Parker) and Kyrie. You know they try to double team, so it frees me up for the paint, and I can finish around the rim.”
On if it was better to go against players closer in size tonight as opposed to last night: “Kris is another strong guy, Shelden is a big body. Height-wise, we were probably more equal, but they’re strong guys, and they’re vets, and they’ve been playing this game for a long time. It doesn’t make a difference. You’ve just got to play active and keep moving.”
NETS HEAD COACH AVERY JOHNSON
On the First Quarter: “We had some strong moves to the basket and we just weren’t getting rewarded. It was just a difference in opinion. There was a couple of times where we thought that a foul was called on a wrong guy, so we just wanted to get some clarity in that situation. We got off to a slow start defensively and offensively. Than we got it going again in the second quarter and went into the locker room with some sort of momentum. We didn’t finish well tonight. We didn’t finish the fourth quarter well. We have to take a hard look at what we are doing offensively, but also defensively, especially in the fourth quarter. We are not going to win many games when you get out-rebounded 55-37 and when you give up 21 offensive rebounds. That’s not a good recipe for success.”
On Gerald Wallace: “Gerald is really comfortable. We pulled out a few of the plays that he likes especially some that he ran in Charlotte. We had some isolation’s and some post-up plays but he was all over the place tonight. He really gave us a lot of energy, shot the ball well, got to the free throw line, so tonight our bench was not as good as their bench. Hopefully we have a night here where everyone is on the same page and we’re able to have a better fourth quarter. More than anything this was a nightmare in rebounding. When you give up 21 offensive rebounds and you get out rebounded by 18 rebounds.”
On the Final Turn Over: “Deron got trapped like he was getting most of the fourth quarter. Humphries did not turn and look for the ball and the ball got away from us.”
GERALD WALLACE
On his performance: “I felt good tonight. They put me in a situation where I thought I can be productive as far as posting up, isolations and one on one. I felt like I did a pretty good job tonight in that situation.”
On the rough ending to the close game: “We fought so hard, we came back. We had a defensive breakdown and gave up a three. Still, we had a chance; I had a drive to the basket and missed the lay-up. Deron had a drive to the basket, he missed the lay-up. Those are tough things to swallow when we fought so hard to get ourselves back into the game.”
On the bad start killing the team: “I don’t think the start killed us, I think if you look at this game right here, offensive rebounds killed us. We gave them too many second chance opportunities. When you give any team 21 offensive rebounds, they are going to beat you no matter what goes right for you. That is something we can’t do, we got to rebound better as a team.”
On the increasing comfort level: “I felt good out there. There are still some situations where they call plays and you can hear Coach Johnson from the bench yelling at me to go here or there and to do this. I think that is going to happen for another week or two. Hopefully I can get the plays down and understand them. But it is difficult for me because as soon as I learn the plays from the 3, coach throws me in the 4 and I can’t figure out when and where do I go. It is going to be tough in that situation. Hopefully we can make it through the season with pick and rolls and Deron and Coach Johnson screaming at me telling me where to go.”
KRIS HUMPHRIES
On the game: “As a team it felt like we had the momentum, we were doing the right things to win. We were down by three, we needed the three. Obviously I should have rolled regardless. I thought he (Deron) was going to put it up. I’ll take responsibility for that. We were out of timeouts as well. If I had just rolled I would have been wide open, so it’s all on me. The Cavaliers came out aggressive from the start and we just didn’t match their aggression. Offensive rebounds, the Cavaliers had 21. They just beat us up down there tonight. We all just had to focus in on rebounding and stuff like that. This loss was tough. I feel there were a lot of things that I did that I could have done better. This one is on me late in the game, but what can you do, you have to keep going, you can’t quit. You think about it for about 10 or 20 minutes after the game and you have to keep trucking.”