(On the game tonight): “I thought we let it get away to be honest with you. I thought we did some real good things. It was one of the first games in a while, defensively, that I thought we were focused for 53 minutes, and our guys really battled and did a real good job defensively and that is something that we have been talking about; trying to establish that as our foundation. Tonight was a big step towards that. Down the stretch, on the offensive end, we just have to do a much better job of executing and again, with a young bunch of guys that we have that are inexperienced at being in that situation, this might be a good learning session for us tomorrow. We will take a look at it on film, but I thought we competed big time. (The team) made a couple of ill-advised fouls down the stretch where I thought we did not have to foul and I let the guys know that. We fouled on three occasions (which) cost us four points and we ended up losing the game by four points.”(On Ramon Sessions’ layup at the end of overtime): “I couldn’t really see it because (Kris) Humphries blocked me out so I could not really see if he slipped or if he was bumped. In situations like that most of the time, referees are not going to give you that call. Let’s just be honest, they are not going to give you that call unless you are Kobe (Bryant) or somebody like that, but they are not going to give you that call.”(On not having developed a go-to scorer): “Since we don’t have that, we have to do a better job of executing down the stretch, which means we have got to run harder cuts, we have to set better screens (and) you have got to make better decisions. If we do those three things, then we will be ok.”
(On playing power forward tonight after playing at center in recent games): “It felt great. I don’t think I shot too well from the floor, but it felt good to be back at the four (position). I think I rebounded the ball well, but it’s not about me. We lost the game. We have got to get back to the drawing board and get ready for Detroit.”(On the team defense tonight): “I think we hustled, got back on defense and got back in transition. They had a couple of open threes, but other than that, I thought we did a solid job defensively. We had a couple of breakdowns, but the overall effort was good.”
(On the loss tonight): “We just didn’t make shots at the right time and close the game out. It’s tough when you put a game together like that on the defensive end and you don’t come out on top.”(On having a solid effort on the defensive end, but still coming away with a loss): “Those nights where you can’t get the ball to go through the hoop, but you’re playing as hard as you can and doing the right things defensively, those are tough ones to swallow. We feel good about our effort defensively. We just have to have a complete game and combine the two (offense and defense) by playing together, moving the ball and making things happen offensively.”
HEAD COACH AVERY JOHNSON
(On key to getting game to overtime): “Brook (Lopez) getting us to overtime. That was a big-time move that he made. We were really fortunate there. We had a little lead, but we gave up a three-point shot to (Anthony) Parker, which was a no-no, but our guys battled. They showed a lot of guts tonight. In overtime, we didn’t have anything going offensively, shot a low percentage from the field, but, again, they battled. I thought if we could get it into overtime, because we’ve had two triple-overtime games this year, maybe we’d have a chance to win.”(On playing in ninth overtime game was an advantage): “Yeah, we executed down the stretch. We got stops, then our free throw shooters, (Anthony) Morrow and Jordan (Farmar), made free throws for us to seal the game. I’m happy for our guys. We’ve had a tough stretch here over the last week. We won five in a row, then, unfortunately, Deron (Williams) had to sit a few games. We had a lot of stuff working against us, then losing a few games, but the guys really battled defensively and we’re really proud of them.”(On Kris Humphries): “Humphries has been playing a lot of defense. He’s good on the ball, off the ball, he’s physical and he helped us when we needed to score a little bit.”(On Humphries’ 23 rebounds): “With him, had our record been a little bit better, we would think he is the most improved player in the league. He may still have a chance to be on the all defensive team because he’s playing all types of defense. He’s been consistent every night, no matter who the opponent is. He battles for every one of them (rebounds).”
JORDAN FARMAR
(On making free throws in overtime and playing almost entire game): “I had to step up and help the team win. I definitely didn’t want this one to slip away based on my performance. Everybody was fighting and clawing and trying to make some things happen, so I wanted to do something to help. You’ve got to play hard, we don’t have any margin for error.”(On Kris Humphries): “He’s like our glue. He does all the little things. He sets screens, he rebounds, he fouls, he blocks shots, he hits a jumper, he dunks on people, he does a little bit of everything. He knows how important he is to us.”
BROOK LOPEZ
(On overtime): “My stuff really wasn’t going down. I even had to shoot that last one (end of regulation) twice. I was just trying to be like Hump (Humphries). Hump was crashing the boards all game long.”(On his performance with early foul trouble): “It was tough. I was just trying to be aggressive, but play smart still. We played pretty good team defense and we just stuck with it. That was the key.”(On having experiences in overtime this year): “It makes it that much better. We’re definitely working for everyone and we’re definitely starting to get experience.”(On Kris Humphries): “Another day, man, just another day. It’s incredible to see. After every game, you look in the stat column and it’s 15 rebounds, 15 points, 20 points, all the intangible things he does. It’s incredible.”
KRIS HUMPHRIES
(On his performance): “To me, it’s never been an individual thing. I didn’t get my opportunity, coming in and putting up big numbers. This is about playing hard. I try to focus on playing hard, rebound, run the floor and just play the right way. Whatever comes from that is nice. It feels good to get 20 rebounds or whatever, but at the end of the day, we want to try to win games and compete. You can’t be out there hunting stats.”(On keys to win): “It was a grind. Really, we just stuck with it. We made some free throws at the end of the game, Sasha (Vujacic) hit that three at the start of overtime and that really helped us out. They made some plays and floaters and we were able to make some key stops down the stretch. What makes us proud is that we stayed with it and didn’t fold up at all like we had been in the past.”