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| Thursday, March 18, 2010 Final Score: Denver 93, New Orleans 80 Hornets Post Game Quotes
On the difference between the first and second halves: "We just competed. We just stopped making excuses regardless of the back-to-back and started competing." On his match up against Billups: "He is one of the best point guards in my estimates. He is just so tough, physical and strong. I love playing against Billups, it is a challenge that I will take on any day and I got another one Saturday night.”
“We got forced into a lot of turnovers, I don’t know how many we had, it was just too many. They are a good team and they capitalize. When we made mistakes we weren’t able to adjust to their intensity level. We feel like we had an opportunity to win again last night. It took a lot of air out of us. We knew this was going to be a tough game physically because of the circumstances. You have to think in the terms of having enough guys for the fight, but there is a point in the game where a team like tonight had too much, too many guys to go to." On the playoffs: "I don’t think we have been talking about whether or not we can get into the playoffs, so much as we have been talking about trying to find a level of competitiveness to go out and play in these games. That is just the best way I can put it. Every game if we get better we find ways to improve whether it’s defensively or making changes offensively. We’ll give ourselves a chance to win that next game on our schedule.” Nuggets Post Game Quotes
On Melo’s rebounding: "18 rebounds, wow, but he only had two free-throws. You usually see Melo with nine or 10 free-throws. We got to keep getting to the rim and keep getting to the free-throw line. We always have a thing where we want 30 free-throws and we only got 21 tonight. He was just going after it though. Anytime you can get 14 defensive rebounds, that is great." On their slow finish: "I know you probably want us to win by 70, but this is the NBA. I was just telling some guys that I know during my career that sometimes we would have a 35 point lead and sometimes the other team would come back. Of course you don’t want to play that kind of basketball where we got a little lull and went to sleep, where we missed a lot of shots, missed some free-throws and the first half was just perfect offensively. We have to give New Orleans some credit. They came back and played some defense, their guards played real well, but as long as we came out with the win.”
On his 18 rebounds: "I was going for 20; that was my goal to get 20 rebounds tonight. I knew we were going to need it. Nene had his hands full with Okafor that was big. I had my hands full with David West. It was a great opportunity for me to go down there and grab some boards." On knowing you needed to rebound tonight: "I knew before the game. That was my mindset coming into the game. It was to pass the ball tonight, get other people going early in the game, try to play Robin until the end of the game. On the foul line shot: "I think at that point in time it was time for me to step up and kind of take over the game. JR had it going early, other guys had it going. I was just being Robin out there again and Batman had to come save the day again." On picking spots: "Early in the game my scoring we really didn’t need it as much. Everybody was playing together, everybody was playing well. When JR came off the bench, he gave us some big buckets. He kept us going. I think it came down to that fourth quarter when they started making that run. We needed some points to finish the game up.”
On Melo’s rebounds: “It was awesome man. He has the ability to do that with his quickness, his explosiveness. Most of the time he has an advantage on his opponent. It was awesome, we know with Kenyon out we have a hole there. Some guys have to have some big nights on the glass for us." Were you nervous in the fourth? "No, because I have confidence in my guys and there was pretty much a lid on the basket in the second half, but the defense was solid. If you have good defense you are always going to have a shot no matter what." With Karl not here is there still a presence of him? "Yeah, there is definitely a presence." Did you play too well in the first half to duplicate it in the second half? "When you get a lead like that you come out to put them away in the first five minutes, try to put them away. If you are not able to do that and they make a run and start playing really good, you try and punch them in the mouth, run your offense, get everyone touching it, running back cuts and things that got us up 25." On Kenyon: "He is still in the waiting phase. He is just kind of waiting it out until he can start being active." On Kenyon feeling frustration: "Of course, he was playing so well, the best ball of his life. To have an injury like that, I am just happy he has the opportunity to maybe come back.” |
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