Pelicans Head Coach Alvin Gentry
On tonight’s game
“I thought we played well in spurts. I thought we had some lapses in concentration. For the most part, we did what we had to do. We had good ball movement early and then I thought we went to a little too much isolation basketball. Every time we did, we got back to what we’re accustomed to. It should never tough to stay focused in any game, especially considering what the stakes are for us. It doesn’t matter if it comes easy, hard or whatever, you’ve got to do whatever you got a lead with. We got a lead by passing the basketball and cutting and just doing really simple things.”
“I think we’ve played good basketball all along. We have some areas that we have to get better at. The offensive rebounding early in this game was a problem so that’s an area we’ve got to take care of. The turnovers I thought we did a much better job tonight. It comes down to you’re going to play good teams; you have to play good basketball. “
Pelicans Forward Anthony Davis
On great start
“We tried to make sure we locked in. it was a big game for us. We just came out and tried to be aggressive. The more I’m aggressive, the more the team gets aggressive so I just had to come and out help the team win. Jrue got it going, Niko got it going, guys were making some big shots. We really started it on the defensive end, we played great defense and we were able to get out to a great lead and just kept it going from there.”
On Suns fourth quarter run
“They’re a young team that plays hard. They have a lot of two way players, guys playing for contracts. Anytime you’re playing a team like that, you can never count them out. They have a lot of guys that can shoot the ball. That’s all it was, they made shots, played hard and we were able to find a way to get more stops and expand the lead a bit.”
Pelicans Forward Nikola Mirotic
On good start
“I think it was more team defense and I got into the game with a couple of threes. It was really an important game for me, for my confidence to bounce back. As a team, we knew the importance of this game and I think right from the beginning we set a tone and played great defense and offensively we had a lot of fun sharing the ball and we won the game.”
On stopping Suns 4th quarter run
“I always give credit to my teammates for the good extra passes. They knew I was feeling good today; the coach did a great job trying to find me. I felt very confident, especially with my defense and I think when I feel that confident with my defense, my offense is coming. So I’m not feeling like I have to rush for the game, the game is coming to me. So it was one of those games. Now we have to think about and take care of next game.”