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| Wednesday, March 7, 2012 Final Score: New Orleans 98, Sacramento 99 Hornets Post Game Quotes Head Coach Monty Williams On last steal of the game: “We threw the ball away. It’s nothing to get too deep about. We obviously turned the ball over. When you lose a game like that, you have to go back to the basics. You have to take care of the ball. I didn’t like the fact that we turned the ball over at the end of the game, but we also turned the ball over 20 times during the game. It’s always easy to point to that play because we had the lead and the game in control. But those types of things happen. I told the guys that we want to be in positions like that at the end of the game, and tonight we were - we just turned the ball over at the end of the game and couldn’t get a shot off on our last possession.” “I was pretty upset at the defense in the first half. They drove the ball the whole first half, and the first possession of the second half they get a layup and I felt that that was our tipping point because from there on we played better defense. But again, when you look at the turnovers and our point guards had eight between them, (Jarrett Jack, five; Greivis Vasquez, three) they capitalized. I can talk about turnovers all night, but they did what they had to do to win the game. They were very physical on the last play and the referees won’t make those kinds of calls at the end of the game, and we turned the ball over.” On being shorthanded with nine players: “We had a lot of guys play big minutes tonight. I’m not in the business of developing guys so that they can make the same mistakes over and over again. I’ve been tough on our young guys for a reason. We put those guys in the game not to look like they are in high school but to go out with a purpose. Right now, this is one of those situations where they have to grow up.” Hornets Guard Jarrett Jack On playing well enough to win: “We played well enough to lose actually. You know what I mean like all those things you point to we still came up on the short end of things. Obviously we didn’t do one or two more things that could have had us in the position and it wouldn’t have us feeling like this at this particular moment.” Hornets Center Chris Kaman On tonight’s game: “It’s hard when you go out there. We’re shorthanded. A couple of our guys struggled with fouls and you know it was like the worst-case scenario as far as not having enough guys go but the guys that were in there dug it out and fought. We tried to play the best we could shorthanded. We give them credit. They made a play at the end. We had control at that point and they made a big play and that’s how the game goes sometimes. You can’t look back, you’ve got to look forward and it bothers you but you’ve got another game coming so you got to continue to look at the next game and not look in the past.” On the last play: “I give them credit because I thought that we were in control of the game at that point. We had to get the ball inbounds to get fouled, make our free throws and make them come down to make a big play and tie it up with a three. Unfortunately for us and fortunately for them, (Isaiah) Thomas got that steal and they made a quick two-point basket. We didn’t get much of a good look there at the end either. You know my hats off to them, they finished the game and we didn’t.” Kings Post Game Quotes Head Coach Keith Smart “I don’t know how we did it, but we found a way. We made a defensive play at the end, with the right pass and the right finish by John Salmons. I don’t know how. We looked at it and saw that we lost the game, them being up by three with 44 seconds, but we found a way to win a game out of nowhere. We did some decent things to get us to that point. You know when you’re missing a valuable person, a rebounder, and our team is a good rebounding team, one of the best in the NBA, that really hurts the team. These guys found a way, our bench has done a tremendous job over the last two weeks of keeping the games close. They did it again tonight, they kept the game close. Our best players, our starters, had to find a way to close the game out. Overall, I thought our guys stayed together and we got a win here, which was needed. These guys are playing great basketball, they’re just not coming out with the wins. They’re staying with it, they forced 23 turnovers, which gave us 27 points off of that. Our defense didn’t trip for it tonight and we shot 50 percent.” On his decision to get Isaiah Thomas back in the game later on: “I think Jarrett Jack is a powerful point guard. I knew I had to buy some time right there because he was doing an incredible job of trying to force his way to the basket. One luxury I have with this team is we have our size at different positions. I can kind of mismatch and put those guys in the game when there’s a powerful point guard. Jack is a powerful point guard, he’s been in the league for a while and he understands it. I needed size on him first, and I thought John Salmons did a great job of really defending him in the second half, because he was on his way to an incredible night. We needed size out there first.” On Jimmer Fredette’s contributions in the game: “That young man is coming along. If everybody in the world would just leave me alone and let me develop this kid, he’s going to be okay. This young man is developing the right way to be a player in the NBA for a long time. I know everybody around the world wants him to have his shining light right now, but I’ve been in the NBA for a long time and I know what I’m doing to develop guards to have sustained success. Right now, he is moving in the right direction. Tonight is another night where the kid understood how to play. He understands and sees the floor, but there’s other things he doesn’t understand yet, because he doesn’t have the experience yet. I have the experience so let me do my job.” On the final 19 seconds of the game: “Well, we did a thing, we had a foul to give, and we tried to go for a steal, but we fouled. You go for the steal first, then you get the foul. We did it the other way around, we went for the steal, got a deflection then we got the layup. It was tough but we got a great shot clock violation. They really focused on coming into the paint—we had one miscue where Tyreke (Evans) kind of broke down and came in to help a little bit. He was thinking on helping on this penetration. They found a way. In the NBA, you look at this team here, we studied this team before we played them. They have played some teams down to the wire; they had Chicago down. You see a team come in, depleted with their stars, don’t have a lot of players and don’t really have a chance to win. When you study the team, getting ready for the night, you see what they’ve done over the long haul. This team had Chicago on the ropes and Chicago is one of the best teams in the league. This team is going to play hard. They’re like us, down by 20 or 15, we’re going to fight to get back in the game, and this team is the same way.” Kings Guard John Salmons On how they pulled off the win tonight: “I don’t know; I’ve never seen anything like that before but I’m just glad we got the win.” On what he was thinking during the closing 19 seconds of the game: “I think you’ve got to give our guys credit. They hung in there, they never gave up, Isaiah (Thomas) made a great steal and just finished off the game right there. We stayed in it all 48 minutes. The Hornets just a couple of games ago took Chicago all the way down to the stretch in Chicago, so they’re a team that’s always going to play hard. Monty Williams is a great coach over there – he’s got his guys playing hard every night so you’ve got to give them a lot of credit.” On the last play: “(Isaiah) made a great steal. We threw it over the top of Jarrett Jack and I had an open layup so I was just trying to make a shot, put it up there as soft as possible, but Isaiah really made the play.” Kings Guard Isaiah Thomas When asked if he knew he was going to be able to get the steal: “I knew if they threw it in the air I could make a play on it and I got a hand at it and got the ball.” On winning the game by making defensive plays: “It gives us a lot of confidence because we’ve lost a lot of games in the fourth quarter due to not getting stops. The couple of possessions that New Orleans had we got some key stops and that just goes along with practicing and knowing different types of situations. We’re just growing day by day.” On winning the first game of this homestand: “It gives us a lot of confidence. We’ve got the NBA champs (Dallas) next game and winning on the defensive end definitely gives you more confidence than just playing a great offensive game so we’ve got something to be able to build on and some steps to take.” Kings Guard Jimmer Fredette On the win tonight: “It was great to be able to win tonight. Obviously we had a chance in Denver and probably could’ve won that game but tonight was a big step for us as well, being able to come back and get this victory and just finding a way to win especially for a young team that’s trying to learn and get better so it was a great victory for us.” On how comfortable he is right now: “It’s just about being patient and going out there and playing your game, letting it come to you and being aggressive but also looking for your teammates, just trying to do what the defense gives you. So it’s something I’m trying to focus on and our teammates did a great job tonight of pulling in the victory.” |
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