Pelicans Coach Monty Williams
On another gritty win: “Yes, we won a tough game against a team that is a lot better than their record and improving. They could make the playoffs in the Eastern conference. We just fought all night long. We didn’t have great juice to start the game. You look at the numbers and AD (Anthony Davis) has 39 and 13 and eight, which is unreal in his first game back. Tyreke (Evans) has 21 and nine, but I thought Norris (Cole) and Dante (Cunningham) came into the game and sort of jacked our juice up. From that point on, we started playing better defense and we had better energy on offense and were able to win a tough game.”
On being worried about not being able to recover from the rough start: “I wasn’t so much worried about the game as a whole, I was worried about how we were playing. We weren’t making shots, we were giving up transition buckets. I think they had 19 fast break points in the first half so I felt like if we took that out and kept them off the glass, which we were able to do a decent job early. They ended up with 16 offensive rebounds which is what you don’t want, but there they had three so that is why they had some extra possessions. I was concerned about how we were playing early, but once we got our energy it started to feel more like our game.”
Pelicans Forward Anthony Davis:
On how it feels to be back on the court: “It feels great. I don’t feel a thing. I’m just happy to be back on the floor. I told Coach ‘Don’t take me out of the game.’ I had so much energy tonight. I loved being back on the floor with my teammates. It was a tough game with Detroit, they’re a great team battling for the eight spot (in the Eastern Conference playoffs), as well, so we knew it was going to be a physical game and we all stepped up tonight.”
On the playoff push moving forward: “We know what position we’re in. We know that we’re battling for the eighth spot, we’re fighting. All of these guys have a lot of heart to come in and make shots and make plays for one another. It’s so fun. It starts with me as the leader of the team to make sure that I have to do whatever it takes to get this team going.”
Pelicans Center Alexis Ajinca:
On having Anthony Davis back in the lineup: “The game is a little bit easier sometimes when he’s just doing stuff like that, he’s unstoppable when he plays like that. We just enjoy having him back.”
On the recent breakthrough in his game: “I’m trying to bring anything I have to the team. Especially because first we had AD (Anthony Davis) and Ryan (Anderson) be out so I had to step up and play big time minutes, and I had to do some different (things). It went well, so now I’m going to go and keep it this way and hopefully I will keep having some good minutes.”