What the Bulls had to say about 131-128 loss to the Pelicans (12/2/13)

Bulls Coach Tom Thibodeau What do you say about a game like this?“We played plenty hard enough. It was a tough one to lose. We are showing a lot of fight with little to show for it. We have to keep grinding. If we do, the results will be better.”

On the defense on the last play“It was a tough play. We did not cover as well as we should have. We did not contain the ball.”

On execution down the stretch“You have to make the right play. You ask before the shot, is that the right play? If it is, you can live with that. At the end, Mike Dunleavy was taking the 3 and you ask was that the shot we want? Our offense has been very good, our rebounding was not as good as we would like. They got a lot of scramble 3’s and that hurt us.”

Bulls forward Taj Gibson On the game “We played extremely hard. We just came up short.”

How do you feel after such a marathon game?“I’m emotionally drained. But there are a lot of games left. It’s just frustrating. Especially to come up short after putting so much into the game. It was physical, it was a real battle. I think we could have defended the 3 point line a little better. They hit open 3’s late and that really hurt us. We just have to keep learning. It was a great team effort. We just have to keep pushing.”

On Ryan Anderson hitting some big shots“Ryan’s been doing that for a long time. He was in the Pac 12, Pac 10 back then. But he was making big shots back then. He’s been working on his game. He’s a very good shooter, you can tell. My hat’s off to him.”

On the triple overtime game“It hurts. We put so much into this, guys were putting their hearts and soul into the game, really going after it. Sometimes the ball doesn’t bounce your way no matter how you go after it. You just have to keep pushing, learn from this game and we’ll see them next time in New Orleans.”