Trail Blazers Head Coach Terry Stotts
“50 wins is something to be proud of. I told the team that 50 wins has always been a standard, it’s been a bar in this league. The Trail Blazers have been such a great franchise and this is only the 12th one, so we’re really proud of what we’ve done so far. It’s something no one can take away from us, but I don’t think anybody in the locker room is satisfied with where we ware. It’s an accomplishment and we need to enjoy it and then get ready for Sac on Wednesday.”
“It was a win that we needed to have, but we said going into the season, making the playoffs was a goal, but we weren’t going to be satisfied with just making the playoffs.”
On sluggish play in first half
“I guess it’s the definition of the first half – the first quarter we got off to a good start. We kind of went back and forth. The second quarter, we got a little loose with the ball. I don’t know if it would be necessarily sluggish, but I really liked the energy we had in the third quarter. I thought Dorell Wright came in and gave us a spark. Robin being sidelined with foul trouble obviously changed the dynamics of the game in the first half. He had an impact on the game until he got his fifth foul. We were kind of just patching it together in the first half, but I really liked how we played the third quarter.”
On Aldridge
“LA was great. He had some blocks, obviously his rebounding, he had good hands. He’s a really good communicator out on the court. In pick and rolls, he knows angles. I’ve said this a few times – I think his defense is underrated because he’s always locked into the game plan, he knows personnel, he can bother shots and he can rebound.”
On focus now moving forward
“Well we’re not prepping for the playoffs. We want to keep going in the right direction. Like I told the team, the four game win streak, our recent win streak was about the process of getting better and going in the right direction. For us, that’s the most important thing. Right now I’m not worried about the playoffs. I’m concerned about Sacramento. They played Dallas tough tonight. I like accumulating wins, I like improving our playoff seed. It’s not necessarily looking at matchups or anything, but I think it builds confidence when you play well.”
Trail Blazers Forward LaMarcus Aldridge
On getting 50th win
“50 wins is always a big honor in this league, especially being in the West with so many good teams. It’s definitely not something to take for granted. I think guys are happy about it and we’re definitely happy to be locked into the playoffs. We’re not satisfied with it, but this is definitely a really good night for us.”
On taking control in the second half
“Just trying to make their looks tough. We gave them a lot of easy looks in the first half. They got a lot of easy shots off pick and rolls. We talked about it at halftime and I thought the guards did better and the bigs did too.”
On Davis scoring 11 points early and then struggling to score the rest of the way
“They said that he likes to go left so I was giving him right and he made every shot going right, so I just stopped doing that.”
On what you want to tighten up on in last four games
“Everything. You always want to keep getting better. We want to keep trying to fine tune our defense, our pick and roll and try to get sharp.”
On not celebrating after this win
“We all said that we’re happy about it and we just moved on. This wasn’t out ultimate goal. It was one of our goals but we’re not satisfied to we’re not going to over-celebrate about it.”
What do you like about how team is trending at this point?
“Just that we’re playing unselfish. We’re getting back to playing defense like we did early in the season. I feel like guys are locked in more defensively and that’s been big for us.”