Kings Head Coach Michael Malone
On game
“Well, it’s another game with 19 turnovers for 21 points. We make it hard on ourselves. We make it interesting and entertaining. At some point, we’ll hopefully get back to being a team that values the basketball. It is our primary guys—you see DeMarcus Cousins, Isaiah Thomas, and Rudy Gay combining for 15 of those turnovers. The great thing about tonight is that we dominated the glass. Reggie Evans’ effort was inspiring. DeMarcus was a load tonight. We held one of the highest rebounding teams to seven offensive rebounds and 42.7% from the field. I loved how Ray McCallum played tonight. For me, Ray is growing up in front of our eyes. The last couple of games he played meaningful minutes, making big plays and showing no fear. He was stepping up and taking big shots—even if he didn’t make a couple I love that he steps up without any hesitation. They tried to post him up and go at him with Tyreke Evans, but I think that people are going to realize that Ray McCallum can guard. He can guard the one, two, and some threes. It was a hell of a team effort tonight. We came out in that third quarter and got flat again—we were down, but our bench came in and gave us a spark. Rudy Gay really got it going and we got to the foul line tonight a ton which helped us get the win.”
On Reggie Evans being a good fit on the team
“I’m not surprised. We’ve all watched Reggie for years—I don’t care where he’s playing or who he is playing with, he’s going to bring great effort every minute that he is on the floor. He’s always been one of the top rebounders per minute in the NBA and he’s got great toughness. He makes things happen out there. Sometimes we’ll give him his moments because he got his five offensive rebounds and 13 rebounds overall. He plays great defense and he has great activity. My hope is that it becomes contagious. I hope that guys like Reggie, Ray McCallum, and Quincy Acy become contagious to some of the guys in our starting lineup. That’s who we need to be.”
Kings Center DeMarcus Cousins
On how the huge advantage on the boards tonight contributed to the win:
“I think it helped out a lot. We got a lot of second chances at making good plays and it helped us out a lot.”
When asked what the approach was coming into the second half
“Basically just the opposite of the first half – just try to clean it up; we made some mistakes. Just try to win the game.”
Kings Forward Reggie Evans
When asked what he can bring to this team
“Just veteran leadership and the attitude to just never quit, to always go hard. Just understanding your role for the team and just doing it to the best. That’s just the main thing.”
On his performance
“You’ve got to adapt to whatever game it is, that’s all a part of the NBA. A lot of times you don’t even want to adapt to the game – a lot of times you want them to adapt to you so it’ll kind of be in your favor. So every game is not the same – you’ve got different players, they’ve got different tendencies. So you’ve just got to make those adjustments each game.”