Pelicans Head Coach Alvin Gentry:
On the game:
“I thought they made tough shots. They made some really tough shots down the stretch. Every time they got separation we found a way to get ourselves back in it, we just couldn’t get over the hump. I thought we were a little tired, too. I thought at the end we were a little tired, but I thought we defended well and you’ve got to give them credit. The shot that Joe Ingles made, the shot that Joe Johnson made, they were all really tough shots. The one that Rodney Hood made, they were all tough shots. They were really challenged shots. It wasn’t so much what we didn’t do, it was more what they did, I thought.”
On not playing with DeMarcus Cousins:
“Like I said, I thought that we’ve been playing well. I thought we had a couple of mental mistakes that I thought hurt, but they hurt us on the one play on the pin down. We couldn’t quite get that defended. For the most part, I thought we did a good job. With them even making 15 threes they still got to 108 [points]. We just couldn’t seem to rally. We got up, I think three or two, at one stage, but we were never really able to sustain anything. And they kept coming back and making shots.”
Pelicans Forward Anthony Davis:
On the team defense down the stretch:
“Dante [Cunningham] played great defense. [Joe] Ingles made a tough one over me. He hit one behind a screen on Dante contested. He made some tough shots. Joe Johnson made some tough shots toward the end. Rodney Hood with that pull-up three, two people contested him. They made tough shots toward the end. I think it kind of happened early when we were kind of off defensively with our pull-ins and tags and everything like that where we do great defensively. We started off slow on the defense and they got too many easy looks under the basket and open threes.”
Pelicans Guard Tim Frazier:
On the adjustments the Jazz made in the third quarter:
“We made a good run and we took the lead. Then, obviously, great teams make adjustments and they made adjustments. They made the shots we need to make, and they did for the most part.”
On Utah’s response to Anthony Davis in the second half:
“Obviously, he’s our best player. Obviously, the focus is to slow him down. They tried their best to slow him down when he got hot in the third [quarter]. Obviously, we continued to play. I don’t think that they stopped him or slowed him down, it was just shots that usually fall didn’t fall for him.”