Pelicans Head Coach Alvin Gentry:
On closing out tonight’s game:
“Obviously (Pelicans Guard) Tyreke (Evans) wasn’t there tonight and he would have been a factor. I just thought that everybody did well. I was really proud of the way (Pelicans Guard) Norris (Cole) stepped in with 12 rebounds and a career high for him that I thought was great. I think the difference tonight was the defense. We did a really great job. Even when (the Mavericks) made that really big run, if you go back and look, they made some really tough shots. (Mavericks Guard) Wes Matthews is capable of doing that, made two or three really tough shots. But we weathered that and stayed in there and competed, and found a way to get ahead. We made a big three to tie and then (Pelicans Guard) Jrue (Holiday) came back down and made another big three. As I said earlier, I think Jrue is in a really good place. He is playing really good basketball for us. He didn’t start tonight but we played in his usual role and that is why he made the big plays.”
On Pelicans Forward Anthony Davis:
“I thought he was coasting a little bit. We really discussed playing a little bit harder during one of the timeouts. I thought he got upset and that triggered him. So I told him that I am going to yell at him every day now to keep him going like that. But he really picked it up. I thought that he did a good job offensively, but he also was very good defensively. We tried to give him a lot of different looks. (The Mavericks) are just a good team. I think (Mavericks Guard) J.J. Barea is really playing the best basketball of his career right now. (Mavericks Forward) Dirk (Nowitzki) is still Dirk. If you give him an open shot he is going to knock it in. They made some big shots to make a run back but I thought we did a good job. At the end of the night we held them to 43 percent shooting and I thought we rebounded the ball great. I think it was like 53-38 rebounding. There were a lot of things that we did well.”
On his team’s execution:
“I thought we did a good job. Even with the shots that we missed I thought we had good shots. We ran a couple of plays and stayed with them because we had some success. I thought our guys did a good job and we got the shots that we wanted. But at the end of the day we won the game on the defensive end. When we needed stops, we came up with stops.”
Pelicans Guard Eric Gordon:
On the tonight’s game:
“Tonight we just played a good, complete game. We played well both offensively and defensively. We really honed in on what we need to stop. We played good defense down the stretch and it gave us a chance to win.”
On closing out games:
“The Mavs have been playing well this year. They like to go to (Mavericks Forward Dirk (Nowitzki) at the end of the game. We just played really good defense. When we play well on defense and convert on offense then we are a tough team to beat."
“It’s big for us. We’ve lost a lot of close games and we’ve won a lot of close games. A lot of games are coming down to the wire for us. We just have to keep closing.”
On the team’s health:
“We’ve been healthy the past ten games. Now it’s all about getting chemistry and doing what’s right. It’s all about doing what’s right for this team and that is what it boils down to.”