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Postgame Quotes - February 8, 2016

DETROIT PISTONS HEAD COACH STAN VAN GUNDY:

(On turnovers):“I think the turnovers hurt us and we had some defensive breakdowns. I told our guys after the game, I thought we competed really hard tonight; I wasn’t on them about effort. I thought we competed really hard. I didn’t think we made an inordinate amount of mistakes, particularly on the defensive end. But I do think what happened was every mistake we made at both ends, they made us pay for. So, if we left a guy open, boom, it was a three; they made it. If we turned it over, they scored. I think they played extremely, extremely well. I thought our guys fought hard, we were in the game after three quarters, well mainly because of Andre’s shot, but we were in the game there. We just couldn’t hang with them. They made too many plays and had a lot more guys play well than we had guys play well. That’s a game, if we’re going to beat that team coming in on after three days off, when they’re they most rested team in the league, and they’re a really good team, we need a lot of guys to play well. We didn’t get that tonight. But it wasn’t a lack of effort. I faulted our guys a lot of times for lack of defensive effort. I thought we came with a good disposition. We fought extremely hard. Every mistake we made, they scored. They made some tough shots, Kyle Lowry made that running hook over Aron (Baynes) going down. I didn’t think we gave them an inordinate amount of easy shots. They made them all. I don’t leave angry with our team at all tonight. I’m a little frustrated with myself, when you see a team compete as hard as ours did tonight, you wonder what you’re doing wrong not helping them and things like that. But not upset with our team at all.”

 (On Toronto’s defense this year versus last year): “I don’t know, we missed a lot of shots. I didn’t think we did a bad job in terms of getting shots. Turnovers were the problem. And we’ve got to be a little bit stronger. When you’re a good team like that you’re allowed to do a lot of holding and grabbing and things like that that the others teams aren’t allowed to do and you have to understand that. And you have to play through and we didn’t handle it very well. We would make passes and get slapped and turnover. We have to be a little bit stronger, hopefully we learn from what happened tonight.”

 DETROIT PISTONS FORWARD MARCUS MORRIS: (On how tough of a loss this was): “Real tough. They’re a good team. I think they won 14 of the last 15. We knew it was going to be a fight and we just didn’t get the win.”

 (On Toronto capitalizing on the Pistons mistakes): “Every time. That’s what a good team does though. When you mess up and make mistakes they make you pay for it.”

 (On keeping a positive attitude after the loss): “We’re trying to keep it positive. At the end of the day we have to win games. If we want to make the playoffs we have to win. We’re definitely positive and we definitely played hard, but we have to win, bottom line.”

TORONTO RAPTORS HEAD COACH DWANE CASEY:  (On how the team responded to a run): “Well we did, the way the third quarter ended was concerning, but we made it up with a 5-0 run right there in the beginning of the fourth quarter and that’s a mark of a team that’s maturing. We’re not there yet, we’re still making some plays, but I do like the way that we responded there at the beginning of the fourth quarter.”

 (On the bench production): “I thought Cory (Joseph) and (Terrence) Ross came in (and played well). Patrick (Peterson) was a plus-23 and he was 3-for-4 from the field, so he was doing some energetic things defensively. (He was) active, moving the basketball which is just as important, he was screening, creating space. Cory was Cory, coming in and changing the game with his energy and his toughness and his great drive.  The bench really came in and carried us tonight.”

 (On holding the Pistons under 44 percent during the last three quarters): “Yeah, maturity.  We talked about how (the Pistons) are a second-half team.  They’re not going to stop playing because they missed so many 3-pointers; they’re always going to be in the game.  Remember what happened to us in Toronto. We had a 20-something point lead and they just kept chomping, chomping, and chomping at it.  You can’t relax and our guys didn’t. Like I told them, the All-Star break doesn’t start until Thursday and let’s not start it tomorrow.  We’ve got to go in, watch this film, learn from it, and continue the journey, that’s what it’s about.  Not getting caught up in the hype or whatever is being said, we are still a team with a lot of growth to be had.”

 TORONTO RAPTORS GUARD KYLE LOWRY: (On their defense tonight): “We got into a groove, got into our defense a little bit more; got more physical.  They’re a physical team so we had to meet their physicality and play our game.”

 (On the maturity of the team): “I think we have some really good mature guys on the team.  Luis (Scola) is our oldest guy and he’s been playing professional ball for a long time, myself, 10 years, Pat (Patrick Peterson) and DeMar (DeRozan) - we’re all just growing up.  Terrence (Ross) is getting older, (Jonas Valanciunas), everyone’s getting older and we’re learning how to win at all times and in any situation.”

 TORONTO RAPTORS GUARD DeMAR DeROZAN: (On tonight’s game vs. the Pistons): “Every win is great, honestly.  Anything that we can capitalize on and be able to close out games or in games like we did tonight is always beneficial.”

 (On the fourth quarter): “We knew they were going to make a run, they weren’t going to stop fighting, but we had to buckle down and play defense, get some stops.  Once we get stops, anyone on the team can get it going, and that’s what Kyle (Lowry) did.”