Postgame Quotes - December 31, 2011

Detroit: Lawrence Frank | Greg Monroe
Indiana: Frank Vogel | Tyler Hansbrough

Pistons Head Coach Lawrence Frank
(On connection between offense and defense) “I’d like to flip it and make our defense lead to better offense. We saw some better stretches tonight, because if you look at it the game tonight was all about owning the paint. Offensively, first half we had 13 assists and for the game 25. The other thing in the early part of the season has been the third quarters for us; tonight we won the third quarter. So I think there were some steps taken. Tonight was a step forward and now we just have to continue to work at it.”

(On today’s walk through): “It’s not about the walk through its about what you do everyday and habits. Every coach in this league has a game plan; it’s about your process, for us there were some better moments. Tonight it’s just about piecing, it’s about building and trying to piece these moments together for a full 48 minutes.”

(On who get the credit): “You have to give all of our guys a great deal of credit. You need to credit the big guys as well as our smalls because when you’re containing penetration, now you only help when help is needed rather than over helping. It's credit to collectively the unit. We had some resolve.”

(On Jonas Jerebko): “Jonas was great tonight. When you saw him in the first half, all 14 of his shots were all rhythm shots, which all goes back to the point of ball movement. He rolls to find the open man and take the shot. Jonas hustles to get that ball which obviously leads to big plays to secure the win.”

Pistons Center Greg Monroe

“(On win) “It feels good. It always feels good to get the first one under your belt. We played well tonight and we did a good job of giving a good effort the whole game and I think that was the difference tonight.”

(On team confidence): “You just get tired of some things. You want to get into that win column real bad and some point we all have to take accountability personally and as a team we have to come together and find a way to win.”

(On Jonas Jerebko): “He knocked down a lot of shots early, some big shots to keep us in rhythm and keep us on a run. He did a very good job tonight. He’s going to hit open shots, he moves without the ball so he’s going to get easy buckets every night.”

(On early foul trouble): “I don’t think I made any adjustments, I just tried to stay as aggressive as I could. Coach got me out earlier today as opposed to the first game, so I think that helped me out a lot. My teammates came in and did a great job. I just continued to play and had trust in my coaches’ decisions. As long as I’m on the court I’m going to give 100 percent.”

---

Pacers Head Coach Frank Vogel
(on game) "Hats off to Detroit they were aggressive tonight. Jerebko and Monroe outplayed our front court. Hats off to them, they played a great game."

(On fatigue): "I just don’t think we executed well offensively. I don’t think we can use legs as an excuse because our whole season is going to be played on a back to back."

(On Pistons defense): "They played hard and they played the first three games, they just didn’t win. They didn’t do anything differently than they've been doing."

Pacers Forward Tyler Hansbrough

"You can make excuses saying we got three games in four nights or whatever but we just didn’t show up. Obviously we have a lot of things we need to improve on. We didn’t come out with the energy we needed or we didn’t come out there like we needed to. Just from the start we were sluggish and slow."

(On fatigue)"Yeah definitely, it finally caught up to us but you can look at offense all you want but we improved some things defensively. Everybody wants to look at our offense. I think they did some things defensively but obviously we need to improve on both ends."

(On Jonas Jerebko and Greg Monroe): "Jerebko got out to a good start he got hot and he was tough for us. Monroe did his thing."