DETROIT PISTONS HEAD COACH STAN VAN GUNDY: (On proudness of the team): “I am proud of our guys, especially today. I told them. I’ve been on the other side of being up 3-0 in a series and usually what happens when you are up 3-0 and make a run like they did in the third quarter, the team dies and goes away because they don’t really have the hope of winning the series and the whole thing and they let it go. We talked about it for two days and our guys stayed in to fight; stayed in to fight all the way to the end with a shot to win it at the end. I’m proud of them. Other than that I haven’t taken time to reflect on the season or two years or anything else. It was a pretty competitive series for a sweep. I thought our guys competed hard. Hopefully what they learned from it, what I said to them after the game, is the value of every possession in the game, you play meaningful games like the Playoffs and in three out of four games you can point to four or five plays that if they go the other way, and I’m not talking about the ones like Kyrie (Irving) hitting a half-court shot, JR Smith hitting a 35-footer with the shot clock running down, there is not much you can do about those, I am talking about plays you could have made a difference on. And I’m not talking about that down the stretch, first quarter, second quarter, third quarter, when the games are this meaningful you start to learn how important every possession is throughout a game, and how hard you have to play and how hard you have to concentrate for 48 minutes. And it’s our guys first time through it. That’s what I hope our guys get out of it. I know that will be one of the lessons going forward in the training camp next year, look at the plays from three of the four playoff games and turn around these two plays in the first quarter. Turn around these two plays in the second quarter where you didn’t concentrate, turn around these two plays in the third quarter and everything is different. When it’s this meaningful I think that’s the lesson you learn. We said this would be a great experience for our guys, it has been as has really the last five or six weeks of the season fighting to get in. We’ve played a lot of pressure basketball games. I do think we have to get better.”
(On the fans): “There is no question, but I do think also our fans, I’ve talked about the great fans here in Detroit and how knowledgeable they are. I think our fans understood what they saw the last two nights here and how hard our guys fought and how they left it out there. We appreciate their efforts tonight too. We hope to make improvements and bring them an even better product next year.”
DETROIT PISTONS GUARD KENTAVIOUS CALDWELL-POPE: (On feelings after the loss): “It’s never fun losing, just to finish the season out like this. We really had plans to go to Cleveland, so just to have it turn out like this has everybody in a bad mood.”
(On Kyrie Irving): “He’s a great player, he made plays for his team, he got his teammates involved. Throughout the series he made tough shots. We were right there on him, he just made the tough shots. He hit a half-court shot, nine times out of 10 that shot’s not going to go in. He got a good look at the basket, lined it up and knocked it down.”
(On takeaways from this series): “Just know that we can compete in this Playoff series. Especially with playing the No. 1 seed in the East and we gave them a run for it. They really felt us throughout the entire series, there weren’t any blowouts or let ups. We know we can come back next year even better.”
CLEVELAND CAVALIERS HEAD COACH TYRONN LUE: (On Kyrie Irving’s play): “He was big. He was huge and he was aggressive – in attack mode the whole series and that’s what we needed from him. Tonight Kevin (Love) issued the ball well so Kyrie took it upon himself to shoot the ball well and LeBron (James) did the same thing and it was a total team effort. (Matthew) Dellavedova came in and scored 11 straight points for us, JR (Smith) came and made some big shots—four threes in the first half and then that big shot at the end of the shot clock so I thought it was a total team effort and I thought we withstood their run and weathered the storm.”
(On what he can take from the series for Round 2): “Each series is different. You’ve got defensive schemes that are going to be different so now we played Detroit so everything’s going to be different. I think the guys held the team (under) 100 each time and they had 98 tonight so I thought our defense was good outside of the shooting percentage. But overall, I think our guys did a good job overall with the series, it was a great series for us and it tested us.”
(On what out of Detroit gave them the most difficulty): “They start two 3-men, that’s a tough matchup for any 4 and they both can post the basketball, they both can take you off the dribble, and they both can shoot it so it was a tough matchup for us all series. Then it was a tough matchup when you have the best offensive rebounder in the game in (Andre) Drummond and one of the best penetrators in Reggie Jackson so they put you in some tough positions. I thought (Kentavious) Caldwell-Pope did a terrific job in guarding Kyrie Irving and scoring the basketball. They have a tough team and they put you in tough situations with their personnel.”
CLEVELAND CAVALIERS GUARD MATTHEW DELLAVEDOVA: (On tonight’s game and the series): “The closeout game is the hardest one to win. It’s been a tough, physical series the whole way through so definitely happy to get the win tonight.”
(On the final possession: “We knew they had no timeouts left so they were going to go with it. Kyrie (Irving) slowed him (Reggie Jackson) up and did a good job.”
CLEVELAND CAVALIERS GUARD JR SMITH: (On tonight’s game): “Kyrie (Irving) and (Kevin Love) really helped us out, honestly. We struggled a little bit and gave the ball to (Love) and Kyrie just came up big. We got some stops when we needed them and I’m just glad they didn’t call a foul on that last play.”
(On Kyrie Irving): “From the regular season he started off slow with the injury but he’s getting back to where he’s been playing his whole life. One thing about him- everybody knows him for scoring but he’s such a willing passer and makes plays for everybody else. He doesn’t get enough credit for that.”