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Postgame Quotes - February 3, 2016

Head Coach Stan Van GundyRe missing shots early: “well we weren’t ready to play at the beginning they were right into us and we couldn’t handle their pressure at all, we couldn’t get good shots. Its not like in the first half we weren’t missing good open shots, their defense took us out of everything. They did a great job and we didn’t respond to it.” Re lull after injury: “ I don’t think it had anything to do with that, we didn’t play very well for much of the night, particularly in the first half. It would be hard to say that the injury is what led to it when we were as bad as we were the rest of the half because he wasn’t hurt when the game started. He’s got a groin strain we will get an MRI tomorrow and then we will be able to tell you tomorrow night better, he will most certainly be out tomorrow but other than that we don’t really know until we find out tomorrow.” Re on offense not helping out defense: “Oh yeah absolutely our offense really hurt our defense and you know, but again we are in this habit that we don’t play until we’re behind and there is just to many times we got to dig out of holes and its just not going to work all the time, we are not ready I mean there is very few games in the last three weeks where we have led at the half or anything. I mean, we are just not coming with energy and intensity to start games and that’s got to change or its going to be really really difficult.”           Reggie JacksonRe  uphill battle because of the turnovers and missed shots: “Not even just that, 20 points in general. We got down 20 points at half and its hard to erase that deficit, you know, this team is definitely one of the most resilient teams I’ve been on, continues to fight and battle but we got to get better at not digging ourselves a hole. I think if we, what is it; 29 and 22 in 53 games if the game started at 9:30 we would probably 52 and 1 so we got to show up from the beginning and starters got to get off to a better start and really impose our will on somebody else and stop getting hit in the mouth and trying to come back later.” Re what the issue was on offense: “Just turnovers we was turning it over getting sped up, they were really getting into us we were moving slowly, it took us sometime to really get into our sets like I said they were pushing up on us so we were playing late in the clock early having crucial turnovers as well just bad shots, I don’t know how many times we hit the backboard, we didn’t do a great job setting screams early. We really just have to play together and for eachother and do everything it takes to help the next guy perform well and ultimately if we are doing that then we would perform better and be In a better position.” Brandon JenningsRe how difficult it is to fight their way back in after being in a hole: “I mean its definitely difficult , you know we have to stop starting off games, we got to have better first halves as a team because it is killing us you know. These are NBA teams you cant just pick and choose what halves you want to play or what quarters you play you know you need 48 minutes of you know, basketball.” Boston CelticsHead Coach Brad StevensRe winning more home games: “I don’t know if it’s home or road or whatever; I just think we’re putting more minutes of the game together. It doesn’t mean we’re playing them great the whole game but we’re putting more minutes of a game together more consistently now, so that’d be regardless of location.” Re importance of winning at home: “I mean, I think that’s important and I think it’s important to be a really tough, hard-nosed team on the road too. So I think from a coaching standpoint I’ve spent very, very little time talking about home and road. The only one that I’ll ever reference is home, you know if we’ve had a struggle at home or whatever the case might be because you want to play well in front of your fans. But I don’t want to make the road a bigger deal than it is, and I don’t want to give you any sense of comfort at home by any means because you’ve got to go out there and play just as hard and earn it regardless of location.” Re have the Celtics gotten better at late-game situations: “I don’t know. I don’t know. I thought – we’ve had our moments in that case; I think we certainly did some good    things late in the game as they were coming back, and they hit some shots and they made some plays. But I thought the biggest key to them getting back in the game was that third quarter barrage of threes they hit. That’s a time where you, if you can defend the three point line better than we did, maybe it isn’t a tense ending. And I think that that’s just something that we’ve got to continue to keep getting better at playing all 48. But as I told the guys in there, I’m not going to act like that was anything but a win.” Tyler ZellerRe: Another good effort: “I’m trying to play hard, trying to get my rhythm back a little bit; sometimes its there, sometimes its not so I’m trying to get back where its consistently there. I’m trying to get back the pick and roll; where to be what to do and all that stuff. Just trying to play hard and figure it out along the way.” Re: Finding that rhythm what is it: “I’m in game shape. I’ve shot a million shots its just seeing the different actions. You come out of the pick and roll somewhat blind you’ve got to see who’s behind you, if they double down be able to throw it out, if you have a layup/floater all those kind of things. Just making split second decisions and being able to do that quickly.” Re: Extra emotion with dunk: “I just got excited because I really haven’t had anything like that recently. I jumped and I got a lot higher than I expected, obviously because I haven’t been playing a lot so I had a little more in my legs. Its been a while so it was good.” Re: How are pre game workouts with Walter: “Very important. He does a great job along with other people on the team just trying to get different looks, different things: pick and rolls, drop-offs, game shots I’m going to be getting so at least when I get the shot, whether I get the right read or not, I feel comfortable taking it.” Evan Turner:Re: Built lead but game dragged in 4th: “They’re bound to hit runs, but at the end of the day when you’re down 20, to a certain extent, you’re playing for house money. All the tightness that we had at the start of the game went away a little bit, but we were fine the game just dragged on for forever.” Re: Focus closing game out: “Patience too. It was really a long game. We just tried to execute down the stretch, keep our poise. We thought after a while the whistle stopped blowing a little bit but other than that we just tried to battle back and weather the storm and fortunately we did.” Re: Game vs. Cleveland Sunday reversing story line: “We just got to come with it. Their defense has been really great vs. us where we struggle. Obviously the offensive rebounding and we just got to be clicking. I think first game we played them this year our offense wasn’t too great and they got going and they hit some shots. We have to make them uncomfortable, and we have to be clicking and our pace has to be great.” 

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