Detroit: Lawrence Frank | Greg Monroe | Andre Drummond
Milwaukee: Jim Boylan | John Henson | Larry Sanders
(On team’s performance tonight…) “I thought everyone was exceptional tonight. So much of the focus recently has been on the bench. We need all 15 guys on a roster to contribute. Tonight, I really thought our starters stepped up, set the tone, and really were the reason why the game turned. Over a course of an 82-game season, every single guy on your team is going to need to help contribute to win, and that’s what teams are about. Hopefully we can just build off this rhythm and chemistry while just keep fighting and working to get better.”
(On Greg Monroe’s performance…) “Greg had a good game to start. We established Greg right from the beginning. He was very good, and not just only scoring but also his ability to make plays for others. Greg forced Milwaukee to go through a bunch of bigs tonight. It was a heck of a job. Because we are getting stops, we weren’t playing in traffic… I thought we had a very good pace and rhythm tonight.”
(On the third quarter…) “As a team we came out with great energy. They had an 11-point third quarter. Defensively, we knew we needed to take the lead and take control of the game. I got into a rhythm. Brandon [Knight] also got into a rhythm. He made a few big shots for us too. It was definitely one of the best third quarters of the season, by far. We’ll have to find ways to duplicate that quarter.”
(On responding with a strong second half…) “We showed a lot of resilience tonight. We did a good job of coming out and focusing on defense first [and] executing on offense. It’s definitely something we can look at and build on.”
(On slowing down Brandon Jennings and Monta Ellis…) “Every night we play those guys it’s going to be a tough night. Those are two electric guards, very talented players who fill up the score column. Our guards did a good job being on them all night, good on-ball defense, and everyone was doing a good job of helping tonight. As we continue to move forward, we have to find ways to play like that.”
(On the tale of two halves tonight…) “We struggled on the offensive and defensive end in the first half. In the third quarter, we came out a whole new team, played with some hard energy, picked the score up, came out with a great win.”
(On winning seven of nine games…) “We are finding our roles, and we know what we need to do to win. We all have the heart and desire. Just give it 100 percent every day.”
(On emotion in the second half…) “At the start of the season when things wouldn’t go our way, we got down on ourselves. We know what we need to do now. We fight and compete every day. When good things happen, we’re excited, knowing we’ve worked hard to get to this point.”
(On tonight’s game…) “It’s our third game in four nights. It seemed like our legs got a little heavy in the third quarter. Pretty evident by the fact we missed a lot of open, good looks that we had. The entire first quarter, I know we had at least 10 that we missed that were good, open shots that we had been making. Our legs were a little heavy and for us, like a lot of teams, when you’re struggling offensively, it can bleed into other areas of your game. It looked like that’s what happened tonight.”
(On Detroit’s frontcourt…) “[Greg Monroe’s] got a big, thick body. [He’s] left-handed, which can give guys a little bit of trouble. Combining him and [Jason] Maxiell, you’ve got two guys putting a lot of pressure on us, and if you look at our starting front line, Larry [Sanders] is not a thick guy, [Ersan Ilyasova] is not a thick guy. In today’s NBA, you don’t find a lot of frontcourts like that. Maybe you could look at Memphis [as a team] like that, but for the most part you’ve got guys playing out on the perimeter a lot and kind of look like us. Tonight we played against a team that’s given us problems in the past. They’re a physical team at just about every position.”
(On the third quarter…) “They just kind of took control of it. We lost our legs, missed some shots. They kind of took advantage of it, and that’s what happened.”
(On Detroit’s second half momentum…) “I think the shots weren’t falling and defensively we were a little slow on our rotations. I did a few things defensively I wasn’t supposed to do and thought I was supposed to do.”
(On struggles against Detroit recently…) “Some teams you struggle with, some teams you don’t. I think Detroit is one of those teams we just struggle with. I don’t know what it is, but we’ve got to figure it out because [they’re in our division]. You always want to have the upper hand in your division, regardless of what happens.”
(On the Bucks’ offensive struggle in third quarter…) “We struggled to score. We scored 11 points and they scored 33. That’s a big amount. It’s a huge margin we couldn’t get over.”
(On trying to pick up momentum…) “We have to fight discouragement. If you start to feel discouragement and adversity you have to fight through that. It’s going to happen, it’s inevitable, and it’s something we have to get better at.”
(On the upcoming four-game road trip …) “We have to stay positive and get as many wins as we can and make it a successful trip.”