Detroit Heart Stan Van Gundy
On the HEAT’s success shooting threes:
“Well, they were in the paint all night. That’s what we talked about before the game. When the ball was going inside-out from the paint, they just broke us down on the dribble. On pick-and-rolls and on drives we could not keep the ball out of the paint. That was the story of the game.”
On Kelly Olynyk:
“Well, he got some [points] on cuts. We gave up a layup late, but you know he’s a good player. I think the main thing was the 17 threes. That was a product of the ball being in the paint all night long. We could not keep them out of the paint.”
On Luke Kennard:
“Luke’s played well. He’s a good, smart player. Offensively he’s played well. I thought in the second half his defense was a little better. In the first half I thought he struggled defensively. He wasn’t really ready. His offense is good. He’s played well offensively for a long period of time.”
On starting Boban Marjanović:
“We only had two centers. We didn’t want him coming off the bench if they went with Olynyk. We thought Whiteside was his best matchup.”
On Andre Drummond’s injury:
“He has bruised ribs. He got hit in practice the other day. It’s just a pain tolerance thing. There’s no doctor telling him he has to sit out. It’s whatever he can tolerate.”
On Dwight Buycks:
“I thought he played well. I was pretty happy with him. A couple of things execution wise we have to clean up, but in terms of his attacking and stuff, I thought it was very good.”
On playing Anthony Tolliver at center late in the game:
“Yeah, it didn’t work. The idea obviously was to be able to extend our defense and play him at the three point line. Where Eric and Boban had struggled. The move made sense to me. We did it in the first half a little bit. As far as the scoreboard, it didn’t work. That makes it a bad move.”
On the technical foul he was charged:
“James [Williams] was just upset with me tonight. I yelled ‘come on’ when Ellington took two hands and shoved us off and he gave me the technical. It’s the first time I think I’ve gotten a technical in the league without swearing at someone. It’s definitely the first time I’ve gotten one for saying ‘come on’.”
On guarding Wayne Ellington:
“You have to chase him off a screen and he’s shooting it on the run. That’s pretty hard. He hit the one in front of our bench in the fourth quarter. There’s nothing you can do about that.”
Detroit Pistons Guard Avery Bradley
On his first game back:
“I feel good. Obviously it’s disappointing that we weren’t able to come out with a win. All we can do is move onto the next game. We’ve got practice tomorrow and have a chance to get better and prepare.”
On the HEAT’s three-pointers:
“They did a great job on getting into the paint and making plays for one another. Whenever we’re playing that way, we’re at our best and we didn’t do a great job containing those guys, containing their guards good enough to keep them out of the paint and stop them from making plays for other guys shooting the three.”
On if the HEAT were more aggressive attacking the lane with Drummond out:
“I think they did. Dragić obviously saw that it was working. They ran the same play over and over and over again. He was just picking us apart. I feel like as a team we have to do a better job of trying to contain and bar pressuring. Finding the perfect medium between bar pressuring and playing smart defense and containing the guys that we’re guarding. It would have been a different outcome if we were able to do that consistently.”
Detroit Pistons Guard Reggie Bullock
On if it is tough for the team with players out:
“Yeah, it’s tough, but at the same time it is opportunities for other players to step up. It is an opportunity for us to play together as a team to do what those players did that were there. Like Andre helped rebound. Have Boban rebound, have Eric rebound. Just try and do everything together to take up that space of Andre. Obviously Stanley too being down, Reggie being down. It is a little bug, but it is opportunities for players who haven’t played to step up and we tried that tonight and came up short.”
On the HEAT:
“It’s tough when players are moving. They come up for a shot, Wayne comes up for a shot and got it. Then throwing it back to the big, coming up again. It’s just all about conditioning, doing what we are supposed to do on the defensive end and just trying to stay in it defensively. It’s just tough when players like that just continue to keep doing it.”
Miami Heat Head Coach Erik Spoelstra
On the game:
“The guys feel really good about the win, and I know there are a lot of guys out. A couple starters out that can really make a difference. We’re looking for anything right now.”
“It shows that we’re grinding, we’re moving. We see progress, and guys played with a lot of confidence in the second half. You always like to see that. It seems like everybody we put out there was playing aggressively [and] with confidence. The ball was moving. I really liked the way guys were finding the open guy and helping each other get open shots.”
On the HEAT’s ball movement and Goran Dragic’s 13 assists:
“You have to be intentional about it. You have to read the defense, help each other [and] get to our strengths. We still want to be an aggressive team. We want to get opportunities to touch the paint, and then when we do and those layers of offense are working with detail, it opens up, a lot of times, three point shots. Tonight it felt like we were getting the right three point shots.”
“Guys were playing with great confidence, like I said, in the second half.”
On Kelly Olynyk’s play:
“We ran offense through him. See, I look at that, he plays 36 minutes, five three point attempts, that’s simply not enough. It’s not. He’s too good of a shooter. Whatever Wayne [Ellington] does, he should have at least that. They played about the same minutes, so he should have 10 attempts. I’m serious.”
“You can see his versatility. [Avery] Bradley and [Ish] Smith really got up into Goran [Dragic] and J. Rich [Josh Richardson] in the last few minutes and if you don’t have a guy like Kelly to throw it to and then play off him, and he can now be your quarterback, you tend to feel that pressure.”
“He’s such a good decision maker and skilled with the ball. He can score, he can pass, and has the freedom to make the right decision for the team.”
“He does a lot of little things.”
On Kelly Olynyk’s play (continued):
“He’s very diligent in trying to get better, and he wants to become a different player than who he’s been. We embrace that. We want him to be ambitious — to keep on pushing to different levels and explore new and better parts of the game.”
On James Johnson’s play and first game back:
“He brings us such another big layer of versatility on both ends of the court. We become a totally different basketball team when he’s out there.”
Miami Heat Guard Goran Dragić
On his assists during the last two games:
“The ball is circling around. The guys are hitting shots. Without Dion I have more responsibilities and the guys are helping. The big guys are setting good screens and the guys are knocking shots down for me.”
“You want to go from good [shots] to great. If you think you have a good shot maybe one more pass is going to lead to a better shot. We talk a lot that we need to trust each other and try to develop that chemistry. It seems like we’re doing that right now. Hopefully we’re going to grow even more.”
On being three games over .500:
“We are aware of that but we don’t want to stop now. We still have a few games at home. We want to upgrade our record even more. We’re three over which is great, but why not more? We have good quality players. As long as we’re on the same page we can beat anybody.”
On playing without his elbow taped:
“I had a burn from the machine they put on. That’s why they’re not taping over it. When the burn gets better I’m going to tape it again.”
On the three-point shooting:
“Everybody is involved. Everybody is getting those easy shots. The ball is going from one side to the other. It’s good because everybody has a flow. We’re making better decisions with our shots.”
On Kelly Olynyk:
“Kelly is a smart player. We all know that in some matchups he’s not going to over-jump somebody, but he’s going to use his body and tap out the ball like he did. We have a great connection when we play with Kelly, especially with pick-and-roll, I know what he’s going to do. We’re talking and building that chemistry. That’s growing every game. As long as we talk and try to figure out those things it’s much easier.”
“He can play the three, four or five. He’s a great passer. What he did amazingly today, Boban is so big, if you give him space he’s going to finish over you. Kelly is a smart player. He gave him no space. He went into his hips and into his legs. That makes it tough, first to get position and then to shoot over the guy. That changed the game. It’s a lot of work. He needs to do a lot of work early, but it’s efficient.”
On having James Johnson back in the lineup:
“It gives that extra body that we need. Especially with JJ, he was knocking down some threes. When he was setting the pick-and-roll the pocket pass was there. He was finding people and finishing close to the basket. It’s great to have him back.”