Postgame Quotes - November 15, 2013

On tonight’s game: “We’re active. I thought that our defense was active. Rebounding the ball and just trying to concentrate on keeping the ball out of the paint. I thought that we were very active.”

On Andre Drummond: “He’s coming along fine. He’s rebounding the ball. He runs the floor. He defends so that’s what we’re looking for.”

On Josh Smith: “This is the way Josh plays. He scores. He rebounds. He had four blocks. He does a little bit of everything and this is the way we need Josh to play. He was spectacular tonight.”

On Getting off to a good start : “We did all the right things in the first few minutes of the game. Got them out of their game and we kept on going. We let them back in a little bit. Let it down to two, tied game, they went up by three and such and such but we kept fighting.”

On playing against DeMarcus Cousins: “DeMarcus Cousins is a hell of a player so I knew what I was getting myself into tonight. He can play. He can definitely play. That was one of my biggest tasks and I did pretty well against him. He did what he does.”

On Getting off to a good start tonight: “It was very vital to our success tonight. We wanted to be able to start the tempo early and be able to be the guys that are not always necessarily down in the first quarter. We were able to match their physicality here in their home. We knew that there would be a loud crowd out there tonight. We wanted to try and be able to control the momentum of the game from the jump and that’s what we did.”

On Setting the tone for the game: “I’m the energy leader on this team. I think it started with the defense with everybody. We just plugged in. We made some key stops. We were able to get out on transition to get some layups. I think that’s what generated everything else.”

On what went wrong: “One of the key points to this game was that we came into this game first in the NBA for fewest turnovers per game, and they came into this game No. 1 in steals per game and for points off of forced turnovers. This game was going to come down to who was going to win that battle. I tip my hat to Detroit because they won. We started off the game throwing the ball all over the place and it was the same thing through the whole game. We had our starting point guard, Greivis Vasquez, with eight turnovers and DeMarcus Cousins and Isaiah Thomas with four. You can’t win games if you constantly beat yourself. Tonight was one of the few games this year when we were turning the ball over a lot. The worst part about it was that they seemed to score on every turnover.” <p< On Josh Smith and Andre Drummond: “I thought that Andre Drummond was more of a one-man wrecking crew, personally, but Josh Smith is a talented all-star. He is versatile - he can play the three or the four. He can make a shot from the perimeter, he puts pressure on the rim, and he can post up. But Andre Drummond had 15 points, 18 rebounds - eight of those on the offensive end. He made seven field goals, all of which were dunks. I thought that Andre totally dominated us tonight.”

On fastbreak points: “Coming in, it was a simple game plan for us, and I don’t say that towards Detroit disrespectfully. You look at them and say okay, they have to get back into transition because they’re a high power-transition team. They scored 24 fastbreak points tonight. They lead the NBA in points in the paint per game at 52 and they scored 46 tonight. They do a great job rebounding, leading the NBA in offensive rebounds per game. Those were all three areas that we knew we had to really focus on and we did none of them. That’s why we lost.”

On the team’s overall performance: “Our forwards went 3-of-12 (from the field). DeMarcus had a good stat line, but I don’t really think any of our guys played too well tonight. If you’re not making shots, turning the ball over, and they’re getting points in the paint at the rim… it’s not good. They were getting run out after run out for a while. It was all deceiving. Detroit had 97 points and shot 45% from the field, but I thought the numbers were a lot higher.”

On it being difficult to hold on to the ball: “We knew that coming into the game, especially myself – it’s unacceptable when you get eight turnovers. I thought we gave them too many second chances by giving the ball away in offensive rebounds. It was a tough game. You’ve got to give them credit – they played better at the end and they got the win. But we don’t usually turn the ball over as much as we did tonight, especially myself. So I’m really upset with the fact that (I had) eight turnovers – I don’t like that. So I take responsibility as much as I can, being a point guard and being a leader.”

On assessing his turnovers: “Some of them were (because of) sloppiness. I got an offensive foul, an out of bounds (turnover) and a couple slow passes. It was just horrible, all of us. It was unacceptable. Eight turnovers – that’s not usually me so I take responsibility. I’ve got to get better at that.”

On how frustrating it is to lose this game after the win against Brooklyn: “It’s very frustrating. In stretches we didn’t go by the game plan that we had before the game. A lot of turnovers, a lot of fastbreak points – the same mistakes. This should’ve been a win tonight.”

On the turnovers being frustrating coming into the game leading the league in fewest turnovers committed: “I mean yes, but they’re also one of the leading steal teams in the league. We allowed them to get their hands in there on balls and we weren’t strong with the ball. Just careless turnovers – I had a careless turnover at the end, passing it to Greivis (Vasquez). So making plays like that, we’re going to continue to lose games. We’ve got to find a way to correct these mistakes – we’re making the same ones every time.”

On Andre Drummond setting the tone: “Drummond is a very good player – extremely active for a guy his size. He definitely was the game changer tonight; he got them a lot of extra possessions, I believe he had eight offensive rebounds tonight. So that falls back on myself and those other big guys – we’ve got to do a better job of getting those balls and not giving them extra possessions. I take the fall for that one but it’s just those same mistakes.”