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Postgame Quotes - November 20, 2015

Pistons Head Coach Stan Van Gundy

On the team’s depth:

“(…) And Marcus (Morris), and Stanley (Johnson). We got some good performances from other people. But I thought that Aron (Baynes) was tremendous. 11 rebounds in less than 19 minutes. He was great and he was great defensively. He really sort of spearheaded our defense, getting going. Stanley, Marcus did a really good job at both ends of the floor, other than Marcus’ fouls. That group sort of really carried us back into the game, and then down the stretch Reggie (Jackson) and Andre (Drummond) really played really well.”

On Andre Drummond:

“No question. He was getting it in deep. Where he gets the ball is important, think it is for any big guy. And we did a little better job at times getting him the ball in deep, and when he gets it in there, he’s pretty good.”

On Spencer Dinwiddie:

“I thought Spencer offensively tonight, even though the numbers don’t look great, I thought Spencer offensively tonight was good. I told him after the game I thought he played really well offensively again. I thought defensively he took a step back and has for a couple of games, which is one of the reasons why he wasn’t playing to begin with. He needs to watch that, because if he’s not going to defend, he’ll be back to sitting again.”

Pistons guard Reggie Jackson

On the team’s bench:

“The starters didn’t start off the way we wanted to. That’s pretty even, but we didn’t really challenge them to get a tough basket at all. Our bench came in and really lifted us. They got stops, they found a way to put the ball in the basket and just held us down.”

On the defense:

“We just decided to play defense. We keyed in, we really did the things that we wanted to do. We tried to limit the spacing on the floor, tried to play tight defense. Andre was just great protecting the rim, stunting on pick and rolls along with Aron, who really started us off, doing that all night. Like I said, my teammates had a great job. They brought it defensively and then kind of the starters and the rest of us followed.”

Pistons forward Aron Baynes

On the playing more minutes than expected:

“No, it’s all good. Just running up and down, I was enjoying it out there. Whatever I need to do for the team. Like you said, Andre’s been playing great so I’ve just been cheering him on. Whenever my number is called, I want to go out there and help the team as best I can.”

On playing extended minutes due to Drummond’s foul troubles:

“Not really extended. You’re just ready for whatever comes. When he does foul, you always try and see how the game’s going on, but that’s when I’m on the bench anyway. I’m trying to watch and see where I can be effective and what we need to do. A lot of the time, I just try to bring some energy and that’s what I tried to do tonight.” 

Timberwolves Interim Head Coach Sam Mitchell “It’s not our defense, we can’t score. We missed shots. They didn’t score 100 points. We played good enough defense to where we‘ve just got to score. We’ve got shots, we’re missing them, we’ve got to score better. It’s the NBA, you’re not going to hold teams to 37-percent every night. We’ve got to get better at scoring. We’ve got young players, they’ve got to understand that when we run our offense, the ball’s got to go from strong side to weak side. We’ve got to set better screens, we’ve got to move the ball better.”

On ball movement… “It will help, but not always, I don’t think we have a selfish basketball team. Our guys pass the ball but we’re not making shots and we’ve got to do a better job so when you’re not making shots, you just put so much pressure on your defense all the time. The games that we’ve won, we’ve had to defend people in the fourth quarter and hold people… In Chicago 12-straight possessions, 12 out of 14 possessions, that’s hard to do in the NBA against good teams. That’s a lot of pressure on your defense when it’s hard for you to score.”

 

Wolves Forward Shabazz Muhammad

 

On Detroit’s physicality… “It was tough, they really attack the glass hard. They have a lot of big guys out there. Our matchups were there, I just think those guys are good at grabbing the ball and getting every single rebound.”

 

On the second unit…

“We’ve definitely got to take care of the ball. I know we’re a young team, it’s not an excuse. Down the stretch, you’ve got to take care of the ball and that’s how you win games.”

 

On Drummond… “He’s playing like an All Star right now, he’s just bigger than everybody. You can’t let him get into position early. If you let him get into position early, it’s pretty much over.”

 

Wolves Guard-Forward Andrew Wiggins

 

On offense… “I feel like tonight we played at their pace. Going into the fourth, I think we had 60-something points. We’re a high-scoring team, we’re a high pace team and tonight I feel that we played to their pace.”

 

“We got it going late… we couldn’t get back out of it.”

 

On the change in momentum… “The game is full of runs, they made their run to the end of the game.”

 

 

Wolves Center Karl-Anthony Towns

 

On defense… “It’s just one of those things we’ve got to continue to work on. We’ve got to build consistency throughout 48 minutes of the game. We’re going to keep doing that. We’re going to keep working tremendously hard in the gym as a team collectively, so I think we have spurts and we show signs of a team that’s really gelling together. Consistency’s the biggest thing [inaudible].”

 

On Drummond…

“We did a great job in the first half of really making sure everything was really hard to get. For me, I contested it almost from half court, but they did a great job. They went in at half time and changed up the offense scheme for them and it worked to their benefit.”

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