Detroit: Lawrence Frank | Jonas Jerebko | Tayshaun Prince | Andre Drummond | Kyle Singler
Los Angeles: Mike Brown | Pau Gasol | Kobe Bryant | Dwight Howard
(on the team’s overall performance): “It was total domination. I think our second unit at least played. They didn’t play mistake free, but played very, very hard at least where the Lakers had to sub back in [Dwight] Howard and Kobe [Bryant]. But their first 15, 16, 17, 18 points where right in the paint and they weren’t even straight post ups, they were two feet in the paint shooting 62 percent. They scored 80 points basically in the first 32 minutes of the game constantly taking the ball to the net because they were either scoring, or getting to the free throw line. So, very disappointing by and large.”
(on the team’s energy): “Everyone should have energy and effort. Everyone on the team should be able to play and compete. If you can’t play with 100 percent effort you shouldn’t start, or come off the bench. It’s the responsibility of each guy to give maximum effort. That’s the job description.”
(on guard Rodney Stuckey): “Obviously he’s struggled. We need him to play better. He’s been dealing with some physical problems, but we need better from everyone. Look, in the first two games obviously we did some good things to at least have a lead in those games but tonight it was a TKO.”
(on the team moving forward): “We’ve combed through this thing very, very closely, and we also have a vision for this team in terms of where we want to go. We know this is a building group. It’s unacceptable to get your doors blown off, but we did, and yet we know we’re a young building group. There’s a big disparity right now between us and the Lakers, now there’s no excuse acceptable to not come in because in all that second unit did today, they just played hard. To me they left it all out there, they’re sitting in the locker room and they got nothing left and that’s what everyone should be doing.”
(on disappointment of tonight): “Too many easy baskets, too many open shots. It’s hard to come back from the Lakers being up 20 in the first game. We just have to do a good job and play together and get this game in Denver on Tuesday.”
(on second unit chemistry): “We’re just trying to share the ball. We don’t really care about scores we just let the ball do the work. Just giving a lot of energy out there, it doesn’t matter who is out there we’re just trying to play hard. We played decent today but it still didn’t help so it doesn’t matter.”
(on Putting this game in the rear view mirror): “We just have to try and forget about this game and look forward to Denver on Tuesday and try to get a win.”
(on first unit energy): “We did not come out with the energy we wanted to come out with. We don’t say to ourselves we’re not going to come out with the energy. We always come out and come to the game with the right intent. I think we just have a team that, when teams make a run on us, we get down and frustrated as opposed to playing through it.”
(on Rodney Stuckey’s performance in first three games): “Whenever a player is struggling whether it’s shooting the ball or not doing what they usually do, it’s up to the team and our coaching staff to get involved and try to find a way for him to get out of it. We’ve got to do a better job of that.”
(on going up against Dwight Howard): “It was all love but I was going at his head the whole time. Every night there’s no friends on the floor so I tried my hardest, pushed him around a little bit. I tried to play physical with him and after the game I shook his hand. We’re still cool but we’re enemies on the floor. It was fun playing against him because he played hard.”
(on what he takes away from going up against one of the best in the game (Dwight Howard)): “I definitely feel like I got a lot better today. I’ve got to get a base to try to and stop him from moving and I think I got that defensively guarding the post cause I figured my way around to try and stop him from scoring.”
(on the one thing they aren’t doing that they would like to be doing): “Just our consistency. We play well in stretches but we have big gaps in games where we just don’t play well, whether we’re tired, we just got to play through things. Just know we aren’t going to play perfect basketball and just keep on playing for the whole game.”
(on finding rhythm on the court together): “I think so, I think the group on the bench play as well. We have good chemistry together, we complement each other well and Will does a nice job of running the show for us.”
(on getting the victory tonight): “Obviously we needed a win, dropping three in a row, and not winning in the preseason made it a little tough. What it does more than anything else, especially winning the way we did, defending the way we did first of all, and playing the way we did offensively with great spacing, great ball movement, scoring out of the system. You look at the points some of these guys had, and I’m sure they’ll tell you, they scored probably easier than any other time they’ve played the game because they got it within the system. It gives us a little belief, and every win that we get gives us a little bit more belief on both ends of the floor.”
(on if Steve Nash being hurt makes the team need to rely on the system more): “To a certain degree, Nash is so creative with the basketball whenever he has it in his hands. He can get guys easy baskets at any given time. Blake can too, to a certain degree, but I’m not fooling anybody, Blake is not Steve Nash. It puts pressure on us defensively and it puts pressure on us to move the ball, move bodies and continue to try to execute and be discipline within the framework of what we’re trying to do offensively.
(on Kobe getting eight assists tonight): “I think it’s a combination of the threat that he is offensively first of all. But then, when you watch his play, a lot of times last year when he had the ball everybody was standing and watching, standing and watching, standing and watching. If you watched him play these four games, even up in Portland I thought offensively we were very good, minus our turnovers and second chance points, that’s where we lost that game. But, if you think back even to Portland, Kobe was getting backcuts for layups and dunks, he was getting open threes, he was getting curls for open jumpers right in the lane. We’re moving him around and while we’re moving him around it’s not like everybody is standing around watching Kobe. Other guys are moving too, so it’s hard to tee off on one guy when he has the ball because we have everybody moving. If you try to tee off on a guy, when you look back at your man he’s gone, and he might end up getting a wide open layup or dunk.”
(on the job his team did defensively): “I mentioned when I came in that I thought on both sides of the ball, we did a great job. We were very discipline, organized, and in-tune to what we were supposed to be doing. Defensively I thought we were pretty good, could we have been better, yes, there’s room for improvement on both sides of the floor, but defensively our guys for one of the first times in this early season played the game for as close to 48 minutes as possible. They communicated, they helped one another, and in pick and roll situations they were in the correct spot. They gave multiple effort, I could go on and on with the things that we did right on that end of the floor, which helped us. Detroit probably missed a few shots too, but it helped us play the game that we played on the defensive end.”
“We did a lot of things that were positive and we can build on those things and be consistent on both ends of the floor.”
“What I liked a lot was the way we started the game. We set the tone early. We composed ourselves and established ourselves and that helped a lot because we build on that. And that falls on the starting five a lot I think in my opinion.” <p. “We have to start off games this way. Set the tone on both ends of the floor. Just playing hard, just being hungry, aggressive, and hopefully getting that early lead.”
(on getting the first win of the season): “I think it’s more of a relief for mike than it is for anybody else. We’re good. It feels good, we did what we were supposed to do. It feels good to see what we’ve been working on come in fruition out there during the game.”
(on the offense tonight): “I think our rhythm was a little bit better, we talked about it being a process and we just did a much better job with our understanding and how to excute.”
(on getting the first win of the season): “It feels so good. My first win here, it feels good for all of us. It was a little frustrating after the first 3 losses but we kept our composure, I think for the most part and we got a good win tonight.”
(on tonight’s performance): “For the most part it was pretty good. We understand it’s going to be a process and we just kept playing and tonight we got a good win. I think our turnovers were key tonight, we didn’t turn the ball over as much as we did and that’s what caused us to get the big win.”
(on floor spacing): “We did a good job of keeping the floor spaced, we played inside-out tonight, and we got Pau going early. He’s very aggressive and Metta was very aggressive, which is good. We all got to attack the basket and it works out well when we do.”