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Postgame Quotes - October 7, 2015

DETROIT PISTONS HEAD COACH STAN VAN GUNDY: (On Andre Drummond): “I thought he played pretty well. I thought he had good energy, played with good toughness, played hard. I’ll take that. There were a few times he could have thrown the ball out. What I wanted to see tonight was guys playing hard and competing. He did that. I felt he had a decent night.”

(On defense): “We went backwards, we were terrible. I was really disappointed in our defense.”

(On Stanley Johnson): “I certainly saw rookie moments. I saw a real competitor. That’s the main thing. We will keep working. I thought his will was so strong. He is a tough guy and that showed through today.”

DETROIT PISTONS FORWARD STANLEY JOHNSON: “On his performance): “I didn’t do as good of a job as I should’ve. I think there were three plays that really stood out that I think lost us the game. My two turn overs, at the top of the front court and when I had two or three seconds left on the shot clock. You lose games doing that type of stuff.”

(On if tonight was good for his development): “Yes, I think anytime you get on the court and get in a NBA game, it’s always positive. Playing against a superstar in Paul George and seeing what that’s like is always positive and just playing on the court. I think knowledge is power and your best teacher is experience. The more experience I get, the faster I learn, the faster I can be great.”

INDIANA PACERS HEAD COACH FRANK VOGEL: (On Paul George): “He’s going to be explosive in the small lineup and the big lineup. He worked so hard to get back through his injury, and prepared himself to be an even better player now than he was before. He played most of the minutes at the four tonight and he’s going to be great with both lineups when he’s aggressive like that and just making good decisions.”

(On the team’s stats and if he saw improvements from Saturday to today): “I saw improvement with our commitment to the glass. We didn’t give up offensive rebounds and the commitment was really strong tonight. I think the spread lineup has offensive benefits. I think when we’re guarding spread lineups, we’re going to be better defensively than if we’re big. So I think there are benefits to both.”

(On rookies getting minutes because of George Hill’s injury): “They’re (Myles Turner and Joe Young) getting comfortable. Every time they get on the court they’re going to get a little more comfortable. Both of those guys had really strong nights. I was very proud of Joe taking over in the fourth quarter, taking the ball into his hands when he needed to get a bucket. Myles showed his versatility tonight with his ability to block shots, but also step-backs in the post. He hasn’t really knocked down his perimeter shot yet, but he’s a great shooter and we feel like that’s definitely going to come.”

INDIANA PACERS FORWARD PAUL GEORGE: (On game): “It wasn’t the concern offensively that I wasn’t going to be able to play the four position. It was defensively where I’ve struggled and it’s an adjustment. We did some things that we changed up. We had Solo (Solomon Hill) on the fours, we had C.J. (Miles) on the fours and I was able to play my natural position defensively.”

(On rookies): “We’re asking a lot out of these rookies. It’s not like they’re just here to learn. We’re expecting them to produce for us and they’ve got to learn on the fly. We’ve got to be supportive of them if we’re going to be counting on them all season long.”

INDIANA PACERS GUARD MONTA ELLIS: (On how the offense looked tonight vs. Pistons): "It's coming together. There's going to be games like that where you have big quarters. But it's still a process, there's some things we can get better at, that we're going to get better at. I'm very excited about it (Pacers offense).”

(On playing with George Hill and CJ Miles): "The thing is we just have to get use to one another. Playing small we have to talk more and help one another out. This is only game two in preseason, but I think we did better than in the first game. The thing is getting better and better every game, every practice, and I'm very excited about it (playing with Hill and Miles).”