Postgame Quotes - January 15, 2011

Detroit: John Kuester | Will Bynum | Charlie Villanueva
Sacramento: Paul Westphal | Jason Thompson

Pistons Head Coach John Kuester
(On game) “Anytime you score 59 points (in the first half) you have to be happy. I am at least. I don’t care how good of an offensive team you have. The bad news is they scored 70. That’s one of the things that were disappointing. But the way we responded in the first five minutes of the third period, we gave Sacramento a little of the mojo of what we had in our third period. I thought that’s where we did a great job. Our bench was phenomenal scoring 52 points. Ben Gordon, Charlie Villanueva, Will Bynum did a great job. It was impressive to see how hard they played. I thought Rodney Stuckey, the second half, scoring 13 poin

ts was aggressive, made plays when we needed plays to be made at the end of the game. It was a great team effort.” (On halftime adjustments) “We talked about the mental aspects and we responded. We had to be tougher mentally. We were allowing them to be so comfortable shooting the basketball and either making lay-ups or making shots itself. Everybody continued to work hard but I thought that first group set the tone in the beginning by not allowing them to get going in the beginning of that quarter.”

(On adjusting lineup after McGrady went out) “That was the rotation we stayed with and I thought they did a great job. I thought Will, Rodney and Ben and then with Tayshaun and AD (Austin Daye). Tayshaun continues to play at a high level. He’s a nine for 13, he has 21 points, six rebounds, three assists, one turnover that’s impressive.”

(On Stuckey guarding Evans) “Stuckey has the strength to guard 1’s, 2’s and 3’s and I thought he did a great job at times. What helped was when the adjustment we were looking to do was split the pick and rolls and get the ball out of his hands and that’s one of the things we did at the end.”

Pistons Guard Will Bynum

(On block on Tyreke Evans) “I saw him driving to the basket, the guy had been driving all night, so I kind of read his eyes that he was looking to score and I just went for the block.”

(On being ready to play) “It felt good. I'm not in control of my minutes, I'm in control of being ready and that's what I try to do.”

(On stringing two wins together) “Yea, definitely, it always feels good to get a win. That's two in a row, hopefully we can make it three. If we come out with the same type of energy and defensively, how we played in the second half was big. If we can keep that going, we'll be in the game and try and finish it out.”

Pistons Forward Charlie Villanueva

(On what changed in the second half) “We broke it down in the defensive end, at the same time we came out strong, real strong. They were making everything it seemed like. They shot 70 percent towards the end of the first half, but we turned it up and had some shots that went in.”

(On changing intensity in second half) “Just intensity levels, more of a mental thing for us, all having to be on the same page.”

(On using past two wins) “Yea, it feels good. Had a terrific game in Toronto and it was an ugly game today, but I'll take it, I'll take any win that comes our way. Hopefully we build from something like this.”

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Kings Head Coach Paul Westphal
(On the game) “That’s a hard one. We did so many good things and we couldn’t come away with a win because we couldn’t guard them effectively, ever, during the game and they guarded us effectively in the third quarter. On top of that we shot free throws like a junior high school tonight. You have to make your free throws to win a shoot-out. We scored as many field goals as they did and we scored four more threes. We had virtually the same amount of free-throw attempts and they killed us in the free-throw contest. Third quarter we stopped doing the things that got us the lead and we got back to it a little bit in the fourth quarter but it was a little too late. We were just playing catch-up and couldn’t get the stop we needed.”

(On their third-quarter collapse) “We haven't been doing that too much recently. We just had an abominable quarter. Earlier in the year it seemed like it would pop up a lot more often than it has lately. It looks like we haven't forgotten how to do that.”

(On their start to the second half) “We missed three lay-ups in the first couple of minutes. I told them to keep running what we're running. If we get lay-ups we'll be glad to take those. We have to tighten up our defense and we could never tighten up our defense. We couldn't control their guards at all and our centers played the whole game in foul trouble and it took its toll.”

(On if they spoke about defense during their first quarter) “We talked defense, sure, we talked defense. When you're sitting there with a 10-or-12-point lead and everybody's feeling good it is harder to get that message through. I think we just thought ‘outscore them’ and that was not the case.”

Kings Forward Jason Thompson

(On the difference between the first and second half) “We moved the ball. We were making shots. Even though they were shooting a high percentage in the first half, we were too, but we were moving the ball around and not turning the ball over and things were going good. Even though we were up by 10 I think we thought we should have been up more. They limited us to 10 points and we had a lot of turnovers in the third quarter during their run. It was still close for the most part but games like that we have to not let it get away from us like that.”

(On the Pistons’ play) “For the most part they shot a high percentage. We needed to get stops. They got to the line more and we didn't shoot the ball well at the free-throw line. Obviously we were ineffective, especially when the game gets close.”