Postgame Quotes: Suns vs Mavericks- Dec. 6, 2012

“Obviously that’s a disappointing loss. I think that if you want to talk about the negatives first: we just have to do a better job of managing the game from a standpoint of not letting teams get separation on us. We have to do a little bit better job of controlling the dribble penetration. On the flip side of that I thought we did a great job of coming back and fighting and finding a way to give ourselves an opportunity; but I was just disappointed in our ball movement. We are not an iso team, we are not a one pass team. I just looked at our stats at the half: when we passed it one or two times, the shooting percentage was 33 percent, and when we passed it more than three times it was 68. So we have to get the ball moving. We have to do a better job in that department right there. And then we have got to be able to finish plays. We can sit and talk here all we want but we got a layup to tie the game – we have to get it in the basket. Same thing happened in Toronto, same thing happened in Philly. We had a chance in Memphis. Those are all situations where we are right there and we just have to find a way to get the ball in the basket. Big play in the game is we have a defensive stop and we give up an offensive rebound for a basket. Those are the plays that we talk about where we say we have to complete the possessions and be able to finish the plays. Like I said, once again, we play hard and we compete like crazy, but we’ve just got to be a little bit smarter in what we’re doing.

“I just thought that those guys had done a good job and they are high energy guys. We did a pretty damn good job defensively. I mean it was just instinctive, I guess. I just felt like those guys matched up a little better and did a better job and that’s why they played.”

“It’s tough. It is always the same story. We came up short. They make a great run in the 3rd quarter. We are trailing in the 4th quarter and then we trying to get back and we did. It is just tough. You’re tired. They make some… O.J. Mayo makes that great shot. It’s tough.

“The ball was sticking. We weren’t getting as much movement as usual and they were making tough shots. You know we went down, but coach called a couple timeouts and we regrouped and fought.”

“I was just crashing the boards. I had a lot of gaps opening providing more space for me to go and I was just crashing.”

“We played one of our strongest willed games of the year; difficult situation, losing time coming off the back to back and a rough one last night. Everybody really played with a lot of heart, a lot of guts. It was really a war of attrition out there with the injuries and all the stuff going on. Everybody hung in and we found a way and it’s a huge win for us.”

“It was a much needed win on the road obviously. The Suns aren’t playing their best basketball but coming home we knew they would come out with a lot of energy and effort and try to get a win so we wanted to come and have focus. After playing a game last night we could have made a lot of excuses for ourselves as far as we had a tough game last night and we didn’t play well but we flushed it and we came today with a lot of energy.”

“Obviously coming off a tough loss, we got blasted by the Clippers, we just wanted to come out and be more efficient and more effective and be better defensively and try to take care of the ball and I thought for the most part we did that. Obviously it shouldn’t have come down to the wire, we were up 13 or 15 or something like that and we let them come back but it’s part of basketball and the ups and downs. But we got the win and we toughed it out. It was a good win for us.”