Postgame Quotes: Suns vs Grizzlies, 11/10/2008

Terry Porter	Raja Bell	Leandro Barbosa	Marc Iavaroni
OJ Mayo	Rudy Gay

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Suns Head Coach Terry Porter

Obviously, I was very pleased with the win. First game back off of a long east-coast trip, it’s tough to muster up enough energy and focus. We had it in stretches, we did a good job. I think we were up 13 or 14 at one point in the second half. I thought we did a good job. Give them some credit, they came back and made some plays. Mayo really tried to take the game over, but our guys hung in there in the end and made some plays. We did a much better job rebounding down the stretch when we needed to.

(On O.J. Mayo) We talked about him and Gay, we know that both of those guys are very explosive scorers. They can score just about anyway you need them to score. He was very explosive, put the ball on the floor and created his own shot. I didn’t quite think he shoot as well as he did from three, but he came up tonight and made some big time 3’s for them. He just has great poise, just great poise. He’s obviously made some big plays for them, but I thought our guys did a good job down the stretch, we had a few breakdowns. The fourth quarter is something we will go back and look at. They ended up shooting 50 something percent and that’s what got them back in it. We went through that stretch, we turned it over during key stretches, we couldn’t really execute offensively at times and we would just turn it over and it got them back it.

(On Leandro Barbosa) He was great tonight; we were a little bit small. I was concerned about being a little bit small towards the end with Raja and LB, but LB was rolling so well, I just wanted to keep him in there. We talked a lot about being small and rebounding, but he really was explosive, and I thought he just got into his rhythm a little bit better tonight. He made a couple shots at the basket, and it opened up things a little bit and he really found his game tonight.

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Raja Bell

We took our foot off the pedal a little bit. They have one of those teams where they’re really talented across the board and if you give them an ounce of life that’s all they need to get their confidence going and we gave them that. We have to be better when we have teams down, it’s been like that for the last few years, but we have to keep them down and deliver that knockout blow.

(On late game three-pointer) I’ve always said (Boris) is one of the best passers I’ve ever played with and he caught it and didn’t see me. My man doubled and inevitably he always finds me even when he’s not looking at me. So he kicked it out and you jump up and shoot them and sometimes they go in and sometimes they don’t and I knocked that one down.

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Leandro Barbosa

It was the first time that I was doing (well) and I felt like I could go to the basket and I could shoot. My teammates were helping me and the coach was helping me too and it was great.

(On making up for missed time) Yes, definitely. All I’m trying to do right now and (get to) where everyone’s at and to (get to) the goal which is the championship.

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Grizzlies Head Coach Marc Iavaroni

(Opening statement): “They came up with the big plays. They got the ball away from O.J. and they did a nice job. We decided to run a lot of high pick and rolls with O.J. Mayo and they really didn’t have an answer for a long time until they were able to keep the ball out of his hands and we didn’t do a clean job of getting the ball to him . There was a critical possession where we had the scramble and we were looking for a foul but you can’t count on that, you’ve got to just play. I like the high pick and roll with O.J. ”

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OJ Mayo

(On his performance): “I just got an opportunity with our best screener, Marc or Darko. They did a great job setting screens. I was able to just turn the corner and make some plays for the team. (At the end of the game) There were a few plays that they outhustled us on. And Barbosa hit a big time shot in the corner. They made some plays down the stretch and our team doesn’t have a lot of years, we’ve got to work on finishing games down the stretch.”

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Rudy Gay

(On final possessions): “They moved the ball around, they got good shots and they made them. It’s tough playing a team that moves the ball around as much as they do. (On O.J.) O.J. is a phenomenal player and he kept us in the game for a long stretch of the time. He made the right decisions; when he should have passed he passed, and when it’s time to make the basket, he made it.”

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