Postgame Quotes: Suns @ Warriors - March 15, 2009


Alvin Gentry
Shaq
Matt Barnes
Keith Smart

Jamal Crawford
Kelenna Azubuike

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Suns Head Coach Alvin Gentry

“We played well offensively but that team is heck of a team offensively too. It’s a huge, huge turn of events with Stephen Jackson not out there. At this point we will take wins any way we can get them. I thought we just had a lot of guys that played well. Once again I thought that our bench was the one’s that helped us get a separation.”

“I thought we came out aggressively in the third quarter. We really tried to get the ball into Shaq and push the ball. We got a lot of separation in that quarter by scoring 46 points.”

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Shaq

“We already knew that with this team it was going to be a fast pace game. The great “Nellie” likes to let them get out and run. We went to our fast break, they threw it in to me and I kicked it out to my guys, it was a fun game. I like Nellie, he is one of the greatest coaches, and he is a good friend of mine. I always like to have good battles against him. He helped me become great with the whole “hack-a Shaq” thing, so whenever I come I always show him respect before the game. But I do know that it is going to be a fast pace game with Jack (Stephen Jackson), Jamal Crawford, and all those guys. It is always fun playing against the great Nellie.”
Question: “Did you shed a little tear when he (Nellie) was ejected?”
“Yes. I always like to have him out there. I like to look at him, I like to argue with him, I like to fight with him, I like to play with him. With out him, there would be no me. He has done a lot for me.”

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Matt Barnes

“It feels good to come back and play. Last time we were here, we didn’t play too well. The Warriors came out and handled us from the jump. We knew that we had to hit them first this time, and we did a good job at that. Jason Richardson and I are trying to remind everybody that you never know what happens, so you have to try and come out and get every game. We have won two in a row and we need to try and keep it moving.”

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Warriors Assistant Coach Keith Smart

On Taking Over for Nelson:“I think you just try and do the best you can. You try and get the guys to understand that the game is somewhat out of reach right now and you want to try, as much as you can, to execute some of the things you’re doing. But we lost our spirit in the basketball game and now you allow your young players to try and play. Phoenix is playing with a serious purpose of trying to make a playoff push. We didn’t handle their transition game. We gave up a lot of points the last time we played them and we gave up 56 points (fast break points) this time. They’re playing faster then the last time we played, the way they’re playing now.”

On the Suns Zone: “For whatever reason, when our guys saw the zone and they froze. They didn’t try and attack it, they got the ball and they held the ball over their head and they didn’t try and attack. We went through all of our zone activity, we just didn’t look comfortable tryng to attack. We just played against a team in Dallas a couple nights ago where we played very, very well against the zone. But for whatever reason tonight we didn’t understand it tonight.”

On Monta Ellis Being All the Way Back: “He’s getting there. You can see the speed is there, his jump shot in his pocket areas…he’s starting to get those down. It’s just a matter of time. The guy is a gifted athlete, he loves to play, and you can see things are coming back for him.”

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Jamal Crawford

“It’s a tough loss especially to lose on National t.v. to lose like that is embarrassing.”

“We were right there. We were battling back in the second half if we gave ourselves some chance but things didn’t go our way.”

“It was pretty bad. To give up 154 points is probably NBA season high so it was pretty non-existent.”

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Kelenna Azubuike

“It was bad. You can’t hide that and we have to get better. There is no excuse for that performance on defense. We have to learn from our mistakes and go to the drawing board and hopefully come out next game with better defense.”

“There is no excuse for that. We have to put more effort and just concentrate more. We made a lot of mistakes and mental errors.”

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