Posted: Nov 8 2009 4:53PM
Head Coach Alvin Gentry | 
Steve Nash | 
Channing Frye |
Flip Saunders | 
Brendan Haywood | 
Andray Blatche |
Click on a player to read quotes
| Head Coach Alvin Gentry
On the game:
“I don’t think anyone is going to ship it to Springfield to the Hall of Fame, but it was a good win for us. I haven’t seen a bad win in the NBA yet.”
More on the win:
“It’s a road win. I didn’t think we played as well as we possibly could. I just kept telling the guys that we have to get a little separation because with Gilbert on the floor anything can happen and we’ve seen it before.”
On their play:
“The biggest problem was we had way too many turnovers in the first half. If we didn’t have as many turnovers we could have put a little more pressure on them. We spent too much time trying to take advantage of the mismatches, so we got out of our flow a little bit and I take responsibility for that.”
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| Steve Nash
On Suns style of play:
“We want to try and get some penetration and open up shots for each other and move the ball to the open player. That’s how we try to attack.”
On slow start and shift in the second half:
“We weren’t real fresh today. We just didn’t have a good bounce to us. We didn’t really push the ball. We weren’t really aggressive to start. That was the difference. We had some chances to be up 15 or 20 in the first half but we just didn’t have the energy today. Mentally we were tough and stuck with it at times and got it done.”
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| Channing Frye
“Tonight was a tough game. They have a lot of great players and a lot of penetrators. Brendan and Caron do a great job crashing the glass. We had a lot of turnovers early. We kind of got lulled into the half court game and turnovers really killed us. I felt like we did a pretty good job in the second half of not turning it over and really getting everyone involved.
On the team:
“I don’t think anybody even looks at the stat sheet. Each game it’s going to be something different. If you look at the season, each person has done something to help this team win. We don’t rely on just one person, we rely on everybody to do a little of everything, assists, rebounds, blocking shots, steals. Everybody has to do their part and that’s what makes it fun.”
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| Wizards Head Coach Flip Saunders
On the game:
“I told the guys to hold them to 102 (points). The way they have been playing is not that bad. Our offense has been stagnant. We are struggling offensively, which has put a lot of undue pressure on us defensively. Defensively we were active. We forced 20 turnovers and 23 points off turnovers which kept us in the game. We just have to keep on grinding.”
On the team’s effort:
“We had better effort and better performance than we did against Indiana.”
On what needs to improve offensively:
“The ball was sticking too much at times. Guys are seeing guys struggling and somebody comes in and tries to do it on their own sometimes, and try to do a little bit too much instead of trusting other teammates.”
More on the offense:
“When we don’t have Mike (Miller) and we don’t have Antawn (Jamison) what happens is that we have three guys who are role type offensive player s and it puts so much pressure on Caron and Gil.”
On the tempo against Phoenix:
“You have to try to control tempo against them. Their goal is to play up and down and play fast and if you play that you will have problems. We are not ready to do that because we don’t have all of our people.”
On trying to cut into Phoenix’s lead:
“We kept on fighting back, but you can’t keep on fighting back against a good team.”
On the defense against Phoenix:
”Part of it is we don’t have all of our guys. When you’ve got guys like (Jason) Richardson and (Channing) Frye that can spread the floor, it makes easier to open things up for (Nash). Right now there are not a lot of openings because we don’t have any of our big people. We much prefer them to shoot a three pointer than a shot inside.”
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| Brendan Haywood
On the game:
“They played a lot of team basketball. Team basketball is what wins in the NBA and that’s what Coach Saunders has been used to. We have to get back to trying to mimic that atmosphere.”
On the team:
“We’re a very confident bunch. We know right now we’re not at 100%. We’re still very confident. We just didn’t execute down the stretch.”
On making defensive strides:
“If you look, this is a team that averages 110 points. We held them to 102. I was happy with where we were. Defensively, I thought, down the stretch we had a couple of mishaps on rotations that led to easy shots. We gave up a bunch of offensive rebounds too.”
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| Andray Blatche
On how to snap current losing streak:
“We just have to be patient, continue to work hard, and continue to have trust in one another.”
On change of team’s fortune:
“That’s part of basketball. Right now we’re down. We have to continue to try to get over the hump. We’ll get there. No doubt in my mind.”
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