Postgame Quotes: Suns @ Lakers, 11/12/2009

Phoenix Suns Coach Alvin Gentry on Jason Richardson:
“I thought Jason did a great job with Kobe to be honest with you, I thought he battled him as well as you can and he still made tough shots, but that is who he is.”

Phoenix Suns Coach Alvin Gentry on rebounds:
“The rebounding hurt us somewhat but it was not so much that, it was that we could not match-up with Bynum. He could methodically take a couple of dribbles and be able to shoot right over the top of us, but we will be ok.”

Phoenix Suns Coach Alvin Gentry on what was positive about tonight:
“I thought we fought till the end, I like what the guys did. Our second unit got to play and get some experience out on the floor so those were some positive things that came out of tonight.”

Phoenix Suns Coach Alvin Gentry on tonight’s game being a back-to-back and the effect it had:
“It is tough, unfortunately we will play them again on the back-to-backs. But they are great, they are the world champs and there is a reason why they are the world champs. Like I said I don’t know where their weakness is really. They are going to be a handful for whoever plays them. We ran out of gas, we really did, the bottom line is that we missed shots that we normally made, I am not sure we quite had our legs, I am not making excuses because they are a great team, they defended the heck out of us, but we can usually stay in and make some of those shots. I have to give them credit because they are a great team and we have three more shots at them. It’s been tough, we started out in Miami and we ended up in Los Angeles over a 10-day period and in between we decided to stop in Orlando, Boston, Washington, and Philadelphia. It is tough.”

Phoenix Suns player Steve Nash on their struggling offense: “Yea we had tired legs. We missed a lot of easy shots; missed lay-ups, dunks; missed shots we normally knock down. Usually when your legs go that’s what happens. There’s no excuse, though, we need to find a better way to step up defensively on nights like this and we didn’t stop them tonight.”

Phoenix Suns player Steve Nash on what a game like this means to the Suns: “Well two weeks ago we weren’t supposed to make the playoffs. You know, our team needs to look at this as a project. We are just trying to get better every day, and I think we are improving.”

Phoenix Suns player Amar’e Stoudemire on the Suns performance tonight:
“The Lakers shot the ball extremely well. We had a tough week; a lot of games and a lot of travel for us. We are going to try to get our proper rest and get ready for these big games moving forward. But tonight just wasn’t our night.”

Phoenix Suns player Jason Richardson on the return of Andrew Bynum:
“He looked pretty good. Bynum’s one of the longest guys in the NBA. You throw it up to him high and he’s not bringing it down; it’s an easy two points. He looked good and healthy; he’s going to help his team out a whole lot.”

Lakers’ Coach Phil Jackson on the Suns’ shooting: “Stoudemire missed a dunk. He missed a lay-up. He’s 2-15; that’s a night you’re not going to see very often from him. Jason Richardson, who’s been shooting lights out, was 2-9. Those two guys, we’ll take that any time we can get it. That’s not going to happen very often.”

Lakers’ Coach Phil Jackson on the defense of Andrew Bynum: “He did pretty well out there. He got some help situation. He was scrambling around out there. I thought he did pretty well.

Lakers’ Coach Phil Jackson on the quality of tonight’s win: “It’s a good win. We have to take it into perspective. They played a back-to-back game and came off the home floor on a road game.”

Lakers’ Coach Phil Jackson on going into Denver tomorrow: “Well, the first run I think is the one that takes it out of players. They get exhausted right away with that high altitude, light-headed lung burn. After that you can kind of settle in the second time out. You really move in better shape. The game has to be at level of tempo like we want to play at. Tonight, that was the key is we played the tempo game for at least the first three quarters the way we wanted the tempo of the game.”

Lakers’ Kobe Bryant on Lakers’ efficiency in the first half: “We just beat them inside of the paint. We got a lot of easy opportunities and we got a win as a result.”

Lakers’ Kobe Bryant on Bynum’s performance in tonight’s game : “He played extremely well and he obviously had a match up advantage with his length and his size, and he used it extremely well.”

Lakers’ Bynum on how he’s feeling physically: “I was able to rest over these last 5 or 6 days. That really helped me out. I got my legs back, I’m fresh. As far as the elbow goes, I’m going to continue getting treatment. It hurts a little bit but it’s going to be that way for a little while.”