Postgame Quotes: Suns @ Lakers, 12/6/2009

“You know, they’re a long team and they bottle up everything you try to do. You know, they switch and they knock off. We could never really get anything going. We’re not so much a fast-break team but a rhythm team and they just take you out of your rhythm, they really do.”

Suns Coach Alvin Gentry on playing the Lakers back to back this season: “I would not like to play them back to back. I don’t know if I’d like to play them anyway and I definitely wouldn’t want to play them back to back. We’ve been out here twice and done that, but you know they’re a great team.”

Suns Coach Alvin Gentry on how this game got away from the Suns: “I thought we did a great job the first half, I really did. And it was important for us to kind of get off to a good start. The third quarter, you know, the beginning of the second half, we missed a couple of easy things and before you know it, it goes from 10 to 15 and that’s when you get in trouble with them.”

Suns Coach Alvin Gentry on his team playing against the Lakers’ bigs: “I thought we did a good job on Bynum for the most part and Pau creates just all kinds of problems for you; he’s just such a skilled guy, a great passer, and so even when you double he finds the open guy. When you don’t double, you know, he’s skilled enough that he can score on the inside.”

Suns’ Steve Nash on the Lakers win tonight: “They’re very good. I think people got to remember that we weren’t picked to make the playoffs this year. We got all the work to do. A loss is a loss, it’s not two or three losses.”

Suns’ Grant Hill on the Suns schedule: “It seems like we got a lot of tough games back-to-back. I thought tonight we came out, we competed. It kind of got away from us there in the third quarter. We’re on the road a lot; it’s tough. I think we’re a little tired of it but I think it will make up for it. January, February, March look really good. We took care of business early. Won games. Got a nice little start. We’re going through a tough period right now with our schedule. An older guy, you got a little bit of perspective, understand it’s a long season, and a lot of things can happen but as long as we stay together and as long as we keep fighting, better days are ahead.”

Suns’ Amare Stoudemire thoughts on the game: “I think Lakers got a great team. They did a great job out there, shot the ball well. For the most part, we did a good job on the boards. It was tough to beat them out there tonight.”

Lakers’ Coach Phil Jackson on the key to keeping the Suns under 100 points: “Probably the fact that they played last night. But you know, they didn’t shoot well from the three, they had a little amount of shots from the 3 line. We didn’t get strung out defensively even though we made some switches that were big on small. And we were able to control everybody. But Stoudemire had a pretty good run.”

Lakers’ Coach Phil Jackson on whether the fact that the Suns played game back-to-back games affects their performance against the Lakers: “You know, given that there not a young team over there for two of their starters at least. It makes a difference, I think to them. Maybe those two guys, Hill and Nash. But for the other guys, they’re young players. They’re probably fine in recovery. It’s the mental fatigue more than sometimes physical fatigue in that regard. It has worked our favorable for us.”

Lakers’ Coach Phil Jackson on whether the Lakers are too big for the Suns: “Well, they have big bodies. Collins came in…I thought did a good job as a big center. Lopez, you know, was a big guy that they put in there. They choose to play how they choose to play. You know, if we want to exploit the inside, you know, it worked really well early in the game and early in the third quarter and then we got away from it and after we built a 18, 17, 19 point lead and then they broke it down to 11 when we started wandering off and doing other things. Then we got back to what we wanted to do.”

Lakers Kobe Bryant on what the Lakers need to improve on: “Everything that we are doing well, hopefully we can get even better at it. We have to improve if we want to repeat.”

Lakers Kobe Bryant on whether or not there is anything the Lakers need to work on: “Not really. We are doing well. Whatever we are doing well we just have to get better at it. We have to stay focused and go out and take care of business.”

Lakers Kobe Bryant on next game vs. Utah Jazz: “I have not looked at tapes yet but we have played them in the playoffs the past two years so we are very familiar with them.”

Lakers Lamar Odom on the Lakers’ defense: “Our defense is playing strong and that’s what is most important -- is our defense -- that we come out with a certain type of disposition, maintain it throughout the game.

Lakers Ron Artest on the current state of the Lakers’ defense: “Yeah, it’s getting better everyday day. We’re still not where we want to be. I think every game we’re trying and trying to continue to get better.”