“Obviously it was not a good performance by us. I thought we let our offense affect our defense tonight. I thought in the first quarter, we went 4-14 on layups, we scored four baskets, got to the rim 14 times. I thought we had great looks and we just couldn’t convert. I also felt that we had some great looks in the first half from the three point line. We did a decent job of moving the basketball. We got wide open shots and we ended up missing them, and we in essence, let our lack of offense affect our defense, where they ran out and got some easy baskets and we went away with what our principles or our rules are in transition and even in the half court. Getting in a hole 28-10 at the end of the first quarter for us is a mountain climb. It’s a tough thing to face and a tough thing to overcome, especially where we are as a team right now. But after that we figured some things out. We were able to attack, we were able to finish at the rim. We just couldn’t take care of the ball and I thought that was our downfall the last three quarters. Tough loss.”
(Are you starting to worry about what you can do? Feel like you’re not getting through?): “No, to me it’s a work in progress. It’s gonna be that way the entire year. The biggest thing is if we move the ball and we get some good looks, then for me offensively, I gotta keep moving on, keep moving forward. But the one thing we can do is we can defend better, and we did not do a good job of that at all, especially in the first quarter.”
(Do you feel everyone is still together?): “We’re facing adversity right now. Adversity tends to separate guys at times, but with this team I think we’re doing a great job of staying our focus and having that goal in mind. But like I said, it starts with me, I just gotta be a lot better, and I will be better.”
(Your development and leadership?): “Just a lot of growth with this team and it’s a long process. We’re learning each other’s games and just getting used to each other, but we’re maintaining our focus, we have a goal in mind and we plan on achieving it.”
“They came out. They jumped out on us early. We can’t come out like that. We gotta come out with a sense of urgency. We gotta pick it up, we gotta pick it up. At the end of the day we gotta come out ready and we gotta throw the first punch. They threw the first punch tonight and we I feel like we laid down, and then it’s hard trying to get back in rhythm and play from behind when you’re down twenty the whole game, and when you do cut it down you finally need that one stop and you don’t get it. They controlled the whole game.”
(How do you find your spark?): “We gotta be men. We gotta grow up. This is not no little boys league. We can’t just turn it around and think it’s gonna be easy. This is a man’s league so at the end of the day we gotta bring it. Every night everybody gotta be on the same page. It’s a team game so at the end of the day we gotta go out there and have each other’s backs. No matter what. Losing, winning. We gotta weather the storm. I feel like we can weather it if we just go out here and do what we do.”
“You have nights where you really shoot the ball well, I don’t know why that is. But sometimes you can get rolling and sometimes you play with a great deal of confidence and that is kind of what happened tonight. The deal is when you have those nights you better win. I’m glad that we found a way to do that. I thought that that might have been our best game on both ends of the floor that we have played. We had a number of different guys contribute what I thought was really good contributions.”
“I may have said lets start off strong once, but it wasn’t a huge emphasis. The emphasis was earn the right to score, earn the right to get stops and the reason being is because there is a lot of little things that go into getting the chance to score the ball and we didn’t do some of those little things in the first quarter against Memphis and it hurt us. As a result we turned it over and they got a couple buckets that we can’t guard because they are two on ones or one on oh’s and that kind of got us behind. It was more about just doing our job better early on and through the entire game. I thought that we did a pretty good job of that. I thought we played pretty maturely most of the night.”
(On Green): “They go small some so it gives Jeff a chance to post, and I thought he was really good Jeff’s way he has about him right now is really good in the past couple of weeks. You can tell he is really locked in, really focused and really doing a good job. His work in practice has been really good, you can tell its kind of… sometimes the regular season takes place, and when you get into the regular season you get locked even more. Some guys might get tired, some guys might get more entrenched in it- he looks like he gets more entrenched in it.”
(Are the players starting to think about the 3 point line differently): “I don’t think so, I don’t know. I don’t know what their coaches have told them in the past. My deal is that if you can make the three, then you might as well shoot it when you’re open. You know we don’t have guys that necessarily are going to dominate in isolation all the time, but what we do have are guys that have some skill and have some unique skill for their position and can move the ball when we are moving it well. So you want to try and take advantage of that. You find what your strengths are, and it is not necessarily your strengths in the big picture, it might just be your strengths in relative to who you are playing.”
(Jordan Crawford’s Triple Double): “He got a triple double?! Crawford did?! Holy Smokes! I had no idea. . .I know he kicked the ball, but I didn’t know he had a triple double . . .I literally had no idea . . .He got eleven rebounds- Jordan Crawford? . . .He was shocking effective”
(Crawford’s perforance on both sides of the court): “I don’t know what else to tell you, he was good, he was solid, and he didn’t shoot great obviously but everything else he did pretty well and its good that our guards rebound, because the need to rebound for us to win.”
(How nice was it to have an effort like this): “It was nice to put everything together. We have had our ups and downs throughout the season. We have had quarters where we play well and quarters that we didn’t, but it was good to put an all-around good game together.”
(What specific things did you do well tonight): “ First of all we were getting defensive stops at the beginning of the game. That’s how we got up to that lead. I think they didn’t score ten points until about four minutes or under into the first quarter. So, I think we did a great job of putting them on their heels on their offensive end.”
“I’m just taking what the defense gives me. It’s hard to pinpoint because each team plays different defensive schemes. I’m just taking what is there.”
“I heard brad talking about how I don’t take enough of them (threes), so he kind of emphasized me shooting them more. Its definitely something I have worked on this summer a lot, I’ve been shooting them every day.”
(In reference to threes): I think it is going to help this team more with driving lanes. I mean I always get on the block and force people to kind of step up and guard me.”
(Did you consider yourself a three point shooter before this season): “Yeah always. Before I got hurt Doc gave me the leeway to shoot the three and I got hurt so I couldn’t really do it.”