Head Coach Kenny Atkinson, Brooklyn Nets
On the shot by Allen Crabbe with under a minute to go:“I trusted him. He’s a 40 percent 3-point shooter, second-best 3-point shooter in the league. I still have confidence in him and great pass by Spencer (Dinwiddie). Spencer had a choice of getting to the rim or Allen (Crabbe) sets a back screen and pops. So he had the choice and Spencer did a really good job finding him and trusting it.”
On the first game back from the Mexico City trip:“I was pleasantly surprised at our energy. I thought we had great energy. Definitely worried about the trip and the travel but the guys did a great job. Great job by our performance team. They get these guys ready, they do all the cold tub and massage and they do a fantastic job taking care of these guys. I think that was the key. We had great energy.”
On defense being the key late in the game:“No doubt about it. It was our defense entirely. I think we held them to 20 in the fourth quarter. I think our guys really locked in, did a good job on (Bradley) Beal. He took 18 shots in the first half, I thought he was going to take 18 in the second, so we just wanted to bring his percentage down and play the numbers. I thought we did a good job of keeping him off the free-throw line and obviously taking away the three’s, forcing him into those pull-ups, contested pull-ups. And then I thought we rebounded the ball. That was my big fear, they miss and there’s an extra possession. Our guys did a good job rebounding and finishing the play.”
On the combination of LeVert and Dinwiddie on the floor:“Yeah, they’re good together. We’ve got two ball handlers on the court. I thought Caris (LeVert) when we were struggling, we went dead and they came back, I think they took the lead by two, and he just had a stretch where he was pick-and-roll, pass, pick-and-roll, pass, finish, three. I just thought he had a great, great period there that really kept us afloat. I felt like Washington was starting to take over and he really did great. Defensively, Caris did a great job, Spencer (Dinwiddie) was on him a bit and Spencer did a good job and Allen Crabbe did a good job. We just wanted to wear them down. You’re not going to stop them so the idea was let’s see if we can, he’s playing a lot of minutes, can we wear him down. Good job by those three guys.”
Spencer Dinwiddie, Brooklyn Nets
On how big this was to get the win beginning an extended home stretch:“It was definitely big. I think we’re turning up right now. We’ve been playing better basketball as of late, even with the Miami Heat loss. I just think we’re kind of starting to see the trend going up.”
On what’s been the key to the Nets playing better basketball:“I think we’re just coming out with attention to detail that we might not have had before, playing harder, and our defense has been a little bit better.”
On whether it says something about the team pulling out a win despite shooting 23 percent from the 3-point line:“Wow, that’s quite awful. I’m sure me and Allen (Crabbe) are big culprits of that – that’s my guy, so I threw him in there. But yeah, I think it means a lot for us.”
On if he knew Crabbe wasn’t having a good night when he trusted him on the final play of the game:“I don’t care about any of that. He was one of the best three-point shooters in the league last year. I don’t know what his percentages are this year, but my man can shoot. Anytime he’s open, I’m going to find him.”
On holding Bradley Beal to 11-for-33 tonight:“Yeah, that was pretty big-time. Guys like that, if you just look at points, you’re never really going to stop such a large amount of possessions. But any time you get their main guy shooting 30 times at 30 percent, you did your job.”
Allen Crabbe, Brooklyn Nets
On his own confidence in his three-point shooting ability:“I think it was just that ‘I don’t care’ attitude. If you miss, you miss. That used to be my problem in the past, missing so many shots and I’ll start getting tentative and look to pass up on shots. Every time I miss a shot, teammates and coaches tell me to shoot the next one, we don’t care how many you shoot and miss, if you’re open, shoot the ball. That’s why I’m here, to shoot the ball. I understand I’m not going to be 10-for-10 every night from the three-point line.”
On his shot at the end of the game:“Yeah, I was expecting it. That was the play Kenny drew up. We had to sell it pretty well because they were switching everything. I’m glad that I got open, got a good look and shot it.”
On the team’s defensive turnaround:“I think it’s just heart, really. It comes from within. You can’t teach defense. I think it’s all effort. Guys are buying in. Then when you get stops and get out on the break, you open up a lot of things. You don’t have to get into the offensive half-court sets, we can get out and run. We are young, that’s what we want to do. We want to push the pace, we want to get easy 3’s or dunks. You get stops on defense it makes everything fun. Everybody is buying in, you see the team jumping up on the sidelines and encouraging us. I feel like we have taken individual defense pretty seriously.”