See what the Brooklyn Nets had to say after their 113-108 loss to the Charlotte Hornets.
KENNY ATKINSON
On what opened the door for Charlotte comeback:
“I felt like we were controlling the game in the first half and a fair amount of the game. I just think we got into kind of a back-and-forth game, didn’t put our foot down, all of the clichés. Just didn’t have the appropriate consistent play that we needed to have. Like I said the first two games, they gave us tough games. We obviously didn’t shoot the ball well tonight but when I look at the box score, 15-for-35 from three, they shot it too well. We didn’t do a good enough job defending them.”
On poor 3-point shooting:
“For some reason we just weren’t in sync tonight. We were just talking about it. It’s hard to figure out. We had two days in between, it wasn’t that we had been playing every other day, we had two days in between. I thought we were going to be a little fresher—physically a little better. But like I said, we got lulled into thinking it was going to be an easy game, psychologically, and it’s just not that way in the NBA. They have too many shooters, too many scorers. But they completely deserved the game. I thought they outplayed us. It’s hard to argue anything else.”
On if Hornets zone took Nets centers out of game:
“I think they did a much better job keeping them off the boards. We were missing in the first half, we were cleaning all those misses up. I felt like in the second half, they did a much better job of defending us. They played a little zone. I thought that kind of mucked the game up a little. Like I said, credit to them. At the end of the day, they outplayed us. And on a night like tonight, you’d love to get stops. If you’re not making shots, you have to do a better job defending in general. And then Devonte’ (Graham), in three games we haven’t figured out how to stop him, so we better go back to the drawing board.”
SPENCER DINWIDDIE
On Charlotte's switch to zone:
“We definitely got stagnant after they went to zone which is pretty surprising with the caliber of shooters that we have on the team. We just have to make quicker decisions as a unit to get those guys shots. When you have guys like Joe (Harris), (Garrett Temple) and Taurean Prince on the floor, we’ve got to get those guys shots. They’re phenomenal shooters. Nobody should be able to zone us, especially in our own house. We should be able to shoot them out of the thing. We just have to do a better job collectively.”
On upcoming challenge vs. Toronto:
“I think it speaks to their championship mentality. Obviously they lost a great player, but it speaks to their collective effort and their collective will to win. It shows why they deserved the championship last year that they won. It’s kind of like what’s been going on during our win streak. Like I told you, if you hold a team to 100 points, or a little bit less, you always have a puncher’s chance at winning. We’re all NBA players. We can all score the basketball and we have enough skill in this locker room to score 100 points just like they do. If they have an elite defense that they can hold everybody under 100 then they have a chance to win every single game. The more consistent they are with that and the more stifling they are the better their win probability.”
JARRETT ALLEN
On what opened the door for Hornets:
“I think it was the zone that they went in. Once they went in that we couldn’t really get our offense flowing and credit to them, they played great defense.”
On if loss will keep team focused for upcoming games:
“Yes. It’s a wakeup call. After we lose a game like this, credit to them still, but once we lose a game like this we’re going to have to prepare extra hard for the next game. We’ll look at our mistakes and improve on them.”
On if zone took away inside game:
“I think it was the zone. We were taking advantage of them being up on screens, you see a lot of us slipping to them rim and that’s putting them out of position for rebounding. But, when they went into zone they had all five in the paint ready to rebound.”