See what the Brooklyn Nets had to say after their 112-104 loss to the Philadelphia 76ers.
KENNY ATKINSON
On how the Nets played:
"Valiant effort, I thought valiant effort on our part. We had opportunities, they made plays at the end and we didn’t, and we put them on the foul line a ton. That’s the frustrating thing; we can argue we fouled them or we didn’t foul them, the fact of the matter is that they went to the line 35 times. Our margin of error is just too small to do that. We gifted them too many points"
On Philadelphia's defense down the stretch:
“They did a great strategy, they denied and made it really tough on Caris [LeVert] and Spencer [Dinwiddie] and left [Joel] Embiid at the rim. We tried to go small with Wilson [Chandler] out there to spread them out a little bit, but there’s a trade-off with that … then you have to deal with Embiid on the other end. They have a lot of good players. They made plays, we didn’t. It’s too bad, we had a great opportunity.”
On what the loss is like for Nets:
“It hurts… it motivates you, too, games like this. That group in there, I know they fought like crazy. We’re going to be a good team, I feel good about that. I’m just frustrated our guys weren’t rewarded with the effort they made tonight.”
SPENCER DINWIDDIE
On Joel Embiid's defensive presence:
“Obviously, Embiid is one of, if not the best, centers in the league…he did his job and he was able to get his team the win.”
On reaction to the loss:
“We just have to keep pushing. Obviously, we played a competitive game. We want to win every single game we play. We’ll keep building, earn our respect in this league, and take away the positives and understand how to clean up the negatives.”
On the season going forward:
“We have the talent to still be a good team, still make the playoffs, and to your point, do special things. It’s just all about coming together, being cohesive, and pushing forward.”
CARIS LEVERT
On emotions throughout the game:
“It was definitely a back and forth game. I feel like we should have come out on top, definitely some things we can learn from in that game. I feel like we played a good game in stretches. We played our best basketball for stretches, but then other stretches we had a bunch of lapses. Like I said, it was a good game tonight.”
On Joel Embiid's defense:
“He’s definitely one of the best rim protectors in the league. Just his presence, not even him blocking shots all the time, just his presence. I’ve just got to be better. We’ve got to be better as a team attacking him.”
On going forward without Kyrie Irving:
“Obviously, we feel bad for him. He wants to be out here with us. That’s first and foremost. He definitely worked extremely hard to come back. It’s just a series of unfortunate things that happened with him. So, we just have a next-man-up mentality right now and try to finish out this season the right way. We all know we’re trying to get to the playoffs, so that’s in our sights right now.”