See what the Brooklyn Nets had to say after their 132-128 win over the Atlanta Hawks.
STEVE NASH
On Harden more aggressive shooting:
“I think encouraging is the word. I don’t want to force him. He knows what he’s doing and he knows where his body’s at and where this process of assimilating to a new group is. We want him to aggressive, but we’re gonna give him his head and let him decide how he plays, bug we definitely love it when he’s aggressive and there’s some tough matchups out there for him and he got going at an important time and we found a way to get it done, somehow.”
On Kevin Durant through 15 games:
“Obviously he’s played great offensively. I think he’s still trying to get comfortable though. That’s how good he is. He’s just a walking bucket. He’s just out there on the floor, and he can fall into baskets just with his talent, skill, length, athleticism. He looks great, he’s moving great, he’s scoring the ball well. I think he still thought has layers to go to feel more comfortable defensively, rebounding, rounding out his game, all the things that he’s been able to do outside of scoring, and that confidence. Just feeling comfortable playing basketball again after such a long layoff takes time. No matter how good he is, how many points he scores, how many 30-point games in a row he has, I think he’s still trying to feel it himself, and that takes time. You can’t just not play for 18 months, have a short camp, start playing, and feel it in the first 10, 15 games. It might take another 10, 15 games. He’s been remarkable with all those parameters and things I’ve just mentioned. But I still think he’s going to continue to feel more comfortable, more confident, and round out his game.”
On Bruce Brown:
KYRIE IRVING
On what he was proud of:
“Just our fight, you know. Obviously, throughout the whole game, there's runs that you’ve just got to be able to withstand teams are gonna throw a lot of things at us to float a game, call wise can go either way. So we just want to stay resilient, and just stick to what we know. And that's just playing basketball at a very high level IQ-wise, giving each other space and just respecting each other's greatness. And then also just having a relentlessness to continue to weather the storm throughout the game, no matter what's going on, I'm making shots or not. So that’s definitely what I'm most proud of.”
On playing high minutes:
“I think Steve is just trying to find a healthy balance. You know, obviously, we have experience in terms of years in the league. But, you know, I'm headed into the prime of my career. Sometimes I tell Steve, 'Hey man, just let me go out there and let me loose.' Like I said, we just find a healthy balance of being very communicative with each other and just being up front and just following the game plan that we all agree to before we go out there. And it is easy to play your role when guys are just out there just playing and matching your level, which makes it easier to go on the bench. I'm happy to be out there getting the rest sometimes. I've struggled in my career just wanting to be out there long and log minutes and early on in my career I had some injuries where I was like, 'Man, this is too much,' and now being with guys that you know, in this present time that are able to keep the lead, sustain it, and do what they do out there, great. Let them rock.”
On trust:
JAMES HARDEN
On final play of regulation:
“I know the last play of regulation, I was trying to get switched so Kevin could have the ball at the top of the floor, but it was just too much congestion and I didn’t want to risk the pass. So the game clock was going down and I tried to create some separation and get off my shot, and I think it was a pretty good look, it was just a little bit too long.”
On playing with no fans:
"Luckily for me, I think some of the players that have already been here got an opportunity to get a feel for that in the bubble, and then for me starting off in Houston, we had minimal fans as well, so you’ve just gotta bring it every night. You’ve gotta bring it. You’ve gotta create your own energy, your own mojo, and it’s basically like practice but more intensity and obviously more on the line. So to me, tonight was a great win for us. We stuck with it for four quarters and overtime, and we just kept playing, kept moving on possession after possession. Calls -- some of the calls weren’t going our way, which is fine, we’ve just gotta keep playing through it and I think we did a really good job of that tonight."
On transition scoring:
“That’s with our defense. If we get stops and we get out in transition, it makes our job a lot easier. Obviously half court sets, we’re able to score and create shots for ourselves and our teammates, but it’s more difficult every possession to be able to score in the half court. Tonight when we needed stops, we got stops, especially that unit in the fourth quarter with Bruce and Joe and Jeff and TLC did an unbelievable job of just being feisty, rebounding the basketball, creating some energy and that was the turning point of the game.”