See what the Brooklyn Nets had to say after their 128-119 win over the Phoenix Suns.
STEVE NASH
On Durant and Irving:
“Pretty typical of those two: Efficient, explosive scorers. I thought they did a good job playing off each other and keeping the thing moving and us playing as a team. And I thought there was a pretty good flow out there for the most part.”
On managing Durant's minutes:
“I think we monitor it and we'll see if we start him next game or not. But that's the type of thing that we want to just continue to have the flexibility to decide game-to-game what's the best output for him, and what's the best order of the output. And tonight, we just made sure that — although he'd load up in the second half of minutes — he would have plenty of breaks. He’d come out of the game with a break, you'd have the quarter break and have timeouts. So he came out twice and had a quarter break in between. So we just tried to manage it that way.”
On bringing Durant off the bench:
“Two things, I think you think big picture and I’d rather fall behind and have Kevin in the back pocket then go up and say, ‘OK Kev, you’re done,’ in the third quarter. I think that’s kind of the give and take of it and he’s been on board with it, so props to Kevin for being willing to try something like this that gives us a chance to be as flexible as we can be under the circumstances.”
KEVIN DURANT
On coming off the bench:
“I just deal with it and adapt to the situation. Coach asked me today if I wanted to start or come off the bench, and I felt like it would be a bigger challenge for me to focus in and lock in if I came off the bench, so I just wanted to see how that worked. If I shot bad, I probably would have been pissed that I came off the bench, but I was able to knock down some shots. But it was a solid exercise for me to ease back into the swing of things.”
On if Suns were measuring stick game:
“Just another game. I think they look at us as a measuring stick, too. They’re fresh on the scene as an elite team. This is pretty new to them, so we wanted to gauge and take that physicality that they bring. The toughness, that quickness that they bring. But that’s all it was. Just another day at the office.”
On offense in second half:
“I feel like the whole first half we were down like 12 shots. They had more shots than us the whole first half and I think we cut that down in the second half. By not turning the ball over not taking quick shots so we early on even if we made a shot they were pushing it out before the break and they got easy layups and 3-pointers because we're not focused. I think we kept the ball in our hands, made good shots, good reads and was able to get back into it.”
BLAKE GRIFFIN
On win over Suns, No. 2 in West:
"Phoenix is a great team. They obviously have played really, really well this season. Right now, especially at this point in the season, it’s about working on us. We haven’t all been on the floor together, and we’re coming down the stretch here where we really need to tighten things up. It’s great to get a win, great to get a win against a Western Conference team, but it’s more about how we do it and the things that we execute on."
On falling behind by 12:
“I thought we gave up second-chance points. We also turned the ball over and were missing some shots. I think they had 12 more shots at halftime. Anytime they have 12 more shots and we’re down two, anytime you can limit those extra shots, those unnecessary shots, just by taking care of the ball, you can get back and set your defense. I thought in the half-court we did a pretty good job. In transition they killed us, and second-chance points in the first half, they had the advantage. So we cut down on those, and we were much better.”
On Kevin Durant:
“No matter how much you’re used to it, it’s always impressive to see just how efficiently and how easily he scores. The thing I love the most about it is we all know, I mean, one of my favorite things about him is how much he just loves to play basketball. You know when he’s sitting out it’s just killing him. Just to see that joy of being able to play basketball again is fun for us and fun for me.”