PELICANS HEAD COACH ALVIN GENTRY:
ON THIS GAME BEING THE SAME AS THE PREVIOUS MATCHUP
“It’s exactly the same, we play good basketball and then when we need to execute and come up with big defensive plays, we don’t. This three-game road trip has been very similar. All the games have been very similar, where we have played and we have been right there and we have not been able to close, defend or come up with baskets. Some of the shots we have gotten have been very makeable shots that we have to make. We didn’t do it and to me, the last five-six minutes of the game they just competed harder than we did.”
ON SACRAMENTO MAKING ANYTHING DIFFICULT TO DEFEND
“No, they did exactly what they did throughout the game. We played well over stretches and then we go away from what we are doing. We stop moving the basketball, we try to do it ourselves and we are not capable of doing that. We are capable of being a very good basketball team when we move the basketball and we do what we did the first half and even the third quarter. In the fourth quarter, we did not make the plays that are necessary to win games on the road in the NBA. As we said to them right from the start, this is a team that is not going to quit playing. They were down 20 to Memphis, they came back, they were down 15, 18 and all they do is continue to play and try to get a rhythm and try to come up with some stops. That’s what they did against us. Buddy [Hield] made some big shots. Bogdan [Bogdanovic] I thought did a really good job of controlling the game and the result is that we didn’t do the things necessary to win and they did.”
PELICANS GUARD JRUE HOLIDAY:
ON THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE WAY THE [KINGS] STARTED AND ENDED THE GAME
“The second half they were making shots. They always play hard, they always play with energy, so, they’re always liable to come back and put themselves in the game or in position to win.”