Pelicans Head Coach Alvin Gentry
On tonight’s game:
"Well, it’s kind of what we’ve been going through, where we played good basketball, now we just have all kinds of trouble closing games. Had a couple defensive mishaps, when we really need to make the shots we didn’t make them and they did. Luka [Doncic] came off and made a few free throws, JJ [Barea] made a couple three pointers, we exchanged baskets a few times but when we really needed to stop we didn’t."
On the last two possessions:
"He [Anthony Davis] had played well, we should have gotten him the ball a few more times…he was a little impatient. I thought he had such an advantage of the last two times down the floor. We have to put ourselves in the position where we have to get him the ball in those situations. We didn’t and one of them ended up in a turn over, an offensive foul, and the other a missed shot. The effort was good…everything was good about it. There are a couple things that could have gone differently, that could have gone our way that didn’t, that’s all part of it. We just have to learn to play through those things, now we’re in a position where we’re struggling to close games. That makes us 5-13 since Thanksgiving. The big thing about that is the point differential is now 19, you can see we are right there, but it doesn’t matter, we can’t be close…we have got to find a way to win games."
On this being the most frustrating loss:
"Probably, because I thought we played well and once again we had an eight point lead and then we make a couple of dumb plays. We have to get that out of system. As I told you guys… you don’t lose the game in the last two minutes. We step out of bounds three times… that’s elementary school, you can’t step bounds when we throw you the ball. That’s a turnover that is just ridiculous to have, especially when your team is struggling and trying to come up with a win. We have to play smarter, we need to play better, but we also need to play smarter. Like I said, Anthony [Davis] is doing good. He’s forcing them to double team… he’s making plays and making shots. The ball has to go to him, we can’t run out there, take it, and throw it to him. We have to be smart enough to know that he’s doing good and let’s throw him the basketball."
Pelicans Guard Jrue Holiday
On the frustration of losing games:
“I guess you can say their zone messed with us, but not really. I think we had a lot of open shots that we missed. I think they executed well down the stretch.”
On what he liked about the offense tonight:
“I like how we increased the pace. Even with Anthony [Davis] in foul trouble, it kind of increased the pace a lot. We have different guys in there, different lineups, and they did very, very well. Frank [Jackson] played well and Jahlil [Okafor] played well. Defensively, I think we did pretty solid for the most part. Again, we just have to go watch film and see what we can correct.”