PELICANS HEAD COACH ALVIN GENTRY
RE: Thoughts on the final minutes of the game
“I thought we did a good job. Obviously, I didn’t think they were going to just lay down and die. I’ve never seen one of Doc Rivers’ teams do that any way. I thought we became a little less aggressive and that got us into some trouble. At the end, we did a great job of scoring when we really needed to. Defensively we were pretty good too. They got off shots, but they were really tough and contested shots. We rebounded the basketball. [Anthony Davis] went to the free throw line and made the free throws."
RE: Importance of ball security
"We talked a little bit yesterday and pre-game today about valuing the ball and trying not to make the spectacular plays. Just make good solid plays, and we did that today. We were getting shots up and obviously that is better than turning the ball over. I thought we were very good at protecting the ball and we got very good looks. When we don't turn it over, we had over 100 shots [attempted] tonight. [Anthony Davis] was spectacular. [Jrue Holiday] played through after being poked in the eye, he never got his vision quite back, but we were really good tonight."
RE: Pelicans forward Anthony Davis
"They were doing a good job of keeping the ball away from [Anthony Davis]. They always had two players around him. But we found a way to get him the ball, post up to the basket. So, when they were coming right away, you can see he made a couple of really nice passes out of it. But then hewas also going quickly, he didn't really give them a chance to double team him before he could get a shot off. It just started to click for him. He also got into the open court. When he plays in the open court, he's pretty tough to guard."
PELICANS FORWARD ANTHONY DAVIS
RE: Pelicans forward Julius Randle
"It's fun [having Julius Randle on the court]. He plays very physically, he can score the basketball, he can make switches one through four, he can guard every position on the court. He's a good player. So anytime he's on the floor, he takes pressure off everybody, knowing that he can offensive rebound, he can score, he set good screens, he does all the stuff that we need."
RE: What he told his teammates at the end of the first quarter
"I just told everybody that I sucked. I was missing shots that normally I make. That's why we have four other guys on the floor. They were able to score the basketball and they held it down. Once I found my rhythm, they were telling me to go get the ball. That's why this is a team game, all the guys played well tonight. Guys stepped up on both ends of the floor. [Darius Miller] made shots, [Jrue Holiday] made shots, Julius [Randle] played well. Everybody who stepped on the floor definitely helped us tonight."
RE: Dominant paint performance
"It doesn't matter who's guarding me. I just try to make the best of [every opportunity] and try to help the team win. Me and Julius, we both know that we're good post players and we were able to score a lot in the post. No matter who guards us, we just try to be dominant in the paint."
PELICANS GUARD JRUE HOLIDAY
RE: Overall thoughts on tonight's game
"We just closed out the game. We got the lead, from there [we had ball security]. We did everything we needed to do to keep the lead. We got stops in big moments, big rebounds, big shots, giving the ball to [Anthony Davis]. I know there were couple times when we missed some shots, but we got stops at the other end and if Anthony makes the shot right after that, it kind of subsides [the missed shots]. Overall good win."
RE: Clippers' near comeback in the fourth quarter
"They just went on a run really. They played hard. We know what kind of team they are. They come out and punch you in the mouth. They are really aggressive, but we withstood the punch and got the win."
RE: Mentality in road games
"Stay calm, have composure, and play like we've been in those situations before which we had. Last year we were pretty good at it. This year we just got to take it a game at a time. There are three or four more games left on this road trip, so we got a chance every game against good teams. We proved what we could do in the last four minutes."