ALVIN GENTRY– PELICANS HEAD COACH
On tonight’s game:
“Yeah I thought we played great defensively. Other than the turnovers I thought we did what we had to do to win the game. Obviously the sixteen turnovers for twenty points is a little disturbing, but for the most part I thought we played well. Some of the turnovers were good turnovers because we were trying to do the right thing and get the ball to the right people. So those you can live with. But I think anytime you can come and won a game on the road it’s a good win.”
On the team’s offensive performance:
“Yeah I thought we did a good job. Initially and for most of the game they were fronting the post, having a weak side guy come in. So it was really difficult for us to post the ball to [Anthony Davis] and DeMarcus [Cousins]. I thought we did a good job reading the situations. I thought we forced some plays early on but then we did a good job of taking what was given to us.”
On the bench guys coming in and contributing:
“I thought we did a good job. You know Omar came in and gave us four good minutes. Deandre came in and then obviously the guys that have been playing. Jameer played great I thought, and did what we needed for him to do. Darius has been a steady player for us anyways. So our bench did a good job. Not only moving the basketball and creating shots. And once again I thought we had a lot of shots we were capable of making that just didn’t make. But they had something to do with that. They did a good job with their rotation and then running us off the line and making us take an extra little dribble and try to dribble penetrate and create another play.”
On the Hornets defensive plan:
“Well they make you pass the basketball and they do a great job of taking your main players out of the game. From the standpoint of they don’t ever give them a comfort level to play in or space to play in. Every time [Anthony Davis] touched the ball or every time DeMarcus put it down. You saw that they maybe sent one or two guys at him. So we did a good job of just picking it up and making that easy play.”
ANTHONY DAVIS – PELICANS FORWARD
On tonight’s game:
“Yea I mean every win is a good win for us, stuff we can go back and look at and try to correct, but we will take any type of win.”
On adjusting to Charlotte’s defense:
“Yea just talk more. They were trying to take me and DeMarcus out. Other guys just came in and made plays. It was a great team win tonight, you know this is a team that of course is fighting to get back to where they were, so we are just trying to stay where we are and improve as well, but we wanted to come in and get this win.”
On Jrue Holiday’s play at the end of the game:
“We went to our go to plays and have him make plays. He (Jrue Holiday) got some good looks at the rim, layups and made them and after that we got some stops, and you know just playing defense after that and making free throws.” On team defense: “We are just simplifying our defense, whatever it takes. We just got to come out in third quarters a little bit better, but I think overall defensively we have been playing pretty good. We just have to keep it going especially Friday, you know that’s a tough team. This team scores well we just have to lock in defensively.”
On Dwight’s thousandth game:
“Great defender. You know he (Dwight Howard) is constantly improving on his offensive game, so when you continue to get better you are constantly in the league. He has been bounced around a little bit, but you know at the same time he has established himself. Congrats to him for playing in a thousand games. I’m pretty sure he is going to surpass that by a lot. I feel he has a lot more years left in this league and that is a huge accomplishment.”
On tonight’s game:
“It is a basketball game. We are on the road they are at home, and we knew they were going to start come back. They made plays, but we just grinded it out keep playing, keep playing for each other, playing defense, and just have to come out with the win.”
DEMARCUS COUSINS – PELICANS CENTER
On tonight’s win:
“It was a good team effort. I think everybody played a part in this win tonight. Some mental mistakes throughout the game, but we stayed poised, we stayed together. Down the stretch we did it on the defensive end. We got stops when we needed to and we pulled out a good, solid road win.”
On Jrue Holiday scoring some big points late:
“Dwight [Howard] didn’t want to leave my body tonight. That’s their rim protector, that’s the guy that calls out the paint for them and you could kind of tell his main concern was to make sure I didn’t score. He wanted it to be a tough night for me offensively and we just kind of took advantage of it. I noticed it and I told Jrue [Holiday] the paint was wide-open. Jrue is a big guard. I don’t think anybody in the league can guard him one-on-one and I told him to just take advantage of it. Take advantage of the paint being wide-open.”