NEW ORLEANS PELICANS HEAD COACH ALVIN GENTRY:
Opening statement:
"We played hard. I thought we competed at a real high level. I thought we got ourselves into a little bit of trouble when we tried to do a little bit too much one-on-one, but when we tried to move the ball and move ourselves a lot of good things happened for us. It seemed like every time we got down we found a way to get back in the game. Even at the end with three minutes to go we were down 16 I think and got it to five at one stage and had a breakaway layup that we just couldn't get into the basket. Frank (Jackson) was right there and just couldn't get it in the basket. So a couple things like that and Paul made some good shots for them. But, I thought we competed as hard as we possibly could and played very unselfishly and put ourselves in a position to win. We just didn't quite have enough fire power to get over the hump. But I thought Jrue (Holiday) was great. I thought Jahlil (Okafor) and Cheick (Diallo) played really good at the center spot. We did everything we could, we just didn't quite have enough fire power to get over the hump."
On guys stepping up considering shortened roster:
"I think what we showed is that if we compete at a real high level we should be able to play with anybody in this league. That's a very good basketball team. Not only are they (Thunder) very good but they're deep. They have one of the best players in the league in Russell, and Paul George is proven. He's a starter in the All-Star game. That's all you need to know. I think you can see that if you just compete at a real high level and play hard and play unselfishly you can keep yourself in a lot of these games and some of them you'll be able to steal."
On his team's play:
"I thought all of our guys played well. There's not anybody I thought played poorly. I thought everybody played well and did something to put us in the position where we were. Like I said, we just didn't quite make the shots that we needed to. We had great looks. We had some really good looks. We just didn't quite make the shots that would have put us in a position where it would have become a one or two possession game."
NEW ORLEANS PELICANS FORWARD DARIUS MILLER:
On how they played and were able to come back after big leads:
"Just how we battled, I feel like we played with a lot of intensity. They played really well but we just came back and fought. We didn't do what we needed to accomplish tonight. Hopefully we can the next game."
On how much Steven Adams comes up when preparing for this game:
"Of course he comes up a lot. He's a huge part of the team. He's a big guy who does his job every night, night in and night out. So he’s a huge part of the preparation we have for the Thunder."
NEW ORLEANS PELICANS CENTER JAHLIL OKAFOR:
On Darius Miller and Jrue Holiday in the fourth quarter:
"They're both great players. They're both confident in themselves.”