Pelicans Coach Alvin Gentry:
On what he liked about the win tonight:
“That we won. I think it could have been easy for us to kind of cave in when we had the big lead and Brooklyn came back. I was really proud of the guys for hanging in there and keep fighting and find a way to win the game. At the end of the day, you either win or you lose. They don’t say you get extra points for being up 20 or whatever. Just the fact that we were able to play and continued to fight, even when the game was tied, even when we got behind, and find a way to win. To me, that was the most important thing.”
On what he didn’t like about the win:
“I think the only thing we did was we got a little cautious when we got up. We stopped running. We stopped pushing the basketball and attacking and played too conservative I thought. Our whole deal is that we decided that we are going to be a team that attacks the basketball, pushes the basketball, and gets into the open floor. I thought we did a good job with that the first half, even in the third quarter, and then I thought we started to play a little bit cautious when we were up. I thought we started to walk the ball and play a little too cautious. In the end, I thought we did a good job defensively. We found a way to come back and win the game. I thought Anthony Davis and Nikola Mirotic were really good in the screen-and-roll. I thought they did a good job on the switches and keeping the guards in front of them. Even when Brooklyn drove to the basket, they made it really hard for them to finish. For us, when we needed the stops the most we came up with them.”
Pelicans forward Anthony Davis
On Rajon Rondo:
“You know, we were running plays and he was just, little boy started to get layups and then go up there (to the free-throw line) and make them pay for it. He played well tonight, made the right plays.”
On the Nets coming back from down 28:
“We were just playing. You know they live by the three, die by the three and they were missing a lot and then they were able to get hot, especially Allen Crabbe, so that’s how they get back in the game. Had to keep fighting, keep doing what we did to get the lead. We missed a lot ourselves but we stayed with them when we do, get back out and running and found a way to get a basket.”
On Nikola Mirotic:
“Rebound the basketball. That’s really it. There’s a lot of good he did, made sure we got a lot of tough rebounds towards the end of the game and getting long rebounds and outlet to the guards. I think everybody did a great job rebounding the basketball. Anytime they got a rebound they kicked it out and made three’s and we didn’t want that, especially going into overtime. We just wanted to make sure we came away with a win.”
Pelicans forward Nikola Mirotic
On the game:
“In the beginning of the game we played with a great effort. We got shots by finding each other and we built the lead in the beginning by 20 points, something like that. But we knew that their strength was the 3-point shot. The only way they could get back in the game was making threes, and they did. They made some really tough shots. In the second half, they got back into the game and it was a really tough game, emotionally too, to go two overtimes. But once again, we did a great job and we found a way to win the game. It was a good win for us.”
On if he thought he played better on offense or defense:
“100 percent, defense. It was a solid game offensively. I missed a lot of open shots, but I think it was huge, my defense, rebounding the ball, especially because they played small today. We were switching one through four, and I think I was capable of guarding the ball and I think we won the game defensively. Especially those two overtimes, we did a great job and offensively found AD (Anthony Davis), and Jrue (Holiday) did a great job. So we executed well.”