PELICANS HEAD COACH ALVIN GENTRY:
ON THE KEY TO WINNING TONIGHT IN SACRAMENTO
“I think the pace of the game. I thought it was at a really good pace. I think when we play at that pace we create threes. We shot 42 threes and I think most of that was because of the pace of the game. I thought Elfrid [Payton] did a good job. Obviously, Ian [Clark] shot the ball extremely well. Jahlil [Okafor] was really good. I thought it was a combination of a lot of things. The thing that I liked most about it was that we squandered away the lead away pretty quickly, the 16 point lead. But our guys just regrouped and came back and played real well.”
ON THIS GAME BEING A DIFFERENT SCENARIO THAN THE ONE IN PHOENIX
“It is, very much so. The thing that I said all along is that we hadn’t played well all the time, but these guys have played extremely hard and they played unselfishly. It would be easy after the Phoenix game to come up here and kind of go through the motions, but that’s not what these guys are about. They really wanted to win this game and they played that way.”
ON IAN CLARK’S CAREER-HIGH OF 31 POINTS
“He really has and tonight I thought he got off to such a great start and he shot the ball extremely well. Defensively, I thought he did a great job on Buddy [Hield], just all around pushing the basketball, passing the basketball. I thought we were really good. I thought Ian set the tone for us and he got us off to a good start and settled us in right from the start. That first quarter was really frantic, but it was going to be that way throughout the game. When one team shoots 101 field goals and the other team shoots 109, so that’s the kind of pace that we want to try to establish and that’s the kind of pace we want to play with every single game really.”
PELICANS CENTER JAHLIL OKAFOR:
ON ONLY HAVING EIGHT GUYS AVAILABLE
“I think just knowing who we have out there had to step up and it was a lot of fun. Solo [Solomon Hill] before the game let us know to go out there and have fun. We have two more games left, one now. We left the season on a high note and everybody went out there and supported each other. We had each other’s back. It didn’t feel like it was just eight people. It was fun.”
ON IAN CLARK HAVING AN AMAZING GAME TONGINT
“He’s been given a consistent opportunity to find his rhythm and his flow. He’s an amazing shooter, an amazing player all around. It feels good for me to see him out there and do that, but that’s no surprise.”