WILLIE GREEN, PELICANS HEAD COACH
On his conversation with Brandon Ingram to start the second half:
“I just told him he has to play faster and with more force. Sometimes he’ll have a tendency to survey the game, but when he plays fast, there’s nothing anybody can do with him. He started to get it going and you could see right away. He got the ball, he drove, he made plays, got to the free throw line. With our team, we have to get stops, rebound the ball and we have to play fast.”
On the win:
“It’s been a long journey to get to this point, starting the season off the way that we did. It’s a credit to the guys in the locker room and the people in our organization. More importantly, it’s a credit to God. Just keeping Him first in everything that we do. Giving Him praise and glory and just staying with it. Trusting. Believing. The season’s not over, we still have a long way to go, but we’re just building confidence and momentum at the right time.”
BRANDON INGRAM, PELICANS FORWARD
On pulling out the win:
“We had some poise tonight. Late in that game, it was us scoring, them scoring, us trying to get rebounds, stops and pushing our pace and then late down the stretch we had some good execution. CJ [McCollum] made some tough shots. CJ hit some big free throws at the end of that game. Everybody was locked in on the defensive end. We’ve been confident from the first to the fourth quarter.”
On his conversation with Willie Green:
“Coach just told me to tighten up. He said I was playing too slow in the third quarter. That’s all I needed – just to get going and put an effect on the game, so I just kind of got aggressive. I found the right guys on the basketball floor that made some good cuts. CJ, Herb was on the wing, Trey Murphy was on the wing just trying to make good decision after good decision.”
CJ MCCOLLUM, PELICANS GUARD
On their mentality tonight:
“They just show up at the hoop. I don’t think they really read into the magnitude of each game, how important it is, what it means. I think guys just show up, do their job, play as hard as they can, and live with the results, which is really important. You can’t really get caught up in ‘oh if we win, then this happens, if we lose, then this happens’. Just do your job to the best of your ability and live with the result. I think tonight we did that. We competed. Obviously, I’m glad we won, but if we would’ve lost this game with the way we played, I could’ve lived with that.
On tonight’s win:
“I think we got stops and we executed in the half-court. I think that was the difference in the game. We stopped giving them second chance opportunities and got back and loaded up defensively.”