Pelicans Head Coach Stan Van Gundy

On tonight’s defensive performance:

“Even in the first half, I didn’t think our defense was bad. I thought our effort was good. The problem was in the first half, we were throwing the ball away and then they were getting out in transition on us and getting some easy shots. Throughout the whole game, particularly in the first half, we had a couple of them where we were fouling three-point shooters. I think the real lesson of this game for our guys is we beat a really good team. We were far from perfect. In fact, if you look at the numbers, we didn’t shoot it well. There were a lot of things we didn’t do, but we kept fighting. We were down 24, we kept fighting and nobody dropped their heads tonight. We were resilient and we came away with a win. We made it interesting down the stretch for sure, but we ended up getting the job done.”

On the offensive adjustments made in the second half:

“I don’t know if their guys got tired or our guys had more force, but somehow we got Brandon (Ingram) and Zion (Williamson) a little bit more room to get downhill and to make some plays. I think part of it, having Nicolò (Melli) in the game in the fourth helped a little bit, because early, especially with Zion in, they were brining both bigs to him all the time. That gets a little tougher when Nicolò’s out there. Even though he only made the one shot, you’ve still got to play him a little bit. So that helped and then our guys just made big plays. Our guys made plays, but the biggest thing is they got stops. They got stops.”

Pelicans Forward Zion Williamson

On what it meant for the team to make the comeback especially after the Suns loss:

"It was a big win for us because we stayed true to who we were. We rallied back. Everybody – coaches, players, ball boys – everybody was just engaged and we needed all that energy, and we pulled through."

On Nicolò Melli staying ready:

"I can go into detail about Melli. Melli comes into work every day and he's a…Melli's a pro's pro. He's always doing things in a professional way. And then Melli is always like coaching me up on the sidelines because he's able to see some things that I can't see on the court, so he's always giving me different reads and stuff when I come to the sideline. Melli's just always ready, so to see him come in and do that, we really expect that from him."

Pelicans Guard Josh Hart

On the defense in the fourth quarter and overtime:

"Obviously they’ve got three just incredibly gifted offensive guards, so to only give them 21 in the fourth is obviously a great effort, but I think the biggest thing is the effort. And we’ve got to remember this game. Obviously down 20, 20 plus, in the second half. I think there's been, I want to say 12…Coach put it on the board the other day, I think it was like 21 games where we have 10 plus point leads, and I think we are 12-9 in those games. So I think the biggest thing is that effort, that communication, that grit…we can remember that going into every other game, especially when teams do make a run. We can think back to this game and know that during that time, we didn't go our separate ways. We got closer together and we were able to pull out a tough win."

On playing like a "dog" and changing the energy of the game:

"For sure, that's something I take pride in. I want to be known as that guy. I want to be a junkyard dog. That's just my game, that's how I want to do it. Today was obviously a tough task with Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum, two All-Stars. It was tough. Those guys are going to make tough buckets and stuff like that. But, for me, it's just rebounding, getting out on the break, playing good defense, doing all the little things. I want to win. I said it before, so I'm going to do every single thing I have to do to help us win. It's not always going to be the glitz and glamor. It's not always going to be scoring 20 points, 25 points, and something like that. There's going to be nights where you have three, four points, you have eight plus rebounds and you areplaying amazing defense. For me, that's a good game. For people that are not basketball people, that's not pretty. But at the end of the day, you need people like that to win. You need people like that to win championships and I take pride in that and I want to be that person."