Pelicans Head Coach Stan Van Gundy
On the bench production:
“They’re doing a really good job. I mean they really are. Second unit against second unit, they’ve done a very good job. They’ve played with energy. Hard to argue with any of those guys. I thought Jaxson (Hayes) was outstanding tonight.”
On the defense tonight:
“I thought we pretty good defensively tonight. I mean again, part of it is they don’t have a lot of their guys, but they shot the ball well tonight. They shot the ball from three a lot better than they normally do. It’s not like they can’t make any shots. They shot it pretty well. I thought our defense was pretty good, yeah.”
Pelicans Forward Zion Williamson
On Brandon Ingram's night from a shot-making standpoint:
"That's Brandon. I mean there ain't anything else to say. That's BI. He's very capable of doing that pretty much anytime he wants, and I'm just glad to see him doing that, being aggressive. We expect that out of him."
On how hard it is to score at this level on a consistent basis in the NBA and how to achieve it:
"I guess for somebody in my position, since I have the ball in my hands a lot because my coach and teammates trust me, I could just shoot a lot and get 20 points, but my teammates and coaches know that's not the game I want to play. I want to get everybody involved and try to hunt for the best shot, so getting those 20 points, like I was saying, some nights it's going to be tougher. But on nights like tonight when there's a lot of ball movement, BI's doing his thing, it really opens up the game for me. So that's how I do it."
Pelicans Guard Nickeil Alexander-Walker
On putting the game away and sustaining the good stretch in the third quarter:
"I think it kind of took us to earlier in the season when we were finding out that there's little spots in the game that put us away, and understanding that we can do that to other teams. Staying in it because we knew we were hanging in. It's just that there was a stretch that would take us out. So trying to make sure that, during those stretches, we're applying pressure and we're on the attack and being the aggressors."
On how much losing the 17-point lead against Portland is helping the team recently:
"I think it's helped tremendously…I mean just what we've learned from it, how we've grown, and understanding (we) never want to be there again. (We) never want to see a lead go from 20 to 11 and nine to four. You want to see it go from 20 to 30 or 20 to 25 and make sure that we're sustaining it and playing all 48 minutes."