Bucks Coach Larry Drew
On the third quarter
“Yeah, it is something we talk about every half time: starting the third quarter with energy and let’s force them to call the first time out. Just looking at the stat sheet they had a lot of errors. They scored 60 points in the paint. First quarter we only had three turnovers; however we ended up with 11. It was the third quarter where we just didn’t defend. We had break down after breakdown in the third quarter and they scored 37 points. That was a deciding quarter.”
On playing better coming out of the half
“I’ll keep grinding, trying to find out what cause’s those types of lapses. In the first quarter we had breakdowns but we were able to recover from them. Second quarter, I think we did a good job defensively but in the third quarter we gave up 37 points. You have to continue to find answers, at least I do. We just did not defend the ball well off of the dribble.”
On going into the All Star break 9 - 43
“You just do it. As I have explained to them, certainly it is not a good feeling. I have been in this situation before as an assistant. We remain professional as we go through. We will take this break and regroup after four days and come back and finish up the season.”
Bucks Guard Brandon Knight
On the final seconds
“We were just looking mostly to get Gary [Neal] open, one of our better 3-point shooters, towards the end. Get him an open look. They played the plays pretty well and we weren’t able to get decent looks.”
On New Orleans’ 60 points in the paint
“They’ve got a lot of good players that play in that paint area. They’ve got a lot of length down there, a lot of guys that play hard. It was an area where we struggled to stop them. They beat us off the dribble tonight as well. We had to be a little bit better defensively, and they did a good job.”
Bucks Forward Ersan Ilyasova
On the loss
“When you look at it, we have too many games like this. It’s always kind of at the last second. We have to do our job early as far as to build the lead, especially at home, because we kind of have an advantage when we’re playing on the home court. We just have to consistently be up front and just play aggressive.”
On defense
“We did a good job on [Anthony Davis] as far as attacking against him. You get early fouls, but the other guys from the bench stepped up and the played really well. We kind of struggled in the beginning in pick-and-roll defense, so we have to play to adjust. It’s all about effort. We should play more aggressively against them.”