Pelicans Head Coach Alvin Gentry:
On the first preseason game:
“I thought we got off to a good start. I thought we were playing with force and pushing the basketball, moving the basketball. Obviously getting some easy baskets here and there, but realistically, we’re not going to shoot 73% for the game. That’s understood. I thought that we started over dribbling maybe a little much in the second quarter. (That) Got us in a little bit of trouble. We stopped making cuts which kind of slowed down the offense and then I thought, defensively, our transition defense wasn’t very good. We have to do a better job of getting everyone back so that we can pick up. We were scrambling too much in our transition defense, really the last three quarters. As far as picking them up and having everybody set, not scrambling around. It’s an area where we have to get better at, especially when they’re running out. We have to do a little bit of a better job guarding dribble penetration. I thought (Kris) Dunn did a good job of kind of getting us on his hip, getting us on his back and kind of taking the ball in, putting us in a real tough situation. Our big guys as far as helping, leaving their big guys open or leaving the offensive board open.”
On Jrue Holiday playing off the ball and playing with Rajon Rondo:
“I thought Jrue (Holiday) did a good job. This is all new stuff, as far as him playing off the ball, not being the primary ball handler, but he’s going to be fine. Rondo is still trying to learn about our guys and where they want the ball and the plays that he can call on the fly to get the ball to the guys in the position that they want it. It’s the first preseason game and like I said, I thought there were some good things that we can take from it and there’s also some things that obviously we’ve got to work on.”
On this game exemplifying both the strengths and weaknesses of this team:
“The big thing that we have to establish is consistency. Like I said, it’s a little bit crazy because we played so well the first quarter; forty seven points is a lot of points to get in a quarter in any situation, especially when you’re walking out and playing your first preseason game. We would like to have somewhere in the middle of that and then we would like to have something the last three quarters where we’re somewhere, I mean we have to be a little higher than those quarters because I don’t think we played the level that we would have to (in order) to win basketball games.”
Pelicans Guard Jrue Holiday:
On playing against his brother Justin:
“I try to divulge all the information I can; I love him, but I’m trying to win. We played together with my brother and sister growing up, and on the same team in high school. It’s always fun playing against him.”
On playing so well in the first quarter:
“We will have to look at the film, but it shows how well we can play when we are running and playing how we want to play. We still have a lot of work to be done, especially defensively. Obviously, Chicago runs sets and plays really consistently, which is what we needed…a different matchup than playing against yourselves.”
Pelicans Forward Anthony Davis:
On communicating defensively:
“Communication is (a) big part of what we have to improve as a team. We did a pretty good job in the first, and after that communication went down a bit. I have to watch the film to see the breakdowns we had; I know they had a lot of open threes.”
On four of the five starters playing at least thirty minutes in the game:
“I think it is good. We only play three of these, and we’re not going to play in the last one. I think it was very good for us - to get us ready for when we play in Memphis. It felt good to get up and down that long with another team”