Pelicans Head Coach Willie Green
On the way that Herbert Jones is playing the game:
“He was great. All over the place tonight. Offensively, his cutting, his ability to rebound, offensive rebound. Defensively, he was a monster. That’s a good team, and we can’t forget that those guys are coming off of a Finals win, so they played with swagger and confidence. Herb, his instincts…they’re incredible, and we need him on the floor.”
On the progress he has seen from his team in the last few games:
“Well, what I see is that we’re growing, and early in the season, we were giving ourselves an opportunity, but we were falling short. Now we still have a ton of games left ahead of us, but I like what we’re doing. We’re starting to find our rhythm, starting to find what environments that we can play in down the stretch of games. Tonight was tough. That zone threw us off, but we were just scrambling trying to put different line-ups in. The important part for us was our execution down the stretch. I think that’s continued to get better for us.”
Pelicans Guard Devonte’ Graham
On his conversation with Willie Green and his comfort with the current offense:
“I’m very comfortable, always. We play pretty easy. (We) get open shots, drive, kick, make the right plays. Yeah, he just had a talk with me the other day just about being aggressive, looking for my shot more. Obviously, I was struggling. The ball wasn’t going in, so I was playing a little frustrated. I told him I was a little frustrated, but that was just personal stuff. He told me to keep letting it fly, so that’s what I’m doing.”
On not having a player on the team to play off the drive and kick:
“No, not necessarily. I mean, we’ve got guys that do it. Herb (Jones) does a great job. Obviously, BI (Brandon Ingram) draws a whole bunch of attention. Josh Hart came downhill. We’ve got guys that can get downhill. It’s just my job to find those open windows and give them an outlet. When they drive, I just try to put myself in that position.”
Pelicans Forward Brandon Ingram
On the impact of Devonte’ Graham’s shot-making tonight:
“It put us over the hump. At the end of the game, he hot them out of the zone, we got him some open looks on the wing, he stepped into it with confidence and knocked them down. On the free throw line, he knocked them down, too. He saved me. It was good to see that from him.”
On what he feels this team could become looking at recent game success:
“It’s growth, from last game to this game. Playing a better team, even though some of their guys were out, they’ve been in situations where they’ve been in the playoffs and they’ve been able to overcome some big games. So for our guys to go out and execute time after time after time on the offensive and defensive end, it’s encouraging. We want to keep it going.”