Pelicans Head Coach Willie Green
On shots being hard to come by and what the Mavericks did well in tonight’s game:
"A lot of credit goes out to them. They just played with force. After the game they had against Cleveland, we knew that it was a strong possibility that they were going to come in and just play at a high level, which they did, and we helped them by just not consistently executing. I thought our guys went out and tried, but this is one of those situations where you come off the road after an emotional win, and we’ve just got to take more pride in protecting our home court."
On how the team can respond to tonight’s loss when they play Dallas again on this Friday:
"Well a lot better than we did tonight. I spoke to the guys in the locker room about it. That's the beauty of being in the NBA. It's a quick turnaround. We get to go Dallas and play these guys again. Look, we don't like what happened tonight on our home floor, and we’ve got to do something about it."
Pelicans Guard Devonte’ Graham
On having the chance to play the Mavericks again in two days:
"Yeah, quick turnaround. We get to go play them again. So, we know what we've got to do. We've got to be more physical."
On what the team has to do better to limit Luka Dončić next time around:
"You’ve just got to try to make it tougher on him, be more physical, show more of a crowd. We were letting him just be one-onone and get to his spots and where he wanted to go. So, you know, making shots like that, for anybody, it's going to be a long night."
Pelicans Forward Brandon Ingram
On what they have to do differently to stop Luka Dončić:
"Just bring the defensive intensity, try to continue to wear him down picking him up full court. I think we have to have guys on the backline just talking and being in the right spots, and try to figure out a way to funnel him into the paint of whatever it is and game plan for it."
On how the team can be more efficient when they can't get out in transition:
"I think the first thing we've got to do is make them feel a little uncomfortable. They just felt good. It felt like one of those shootarounds where you're just catching the ball and you're in rhythm and you're knocking down shots. Especially, I felt that way for Tim Hardaway. He's a good shooter, but he had some looks where he wasn't touched. We just have to do a better job of — I know I had a couple second-chance rebounds where I let (Dorian) Finney-Smith get in the interior and rebound the basketball and have some kick outs, and they had some second chance points. So we’ve just got to eliminate some of those things and get some of those guys off the three-point line."