PISTONS HEAD COACH DWANE CASEY
On the health of the team:
“Stanley Johnson is going to warmup tonight to see if how his contusion feels on his leg. Zaza Pachulia is going to be out. He played through his injury in Orlando, which is admirable. Whatever injuries are, we still going to have the next-man-up mentality. I thought our young guys came and competed. When you look at George Hill, who is a seasoned veteran, playing against Bruce Brown and Khyri Thomas, they did a heck of a job. They had a couple of mishaps, but for those two second round picks compete against a starter, I thought they did a great job.”
On Khyri Thomas’s play:
“I’m so proud of him. He was with the G League and people look at it as a degrading connotation, which is not. It’s for him to go there to practice and play and work on your craft. He’s kept a positive attitude. He comes in a practice goes up against the guys all day and all night. He does a good job. He’s growing and learning. He’s a big part of our future. Nights like last night he did a good job of taking advantage of it.”
On the performance of Bruce Brown:
“Bruce had go up against Eric Bledsoe, who is one of the hardest guys to go up against in the league, and also George Hill. I thought both he and [Khyri] Thomas did an admirable job. Bruce got into the paint a couple of times. He has to understand and everybody has to get a good feel to get into the paint, and bolt out. This is the new NBA pick-and-roll defense. You got to know how to attack it, and you got to understand that there is a place where you got to make a decision to either kick it out or give it to the roller. That’s why the defenses are rotating in there to get back into the play. Unless you are trying to go in there and dunk over them, you have to go through your check-offs. Bruce will learn that. He’s a sponge. He’ll get hit a couple of times, but he’s going to learn from his mistakes.”
On the takeaways from the Grizzlies:
“J.B. [Bickerstaff] has done a heck of a job of really getting his team to play hard every night, which is difficult in the NBA this time of the year. They are playing well together. They are playing defense first. They have long players. They went out and got Garrett Temple, who’s a defensive-minded guy, Kyle Anderson, people called him Slo-Mo, but he gets to where he needs to go. Their roster is put together for today’s NBA, and they’re doing a heck of a job. They have two of the most underestimated players in the league in Mike Conley and Marc Gasol. They are smart and team-first guys. I think they get the job offensively and defensively. They have the making of a very good team. They were at the top of the Western Conference for a while. Just like everybody, they are going through a drought. They are still a formidable team in the Western Conference.”
On playing rookie players:
“That’s part of our job as coaches. It’s one of the hardest things to do is to develop and win. We have to bring in all the young players, which does sounds good, but the win is more important. Fortunately, in the past, we were able to that and we going to do it here to develop our young guys. It’s difficult, but we owe it to ownership and organization to develop our young assets. In our situation, it’s unfair to Thomas and Brown because they are similar guys. So it’s different when you have a small guy and a big guy to sprinkle in. With us, we have so many guys at the same size and same position that it gets a little bit more difficult, but we’ll find ways. When guys do come up injured, we’ll find time for them.”
On Blake Griffin’s performance:
“He played well. Offensively, he was the one that was on his game [last night]. Consistency is something I said during training camp, and I’m going to say it again. It’s something of a history of this team to come out with a consistent approach. Whether it’s thinking about the game, making decisions, energy or whatever it is. Once we get that, we are going to be a good solid team. That’s the biggest thing we’re finding out because one night this guy has it rolling and this guy doesn’t. if we get close to the same level, we’re going to be good. I’m learning who those players are pretty well, as far as getting to know what they can or can’t do in those situations or type of games.”
PISTONS GUARD LUKE KENNARD
On getting a win to end this road trip:
“It’s great, especially after a back-to-back. It feels really good. Towards the beginning and throughout the game we made a few mental mistakes. It might have been due to fatigue but we showed toughness. We fought. We found a way to pull through and that’s what we have to do all year. We just have to build off of this.”
On the key to the 13-0 run in the fourth quarter:
“Defense. We got stops. We were able to push the ball. We just got good shots as well. We moved the ball as a team. We found guys that were open and we made shots. We got stops on the defensive end that allowed us to create that lead and we just kind of stuck with it until I missed free throws at the end and they came back a little bit. Defense, that’s where it has to start.”
On his two three-point shots:
“I had an off night towards the beginning there. We ran a play for Blake [Griffin]. They were going to over help on Blake. Blake is… obviously he’s… you can’t really stop him with one guy so they started creeping towards Blake. Blake is a great play maker for us and he threw it to me. There was one before that where I should have shot a three but I drove it and it got deflected out of bounds. Blake got on me a little bit and told me to shoot the ball. So next play down I think, I shot it, and we made a three and then the other one was just me and him playing. A little shot clock and I just kind of made a play there.”
On getting pushed to get shots up on the catch:
“The speed is fast. I still have to do a better job of being down and ready to shoot. We have guys that can make really quick passes, you’ve just got to be ready for it. I’ve been caught kind of sleeping on the weak side or so forth of not being ready to shoot so I’ve got to continue to be locked in and ready to shoot the ball.”
On Blake Griffin getting it done on the offensive end and willing to sacrifice:
“It was a winning play. That was a huge play for us. It starts on defense, but when your best player is doing stuff like that it kind of brings everybody up, brings the energy up. It got us going. That was really good to see.”
PISTONS FORWARD BLAKE GRIFFIN
On getting on to Luke Kennard for passing up a three-point shot:
“I just said to him his mentality in those situations should be that we’re up 20 and he just hit two shots. That’s the type of shooter he is. He’s a great shooter, a great player and he knows the flow of the game and he has a great feel for the game so if he shoots eight corner threes and misses all eight, I want him to shoot the next one too.”
On having just as much energy at the end after playing most of the second half:
“When that win is within reach you get a little extra boost. It’ll be nice to have two days here at home and get back to it on Saturday, so whatever it takes.”
On J.B. Bickerstaff discussing Jaren Jackson Jr. being a dominant two-way player in the league:
“He’s unbelievably talented. He’s so young and so raw still but so skilled and has a good feel. He’s going to be tough for a long, long time. He’s going to be a good one.”
GRIZZLIES HEAD COACH J.B. BICKERSTAFF
On the conversation in the locker room after the game:
“A conversation that needed to be had that will stay between those of us that were in that locker room.”
On Kyle Anderson’s left shoulder:
“I’m not sure yet. Like I said, we just left the locker room and I haven’t had a chance to talk to the medical people yet to get an answer.”
On the offense in the second half:
“I think addressing larger issues was the conversation that we needed to have. Right now it’s not X’s and O’s that need to be resolved. I think we resolved some of those issues tonight.”
On the confidence of figuring out the team’s problems:
“Yeah, there is still confidence in that group that we have in the locker room. There’s no doubt about it that we’ve done some things this year that give us reason to believe. We’ve had some successes, we’ve had some wins that lead us to believe that we can recapture it and nothing changes. Those guys in the locker room are still the same guys. They’re still enjoyable to coach. They’re still enjoyable to be around. This is part of the NBA. All teams go through something like this at some point and time in the year. It’s a matter of how long we choose to stay in it. That’s where we’ve all got to reevaluate what it is that we’re doing, how we’re doing it, and who we’re doing it for.”
On having the voices in the locker room to galvanize this group again:
“Yeah, there’s no doubt. Again, the conversation that we had was a good conversation and it wasn’t just those two guys. Guys are willing to address the issues and they’re willing to fix them. That’s the most important thing is you’ve got guys that do care about more than themselves and do care about this team. They are trying to make it work, it’s just hard. The NBA season is hard. Everybody goes through something like this. If you have people who care, collectively, you’ll figure it out. We still believe that our guys will figure it out.”
GRIZZLIES CENTER MARC GASOL
On the postgame team meeting:
“We were openly sharing our thoughts and trying to fix the situation in getting back to being a really good basketball team together and doing the things we need to do in order to win games consistently.”
On if everyone is on the same page:
“Yeah, I think we are.”
On if the problems manifested on the offensive or defensive end:
“I think everything is tied together. Once you lose more than win, frustration builds up and you carry on those feelings into all the possessions. It’s more of looking into a mirror and trying to see what you can do better to solve the situation instead of pointing out the situation and why it’s wrong. OK, what can I do to fix our defense? Or, what can I do to fix our offense? What can I do to help my teammates out and encourage them and help them accomplish their job? Having that mindset and forgetting a little bit about yourself and seeing how you can help the other four guys, or five guys on the floor if you’re on the bench, that always helps.”
On how he expects the team to respond moving forward:
“We’ll see tomorrow at practice. I expect each of us to compete hard at practice, as we should be, and get ready for a must-win for us against Brooklyn.”
On the postgame team meeting:
“The good thing about winning is it solves a lot of problems; losing does the opposite. That’s the good thing about winning, it’s the best anti-inflammatory, it’s the best painkiller. It keeps everybody happy. It keeps you guys more positive. It keeps us more positive. Now, when you do the other thing and you start losing, it does the opposite.”
GRIZZLIES GUARD MIKE CONLEY
On his shoulder:
“It was feeling really stiff, so it was concerning during the game. I got checked and they think everything will be fine, but obviously I don’t know anything. I haven’t had time to go in there. All my strength is good, it just got to where the mobility wasn’t there. It happened so early in the game so it was kind of hard to do anything with my left. So I was just trying to do other things and play defense. If I did try to score, mid-moment my man would try to go right… I’ll do rehab tonight and tomorrow, so we’ll see.”
On how he hurt his shoulder:
“I was going up for a rebound and [Andre] Drummond was coming down. I was going up at the same time. My shoulder got caught underneath his arm going down, just a weird play. I thought I could shake it off, and then I started feeling it immediately after that.”
On how he would describe the postgame meeting:
“It was productive. It’s not the first talk we’ve had this season. We’ve had plenty of talks as a team. We try to move forward and that’s what we’re here to do – be honest with each other and move forward.”
On having open communication:
“Coach [J.B. Bickerstaff] does a good job of allowing that whenever he feels the need or players feel the need to speak up, we can. We have that opportunity and guys had another opportunity tonight to try to work it out. Honestly, I think it would not have ever been needed had my shoulder not felt the way it did from the 8-minute mark on in the first quarter. Losing causes a lot of frustration at the end of the day. If we had won tonight, nobody is talking.”
On if it’s a different dynamic now that he and Marc are both healthy for the first time since Tony Allen and Zach Randolph were Grizzlies:
“It is different. It’s definitely different. You get used to a certain group, you get used to certain characters, different mindsets and mentalities going into the seasons. This is a fairly new group. We’re adding guys in, even guys like Joakim [Noah] in the middle of the season, and we’re still trying to acclimate and get used to different people. It takes time. We’re one game under .500 and here we are. We have to figure it out. We have to handle this adversity as leaders of the team, whatever way that may be. If it’s not vocally, it’s by example. Not all of us are the type to get in somebody’s face like Tony Allen or Z-Bo [Zach Randolph], but we have our qualities. I have mine and Marc [Gasol] has his, and we have to be whatever we can to be leaders no matter what because it’s our responsibility.”