Detroit Pistons Head Coach Stan Van Gundy:
(Where do you go from here?)
“We go to New York on Monday.”
( Do you feel as if you’re not pushing enough buttons, or the right buttons at this point?)
“We just go to New York. We just move on. We go to practice this weekend and we go to New York on Monday.”
( What’s your confidence level for getting out of this malaise?)
“We’ll see what happens. We’ll got to practice this weekend, and we’ll go to New York on Monday and we’ll see what happens.”
( What was the message to the team after the loss?)
“I didn’t have one.”
( Do you feel like they played tight again in the first quarter? Are they embracing the pressure or crumbling under it?)
“I have no idea.”
(Do you feel like they’ve given up?)
“I don’t know. You’d have to ask them.”
DETROIT PISTONS FORWARD TOBIAS HARRIS
(on his emotions) “Disappointed…upset.”
(on whether team is playing and showing enough emotion collectively) “Not collectively or as a group. Energy is off. We really don’t have no pop to us. When we get on the floor, we’re not really embracing each other out there as a group. Just the energy is off. You can see it when we start the games…when we play and during the course of the games. The energy is not where it needs to be. It is not just to say make or missed shots…it’s just not there as a comradery and collectiveness is not there.”
(on where energy has gone) “I wish I could tell you. It is something that I think about like all night like where is it, how can we get it back…I don’t know. It would be nice if we made some more shots on the offensive end, but to be honest with you, we don’t get enough stops on the defensive end, so we have to figure it out. Anytime something like this happens, I feel like collectively as a group we have to look within. As an individual, look at yourself, self-evaluate and go from there and bring the energy.”
(on whether Coach Van Gundy’s message is getting through to team) “His message is to win so to be honest if that is not getting through, that is an issue. Coach wants to win. We all want to win, but if that message is not getting through especially in the position we are in right now and what is at stake, it is just like I said before, it is disappointing.”
“It is something we haven’t figured out. If you look at the whole year up until this point it is disappointing that we haven’t gotten the consistency that we needed to have on a daily basis, we haven’t put consecutive wins together, it is something that we haven’t figured out all year.”
“We need to (figure out issues). I know we will try as hard as we can to fix it. That is what we have to do is fix it.”
“He told us after the last game that if we don’t get it together we are going to get embarrassed. We have to figure it out and we have to bring it. That’s what the message was and he told us after the Brooklyn game and we didn’t bring it this game so it is disappointing.”
DETROIT PISTONS FORWARD JOHN LEUER
“We know what point in the season it is. We know what is at stake. These last few games have been a struggle. If we want to make the playoffs and that was our goal before the season and we have to change right now.”
“To have the performances we have had the last two games it is gut check time. Everybody has to look at themselves in the mirror and really figure out what we want out of these last 9 games.”
“I don’t think anything needs to be said. At this point we have said everything and we know what we need to do. It is just a matter of us as players going out there and competing our (expletive) off and bringing it desperate. At this point we are fighting for our lives. We need to compete harder and we say all the right things, it is just a matter of us translating it onto the court.”
ORLANDO MAGIC HEAD COACH FRANK VOGEL
(You had 14 assists on 15 baskets in the second quarter, can you talk about how the ball was moving tonight?)
“Our best ball movement game of the year by far. We preach it every game and some games it’s easier than others but that starting group in particular, really set the tone both with Elfrid initiating everything and Evan and Terrence have gotten really good at just reading defense, looking to be aggressive with their curls and when the bigs formed a wall they make the extra pass and our bigs are willing passers. You know Aaron being at the four and obviously Vuc at the five and the bench came in and did a good job with it as well.”
(What did you see from your team’s level of aggression, going after 50/50 balls and hustle plays in general?)
“I thought it was great. We really had a great competitive spirit about the game, and we’re going to continue to work and try to improve throughout the end of this season and tonight that element was great, you know our running game – you know we got 12 fast-break points but they make it difficult to run but that part of it was good and trying to work hard on the defensive end and like I said just continue to keep improving and try to build on something.”
(Speak to Elfrid Payton’s performance tonight, he had his 7th career triple double.)
“A lot of the guys are benefiting from the space we’re playing with now, now that we’ve down-sized our whole team throughout the course of this season and maybe he’s benefiting the most by having the space to get in there and play his game, both scoring the ball and the one-on-one plays in the paint, trusting the pass, he’s doing a good job creating and then obviously the rebounds are about hustle, making a few will and determination plays on the offensive glass and obviously coming back to defensive rebounds is what we want from our perimeter players when our bigs are boxing out and guards coming back. So he was terrific tonight, and he’s on a good run right now and a good rhythm the last three, four, five weeks or so.”
(You said you expected them to play desperate, but to beat them the way you did, what does that say about the caliber of your play now?)
“We’re improving, this is our best win of the year, our most complete game and it’s important that these young guys learn to play the right way and we find some chemistry within our group here going into next year and how we finish is important and we’re definitely-like I said it’s our best win.”
(Where were performances like this early in the season? Not necessarily the ball going in but effort games?)
“There is competitive spirit can be aided by playing in the right system and early in the season we were outmatched, we were – in a speed sense at almost every position. So we can give great effort but if you’re playing against faster, quicker guys and you’re getting beat to the ball, you’re getting beat to spots, we were the quicker team tonight. This is why we made this adjustment, there were plenty of times early in the season where we played with this effort and competitive spirit and we’re outmatched and hopefully the stylistic changes we made throughout the year are paying dividends.”
ORLANDO MAGIC GUARD EVAN FOURNIER
(On what were the keys to the Orlando Magic victory…)
“We just played very good basketball from the beginning and until the last second. It was a strong performance by everyone. We shared the ball offensively. I think everybody was on the scoreboard in double digits. It was just a great win. Very focused. We played with a lot of intensity defensively. It was just a very good overall performance. Detroit is kind of struggling right now but we definitely took advantage of it and we were focused.”
(On the Magic playing their most complete game of the season…)
“Like I said, I think it was a little bit of us playing very good and them struggling. For some reason they’re struggling right now but we didn’t think about that. We were focused on what we had to do, we executed the game plan very well, and that’s why we won by 30 points.”
(On the Magic’s ball movement…)
“It’s probably our best game as far as passing tonight. We had easy buckets on easy buckets because everyone was moving the ball, cutting, and moving with purpose. We had fun playing tonight.”
(On Elfrid Payton and his 4th triple-double of the season…)
“EP (Elfrid Payton) is being EP; very active. I mean, the guy is everywhere especially on the rebound. It’s a strong performance to have whatever rebounds he had, I think 12 or 11, for a point guard. It’s impressive. He’s just been in attack mode like he always is and he’s making really good decisions.”
(On the Magic’s growth…)
“First of all it means that we are locked in at the end of the season. We know that we aren’t going to make the playoffs but we want to finish the season strong and maybe try some stuff for next year. I’m thinking about Mario (Hezonja) playing the four. I mean, it’s actually working so far. We’re just trying stuff, executing the game plan, and just playing hard basically.”
ORLANDO MAGIC GUARD ELFRID PAYTON
(On the Magic playing their most complete game of the season…)
“Just trying to compete. I think we’ve been competing since the break. We’re trying to build some momentum going into the next season and just playing as hard as we can.”
(On the Magic’s growth…)
“I think it says a lot about us. I think we kind of threw that first punch tonight and they weren’t able to recover.”
(On the Magic’s ball movement…)
“Everybody was touching it. We talked about moving the ball a little bit more. We did a good job of that against Charlotte too. Today was even a bigger benefit because guys were knocking down shots. It was just a concerted effort.”