Detroit: John Loyer | Greg Monroe | Josh Smith
Minnesota: Rick Adelman | Kevin Martin | Kevin Love
“Well we spent better part of two days showing them and talking about their transitions, their outlet passes kind of who leaks out. You can show it, walk through it, demonstrate it, but sometimes until you’re faced with it you’re not prepared enough to stop it and we weren't prepared”
In the first half you had 4 assists and 5 turnovers... “When you don’t guard you get so demoralized by watching them keep scoring and keeping them out the net, which makes you play half court offense, some nights your offense dictates you’re defense, tonight our lack of defense, especially after that first half dictated our offense. It’s pretty hard to really have great pace and play an offense of pace if you’re so lackadaisical going in, which we were”
“It’s always surprising when you don’t play your best and we didn’t play our best. Probably had the best shoot around in my 12 games, had a good practice yesterday and you prepare the guys and we need to do a better job at starting the game. They are the number one first quarter team in the league. We talked about that and you have to get off to a better start. You can’t play catch up with a team with that many offensive weapons.”
On the game: “We came out flat and they came out and jumped on us. That’s what happens when those two things happen, especially when you play a team at home. That’s really it. We came out flat.”
On Minnesota: “We knew what their intentions were. We knew what they were going to come out and try to do. We just didn’t stop it. We didn’t make it tough for them in the beginning.”
On the defense: “We just have to do a better job at transitioning and floor balancing, especially when guys take shots. People have to be able to balance the floor we need it from the jump. They are big leak out team, John does an excellent job on the preparation on our opponents during the game and we just didn’t follow it to a T. Perimeter break downs and calls for some people to get some tip ins. We just have to tighten it up a little bit more on the defensive end.”
On being prepared for the Wolves attack but still struggling: “Coach does a great job at getting us prepared for our opponents. Gives us all the strengths and weaknesses of each and every player. It’s a little disheartening that we can’t be able to apply that to the game and be able to try and make it work better for us to be able to win the game.”
On whether quick shots hurt their floor balancing: “No, not at all. It’s just the ability to know who needs to get back when a shot is taken.”
“I like the way we started. We came out with a lot of energy, moved the ball well.”
(On Kevin Martin's aggressiveness): “He got off quick. I like the way we moved the ball, we made hard cuts we made them all the way through we didn’t stop. It was a nice effort after the other night."
“We kept them off the boards really well the whole night. Kevin and Pek did a good job of communicating and talking and really following the game plan the way we wanted to do it”
(On the bench in the fourth quarter): “I’m not going to take this game down because of the first six minutes in the fourth. We talked about it in there. The thing I didn’t like, you can miss shots and all of that but they had their bench out there and were running the court and it changes quickly and I had to put the starters back in. But they have to deal with that. They have to understand that because you’re up big doesn’t mean the game is over. This is their time, their opportunity. You have to be ready to go in and play as a team and they just didn’t do it. And I think like you said in the second quarter they played well. We will deal with the positives right now.”
(On Ricky Rubio): “I thought he was really active. This group has…when we’re 28-25 points up we don’t need to score quick, we don’t need to make hero plays. When we threw the ball away in the third quarter and even in the last possession with a minute to go and we steal it and Ricky throws that pass out of bounds trying to get it to Kevin, I mean why? Sooner or later that will cost you a game. We have to have more discipline in what we do. I don’t care what the score is and that’s what we have to learn. It hurt us in the past and it will hurt us again if we don’t know the time and score”
“We came out with energy. We learned from the other night, coming out of a long road trip. Starters just helped set the tone”
“Yeah, I was taken what was given to me tonight and the drives were there early on so I took them. Just as a unit we just got going”
(On Coach Adelman): “We are at that point where he doesn’t have to say too much to me. We both have a great understand, I know what I need to do. Performance vs. the Knicks I knew what I needed to do and also the team knew what they needed to do”
“We just want to come out with more energy than we did on Wednesday. We felt we did that jumped on them early. We played a good 3-1/2 quarters.”
(On controlling Andre Drummond): “That was big for us. We kept him off the glass. When you have someone like Pek in there that can equal his size and strength that’s helpful. We got into his legs, he couldn’t get off the ground as much when he rolled for lobs. That was something that we game planned for and we felt we did a good job”
Martin was a key, seeing a difference when he gets going early “We need him to do that. It’s great having him back and Pek on fouls and then all the way down the line up just moving the ball and getting back on defense, playing our style."
(On playing with Kevin Martin: “Of course, he’s a guy that doesn’t lack confidence. When he’s playing well it gives our teams going to be better, gives us so much added fire power. When he’s on it really adds to us. We love K-Mart”