- Joined
- Oct 5, 2008
- Messages
- 127,016
- Likes
- 147,624
- Points
- 115
HEAD COACH TERRY STOTTS
“Before I start, I’d like to just express our thoughts and prayers going out to the fan who had the incident tonight and was taken away. Obviously I don’t know much of what went on, but certainly everybody in the locker room was very concerned. It’s sad. So that being said, I know that’s kind of a sober note but to the game. We played a very good game. Defensively, we continued to stay on point with most things that we were trying to do. Everybody seems pretty locked in. Those are things that we need to do. It was good to see the ball go through the basket. We attacked their defense pretty well, their double teams, their zone. It was a good win against a very good team.
What did you like defensively?
“Just not one thing. The second half we rebounded the ball it seemed like a little bit better. We were kind of locked into our schemes. We did a lot of switching. The communication was pretty good. I don’ t know what their shots at the rim were, but I thought we contested a lot of the shots at the rim and didn’t let it get there very much. Coming out of the locker room, I thought we really picked up our aggressiveness a little bit more. There was a lot to like.”
Did you feel like it was a bit of a chess match with rotations and substitutions?
“The first half both teams kind of stuck with their normal rotations. Dirk plays his minutes in certain shifts. When we made our run in the third quarter, Rick was trying different things. I don’t know about a chess match. When things are going a certain way, you try different things. We stayed pretty much with what we wanted to do. The tough thing for me anyway was we had a nice run going at the four minute mark and it’s still a long game to go and having to take Damian out or take Wes out, especially when you have a roll going. But it’s hard to put a team away in the third quarter.
On success defending Dirk in the second half, did you change anything?
“Same coverages. We did a lot of switching. Both our bigs and guards did a good job as far as communicating the switches. Dirk causes so many problems with the situations he’s in, so you try to limit him, but when guards were switched onto him, they did a nice job of getting into him and not giving up much space. Then our bigs, usually LaMarcus but also Thomas, when they were switched onto a small perimeter player, they did a good job of containing and doing their job.”
DAMIAN LILLARD
On defense:
I think the best part about it was we did it both halves. We defended really well in the first half, we just couldn’t really get ourselves going like we would have liked to offensively. The second half, we put both ends together and that’s why we were able to pull away.”
On 35 point third quarter:
“Just great ball movement. Guys were making the extra pass. We knew they were going to keep coming on LA and he did a great job of getting it out early and me, Nico, Wes, CJ everybody, Steve, did a great job of making the extra extra pass. They just couldn’t get to the last guy and we got a lot of open looks and I think that was when we hit a couple threes and went on a 12-0 run and that was pretty much it.”
Do you feel like stringing two wins together feels more like last year?
“I don’t really want to keep talking about last year but I just feel better about the way we’re winning. Last year, it was if we were shooting well, then anything could happen, but this year I feel like we’re getting it done a lot better defensively. It’s a good thing that it’s our offense is what we’re still waiting on to automatically click, so the fact that we’re able to defend right now a lot better than we did last year, it’s exciting.”
On bench contributions:
“They stepped up. Even in the first half, they came in right away. CJ hit back to back threes. Will came in and got two assists on the first two plays. Chris coming in and having that type of impact. Steve, everybody off the bench was great. T-Rob brought the energy as he always does. That’s what we’re going to need from them if we’re going to be our best.”
“Before I start, I’d like to just express our thoughts and prayers going out to the fan who had the incident tonight and was taken away. Obviously I don’t know much of what went on, but certainly everybody in the locker room was very concerned. It’s sad. So that being said, I know that’s kind of a sober note but to the game. We played a very good game. Defensively, we continued to stay on point with most things that we were trying to do. Everybody seems pretty locked in. Those are things that we need to do. It was good to see the ball go through the basket. We attacked their defense pretty well, their double teams, their zone. It was a good win against a very good team.
What did you like defensively?
“Just not one thing. The second half we rebounded the ball it seemed like a little bit better. We were kind of locked into our schemes. We did a lot of switching. The communication was pretty good. I don’ t know what their shots at the rim were, but I thought we contested a lot of the shots at the rim and didn’t let it get there very much. Coming out of the locker room, I thought we really picked up our aggressiveness a little bit more. There was a lot to like.”
Did you feel like it was a bit of a chess match with rotations and substitutions?
“The first half both teams kind of stuck with their normal rotations. Dirk plays his minutes in certain shifts. When we made our run in the third quarter, Rick was trying different things. I don’t know about a chess match. When things are going a certain way, you try different things. We stayed pretty much with what we wanted to do. The tough thing for me anyway was we had a nice run going at the four minute mark and it’s still a long game to go and having to take Damian out or take Wes out, especially when you have a roll going. But it’s hard to put a team away in the third quarter.
On success defending Dirk in the second half, did you change anything?
“Same coverages. We did a lot of switching. Both our bigs and guards did a good job as far as communicating the switches. Dirk causes so many problems with the situations he’s in, so you try to limit him, but when guards were switched onto him, they did a nice job of getting into him and not giving up much space. Then our bigs, usually LaMarcus but also Thomas, when they were switched onto a small perimeter player, they did a good job of containing and doing their job.”
DAMIAN LILLARD
On defense:
I think the best part about it was we did it both halves. We defended really well in the first half, we just couldn’t really get ourselves going like we would have liked to offensively. The second half, we put both ends together and that’s why we were able to pull away.”
On 35 point third quarter:
“Just great ball movement. Guys were making the extra pass. We knew they were going to keep coming on LA and he did a great job of getting it out early and me, Nico, Wes, CJ everybody, Steve, did a great job of making the extra extra pass. They just couldn’t get to the last guy and we got a lot of open looks and I think that was when we hit a couple threes and went on a 12-0 run and that was pretty much it.”
Do you feel like stringing two wins together feels more like last year?
“I don’t really want to keep talking about last year but I just feel better about the way we’re winning. Last year, it was if we were shooting well, then anything could happen, but this year I feel like we’re getting it done a lot better defensively. It’s a good thing that it’s our offense is what we’re still waiting on to automatically click, so the fact that we’re able to defend right now a lot better than we did last year, it’s exciting.”
On bench contributions:
“They stepped up. Even in the first half, they came in right away. CJ hit back to back threes. Will came in and got two assists on the first two plays. Chris coming in and having that type of impact. Steve, everybody off the bench was great. T-Rob brought the energy as he always does. That’s what we’re going to need from them if we’re going to be our best.”
