HEAD COACH TERRY STOTTS
“Before you ask your question, I’d just like to say congratulations to Michael Malone and the Denver Nuggets. They outplayed us. They deserved to win the series. They did a great job on both ends of the court. So my hat’s off to them, wish them well in the next series because they certainly deserved to win this series.”
On the Trail Blazers play in the fourth quarter:
“I don’t know, I kind of tend to stay away from the word ‘meltdown.’ It sounds a little over the top, but we didn’t make some shots, they made some big plays. It was a tight game. Actually, it was the time before that when we had our lead, I thought that was a time where we lost our composure and offensively, we got a little stagnant and got them back in the game. But when it was 108-108, credit to them. They made the plays and we didn’t.”
On Portland missing close shots:
“Look, it’s frustrating to lose the game. It’s frustrating to lose the lead. It’s frustrating when some things don’t work out. I don’t know what you want me to say on that. Things don’t go well, it can be frustrating, yes.
On fighting hard the whole series:
“I thought we played hard. In the playoffs, everybody plays hard. To fault effort in the playoffs – some teams, different players play it differently, but I thought we competed well. You look at game 3 and game 5, their three point shooting really hurt us in those two games and was the difference in those two games. We had our good moments and they had their good moments. I’m proud of our guys. I told them after the game we put ourselves in a great position. We won 10 out of 12 at the end of the season to get the six seed to stay out of the play-in game. That showed a lot of character in what we did at that point of the season. It’s disappointing to lose in the playoffs. There’s no question about that. Denver is a good team. Jokic is a great player and everything goes around him, but I couldn’t be more proud of what we did to get ourselves in the position to be the six seed and obviously I’m very disappointed with the outcome.”
On the season as a whole:
“It’s been a tough season, it’s been up and down. I think a lot of people have talked about this, it’s almost like last season and this season were kind of rolled into one long season. Last season was very challenging for a lot of different reasons and then you roll into this season, and our expectations were high. I’ve said this before, what we were able to do with Nurk missing 35 games and CJ missing 25 games, there’s a lot to be proud of, of what we did in the regular season. I know it can be frustrating at times, but when those guys came back and as I mentioned, at the end of the season, to do what we did was pretty impressive. I think we had been written off and we weren’t, and that showed a lot of character on our guys. But there’s no question, it was a challenging season I think for every team in the league. A lot of players and coaches have talked about the combination of last season and the bubble and rolling into this season, I think it was a challenge for everybody in the league.”
On deciding whether or not to challenge the foul by Jusuf Nurkic on a Nikola Jokic three-point attempt:
“I did consider it. The reason I didn’t was one, our coach behind the bench with the replay had video that said that he fouled him. And the other one was Nurk said, ‘I barely touched him.’ Well, if you barely touched him, that’s going to be a foul. So those were the two reasons why I didn’t.”
On how to improve the team in the offseason:
“I’m not avoiding that question but I think now is a little too early to think about what we have to do for next year. Neil and his staff, there’s a lot to go into that. We have free agents. There’s a lot that goes into that question and I’m just not prepared to answer it at this point.”
DAMIAN LILLARD
On his thoughts after the game:
“I have no idea. I had a great summer (last summer) preparing myself for the season, I had a lot of things going on personally down the stretch of the season and got right and closed out the season how I wanted too. I came into the playoffs healthy and with my mind right and ready to go. My only concern was making the playoffs and making a strong push. To come up short and for our season to end on our home floor is disappointing, that’s as far as I am with it right now. I’m not really thinking about the other stuff, we’ll see what happens but I haven’t even thought that far out.”
Thoughts on first-round exit:
“Just because we make it to the NBA and become successful people, it doesn’t take away that we have our own lives, life happens to us like it happens to everybody else. I don’t think this makes it any worse, it was bad. My family and my loved ones come before basketball. I don’t think this would have made any better or worse. When you put everything into it and you come up short, it’s disappointing.”
On his collision with Nikola Jokic in the fourth quarter:
“He rung my bell a little bit, I was going after the ball and he came in from the side so I think his shoulder just hit my head. I was a little shook up from it, but after that hit it kind of knocked me off my game a little bit because it was a blow to the head. It was a tough collision.”
On his message to the team:
“We fought through a lot of injuries this season, we hit some adversity and stayed together like a true team does and we went to battle. We don’t make excuses, it was a disappointing ending, it’s not what we wanted. We don’t hang our heads in no situation but we just came up short.”
On the season Nikola Jokic had:
“Throughout the season I go back and watch every game possible. I’ve seen a lot of his games and I think he is the MVP, he’s played every game, he does everything for his team and I think we got to front row seat to that in this series. He’s making three’s, he scoring on the block, he’s scoring at the free-throw line, he’s making other guys better, he’s everything for them. If there was any year where I think there was a guy like him that could lead his team to a championship, it would be this year because of how open the (conference) is. In my eyes, I feel like any team can compete and go get it done which is why it’s even more disappointing for me because I feel like if any year you can shoulder the load and go get one, it was this one.”
On how he and the team can improve for next season:
“The last two years we have been at the bottom on defense, so we got to be a better defensive team. For me, I got to do what I always do; sit down with my trainers and the people that watch me closely and listen to what the truth is. Work on the things I got to be better and more efficient at, attack it and keep making strides and improving as a player and individual.”
CJ McCOLLUM
On the Trail Blazers play in the fourth quarter:
“I’ll have to go back and watch the film. I think we scored 14 points in the fourth quarter. So we didn’t make shots. Defensively to only give up 28 I don’t think we did a terrible job. A lot of it was fouls towards the end of the quarter, but I think they just did a good job at moving the ball. And a good job at forcing us into tough contested shots. We missed some shots we normally make as well. Credit them. They played a great series and played a great game. For us to be up double digits in the majority is tough.”
On his overall thoughts on Game 6:
“I thought everybody played as hard as they could. Everybody was locked into the game understanding what was at stake. I don’t think people miss shots on purpose. I don’t think people… Sometimes the game just doesn’t go your way. Everybody played, everybody competed I think it’s more so credit to them. They played well.”