What They Said! Grizz vs. Thunder 11-16-15

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GRIZZLIES HEAD COACH DAVE JOERGER:

On the game:

“A heck of a hard fought game. We’ve got some things to work on, but I was really proud of the guts that we displayed playing three games in four nights. Guys’ legs were heavy. Mentally we made some mistakes. We turned the basketball over a bunch early, and that was a big key for us. But then after that, we turned the ball over three times the rest of the game. We got some great performances from some guys in some areas that maybe you might not see. I thought JaMychal Green, defensively, was terrific for us. Russell Westbrook had it going. You can throw all kinds of different things at him, which we did, switching, jumping him, trapping him and trying to get it out of his hands. (Serge) Ibaka was hurting us on the roll, so I thought he did a tremendous job. I think Tony (Allen) really took one for the team. Being physical and playing Westbrook is very demanding, and what it did, I think, was it freed up Mike Conley a little bit offensively to play in some more space. I think Mario Chalmers’ performance was terrific, especially in the minutes that he played. I think that it’s encouraging to Mike Conley as well. He can go be aggressive and get in the paint, and Mario shoots 15 free throws. I think six of them were maybe late, but that’s good. Mike’s been aggressive seeing the ball go down. We’ve been much more active defensively. Most of our work we’ve got to do is on the defensive end right now, and then taking care of our turnovers. But, really impressive. I think the guys feel good. Three wins in a row, and getting some confidence beating a good team. They threw some haymakers tonight. I mean they shot 50 percent, and to make ten threes. We made our share too tonight, which was super.”

 

On Mario Chalmers:

“I guess maybe if I try to coach too much and then his numbers go down, it’s going to be on me. So, we’ll maybe keep it simple. But, you know, keeping him in pick-and-rolls, being aggressive, and defensively he gets his hand on balls, so he gets you some extra possessions. He’s feeling a lot of confidence, and he’s feeling a lot of love. So, I told him, ‘Welcome to Memphis,’ and, ‘They love you.’”

 

On JaMychal Green:

“Well, we only have three bigs right now, and it’s a real problem for us. Zach (Randolph) was struggling with their length, but also it’s their third game and it’s tough on him. He really carries the load on so many nights and is the go-to player. When we need to go get a buck, Zach’s the guy that we pound it down to. But, I think Marc Gasol’s performances have really jumped up, and Mike Conley’s have as well. But, to only have those three bigs is really difficult because I don’t like playing Zach at center because of the length, and so JaMychal playing 30 minutes for us tonight was huge.”

 

On Mario Chalmers’ impact on the team:

“It lets him (Mike Conley) rest a little bit, first of all. Secondly, we just put so much load on him to make every play, he’s our primary pick-and-roll, and ball handler. Now I think you see that Marc (Gasol) is getting some chemistry. JaMychal Green is playing much better now. Three games in a row real solid performances at both ends of the floor. We see (Jeff Green) scoring, but he had 21 last night, he had 20 tonight. He’s been aggressive – six free throws, four free throws, and eight free throws tonight. So, those things are good and that helps everybody. We’re going to lift Courtney (Lee) up and get him going and he’s going to find his spot and his stroke. We need that for our team’s success.”

 

On starting Jeff Green and Tony Allen:

“It was a matchup thing for these two games. I know we were going to start Tony to play (Russell) Westbrook, and Tony to play (Andrew) Wiggins a little bit. I didn’t want to get cross-matched against Minnesota yesterday in transition, where Courtney (Lee) may have had to catch Wiggins in transition because he’d take him down to the box. He’s a handful. So, I think it gives us a little bit more length out there.”

 

GRIZZLIES GUARD MARIO CHALMERS (29 points)

On the fourth quarter:

“I’m just trying to provide a spark for my team. I always try to bring energy to the game and bring what I do best, and that’s energy.”

 

On playing with the Grizzlies:

“My teammates have made it very easy on me. They just tell me to go out there and play. Thanks to the coach (Dave Joerger) for keeping the playbook simple for me. I still have a lot to learn. Hopefully I’ll just keep getting better.”

 

On playing for Memphis:

“The sky’s the limit for this team and it always has been. I just try to bring what I can bring to the team. Just try to learn from everybody and make sure we keep winning.”

 

On defense:

“Defensively it’s been easy. I’ve always felt good about defense. Coming to the Grindhouse, having Miami be a grind-out team and going to four straight finals. That’s all I know is the grind. So defensively it’s been very easy for me.”  

 

On playing in Memphis:

“It gave me more motivation. Just come out here and prove to the fans that I want to be here. I belong here. Hopefully, they will forget about 2008.”

 

On having practice days:

“(They are) very important. I have to take my iPad home tonight and watch some more plays. These next two days, just keep guarding, just keep getting into the playbook and hopefully open up the offense even more.”

 

GRIZZLIES CENTER MARC GASOL (17 points)

On the season:

“I think we have built up our trust defensively. I know it sounds weird to talk about defense and confidence defensively, but that’s what we did. Defensively, when you share and you are unselfish defensively, it carries over offensively. Guys get more confident, guys get more looks, open shots, better shots and we get in a little rhythm. It’s the same thing if you go 0-4, you go 3-0, you have to keep pushing. It’s a long season and you just have to doing what you’re supposed to do.”

 

On Mario Chalmers:

“He doesn’t know the plays yet, so imagine when he knows the plays. It’s going to take a little time but he knows how to play. You see the type of defense that he plays. He is in-your-face type of guy, not afraid of contact and not afraid of confrontation. He fits right in.”

 

OKLAHOMA CITY HEAD COACH BILLY DONOVAN:

On the Thunder not getting enough stops:

“Well, I think coming out of yesterday I was much more pleased with our offense. I thought we did a much, much better job. I thought we had better ball movement, we got it from one side to the other. I thought we had some shots that we did not make that was the right look, the right pass, but I thought we were improved in that area. I thought what really hurt us tonight was the three-point line. And they’re (Grizzlies) a team, give them credit, Chalmers (Mario) stepped up and made some, Conley (Mike) made some and that really was a huge difference in the game was the three-point line. I thought we made some strides in some areas and certainly for the way they shot the basketball from behind the line, we certainly gave up too many points.”  

 

On wanting Grizzlies to take shots beyond the arc:

“I’ve always been a big believer that when the three-point shot goes up, it’s dangerous because in this league on a given night, and it only takes one night for a team to get hot and to their credit they made them tonight. I think if you look at it and say ‘Hey, listen we’re just going to give up threes’, that was never the intent. Certainly, we wanted to contain Conley (Mike) on the dribble. Chalmers (Mario) I thought hit a couple tough ones over D.J. (Augustin), but the three-point line has not been something that’s been really a huge strength of their team, but they really shot it well tonight.”

 

On relentlessness of Thunder despite double-digit deficits:

“We worked to get back in the game. We battled and fought and we had that stretch where we got it back down to maybe three to start the third quarter. We didn’t have a great beginning of the fourth and we got down by seven and Russell (Westbrook) and Serge (Ibaka) came back in and pulled within three. We kind of went back and forth and we kept fighting our way back. We gave ourselves a chance to be there late in the game and again, the three-point line hurt us. But, I was a little bit more pleased offensively with the way we played. I still think we have a lot of growth that needs to be made on offense and defense, in particular. I think we’ve got to get better defensively. We have to work to get better and we obviously haven’t had a chance to practice here in awhile, I think these guys picked up some really, really valuable things watching film this morning of last night’s game related to ball movement. We have another day in between play again, hopefully we can use some film and walking through some things to make a step in the right direction.”

 

On Thunder’s specific defense issues:

“A couple things. When the play starts, sometimes we’ve gotten behind. Someone gets screened, somebody’s helping, and all of a sudden there’s a trickle effect of being late so to speak. We had some tough matchups to start the game because they were going to obviously post-up Green (Jeff) and we knew that was probably coming because they were starting with the small forward spot. I thought at times, Dion (Waiters) and Anthony (Morrow) really battled down there. I thought we let Conley (Mike) get loose a couple of times where we had some guard-to-guard switching where we kind of had some miscommunication. Conley knocked down a three, one time, Green cut back-door and got a layup on us. So, I think the communication part is something we need to continue to work on and get better at. This was quick for these guys from the standpoint of getting in the scouting report and the quick turnaround. I thought we adjusted and the stuff that we gave up in the first half, we didn’t give up in the second half, which was good. But, I think starting the possession off well is important because once you get behind the play, you’re playing catch up.”

 

THUNDER GUARD RUSSELL WESTBROOK (40 POINTS, 14 ASSISTS)

 On the game:

“I thought we did a good job of sticking together. They made some big shots at the end of the game. They made that one big three, but I thought for the most part that we did a good job of sticking together. They just made the last run and won the game.”

 

On the Grizzlies shooting well from three-point range:

“It’s something we’ve got to live with. This team lives in the paint and tonight some guys made some shots they usually wouldn’t make. We just have to move on and get ready for the next game.”

 

On pushing the pace tonight:

“Getting stops and steals to get out on the break was important for us, especially tonight. Unfortunately, it didn’t work out for the best. But, we’ll get back to work and get ready for Wednesday.”

 

On defensive breakdowns:

“I thought we did a good job packing the paint. They score most of their points in the paint and tonight they hit some threes. They came in shooting 27 percent from three and we have to live with something.”

 

On what Mario Chalmers adds to the Grizzlies roster:

“They’re pretty much the same team. He helped bring some years to them as another veteran on the team. They’re a tough team and like to grind it out, but I like our team. I like what we did tonight. We’ll be back and get back to the drawing board.”

 

Post Game Video from Anthony Sain of Blu3WorldOrder

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