What They Said!! Grizzlies at Timberwolves 11-15-15

Grizzlies Head Coach Dave Joerger

On everything:

“I thought we were aggressive going to the paint, which was good, because obviously there’s a lot of people in there, but once we got into the paint but didn’t settle… Jeff Green was one of the big ones in that. Get in the paint, then kick it out, then they have to close out, then we can drive it or post it from there. That’s where Marc (Gasol) and Zach (Randolph) got it. Hopefully we continue to learn and get better with this group this season. It’s different every year you come back. Obviously (Zach) LaVine scored a bunch in the last minute. Man, he can really score. He’s a really, really talented player. They’ve got a great future but I think it’s already here. (Andrew) Wiggins is a tremendous player, he’s really, really hard to handle. For me to be able to put Tony Allen on him, then switch and put Matt Barnes on him when I take him out, then certainly Jeff Green can give him a different look. I don’t know how many teams are able to do that. We like being able to do that. Man, he is really, really good. Karl-Anthony (Towns) got it going a little bit more in the second half, he was terrific. I didn’t see Tyus Jones, but I love Tyus Jones, of course, because he’s from Minnesota.”

On Jeff Green:

“If you get cross-matched, at times I thought that way I didn’t really want Courtney to see Wiggins if Wiggins matched up to him or things happen during the course of the game. They’d just take it down there and punch it in. I just wanted some more size. I thought for the most part, he was really, really aggressive. Did a lot of good things. That’s two really solid games for him.”

Grizzlies Guard Mike Conley

On the team’s shooting:

“Just sticking with it. Just staying aggressive. Obviously we’ve had guys who have been in some slumps, and as a group collectively we haven’t shot the ball well. To finally get out there and see a couple go in, because we know we’re shooters. We’ve been in this league a long time and we’ve made our names with what we do. We just have to stay aggressive, stay confident and tonight we finally saw them go in.”

On the fourth quarter:

“We executed offensively. I think that was a big key. Defensively we were limiting them to one shot. They weren’t getting the loose balls or the tip-outs and stuff like that that they’re accustomed to getting and that really set the tone for the fourth quarter.”

Grizzlies Forward Jeff Green

On the team’s shooting:

“I think we just stuck with the plan. There was no reason to change it. The shots just were falling for us. We got the same looks, guys were shooting the same shots. Tonight they just happened to fall for us.”

On defending Minnesota:

“I know they have some quick guards in Wiggins and Zach who getting out in transition, they’re leapers. With veteran guys like Tay (Prince), Dre (Miller) and KG (Garnett), they’re holding everyone accountable, so we just had to make sure they didn’t get out in transition and get easy buckets.”

 

 

Timberwolves Interim Head Coach Sam Mitchell

On playing Memphis…
“They hit some jump shots, they shot the ball well from outside. That’s something normally they haven’t been doing, but when we come out and we don’t put pressure on those guys early and let them get into a rhythm… these are NBA players, once they get the confidence, they’re going to make shots. We’ve got to do a better job of putting pressure on people early and make them miss a few early in the game. Then maybe they won’t shoot those shots with such confidence.”

On Rubio’s absence…
“He’s our point guard, we’re not going to turn the ball over as much, we’re going to get into our sets. He’s a good defender on the ball, just everything. We’ve got a guy there now… Zach is playing well, but inexperienced. It just tells a lot of things. You saw the difference, he missed the last three, four games, we saw some games before that. He is our starting point guard. If you take the starting point guard off of any team, you’re going to see a difference.”

On defense…
“We’ve got to work on our defense. We’ve got to play better defense. We gave up 50+% from the two and the three. We rebounded enough, we had turnovers, bad turnovers at the wrong time of the game, but overall, we didn’t turn the ball over a lot. We’ve just got to play better defense.”

 

Wolves Center Karl-Anthony Towns

On the game…

“We just made some mistakes. We made the mistakes that we didn’t need to make. They capitalized, so that’s just the sign of a great team for them, we played a great team today.”

“We didn’t do what we needed to do to win. They played really well, they shot well tonight, so you’ve just got to take it and move on and learn from our mistakes.”

 

On facing the Grizzlies front line…

“I love being on that court with those kind of players on the court. The high-level, elite talent on the court makes it more fun to play.”

 

Wolves Guard Zach LaVine

On the game…

“When you’re down, you’ve got to be perfect on the way coming back. We fought, that’s the main thing, we just messed up a couple of times on defensive assignments. You can’t be too mad about it because we fought today, so stuff just didn’t go our way.”

 On Memphis’ shooting…

“They’re an NBA team, everybody can catch fire. They’re guys that have been shooting well, so they shot the way that they usually do in years past, so it definitely shows with almost 60% from the field. That’s why you’ve almost got to be perfect.”

 

Wolves Forward Kevin Garnett

On defense early in the game..

“Defense sets the tone for all the games. I thought Conley got into a rhythm… these NBA players are able to make shots. I think in the previous games, four or five games the other night, he got many threes, so that put us on our head, so we’ve got to start games with more of a defensive mindset.”

 On reaching 50,000 minutes…
“To be honest, any achievement at this point is always a good one. Like you said, durability is something I take a lot of pride in. I don’t like missing games, but being at this stage of the career and being able to be out here starting… I don’t know what I look like, I know on the stat sheet, I know I don’t put a lot up, but energetically-wise, I’m giving what I have. I like to think that I can still guard and that says a lot.”