GRIZZLIES HEAD COACH DAVE JOERGER

 

On the game:

“It was a good win for us. It was the kind of game where we played really hard and really well. But we played for 48 minutes and we haven’t played from the lead a lot this year and I thought there was hints of last night started creeping into guys’ minds and we got back to attacking. A critical point in the fourth quarter where it got down to 10 or 11, we pushed it back out. Last night we played 44 minutes which was good enough to probably win, but it just wasn’t last night. But 44 is better than a week ago where we were playing 28. A team gets up on us big and you start letting go of the rope a little bit. I thought both of the last two nights we played really, really hard. It hurts to lose last night, I think everybody is hurting about it. But to then come out and play with a performance like this where Marc (Gasol) and Mike (Conley) just said ‘This is our team. We are going to push this out and we are not going to lose. We are not letting our teammates down.’ I didn’t play a lot of guys tonight. But everybody that played, I thought played really well for most parts of the game especially coming on the second of a back-to-back. All the starters played 37 or more, except for Matt (Barnes) who played 33. Really proud of our guys; tough to go back-to-back. We are taking the day off tomorrow and meet at the plane, then Chicago, Dallas and Indiana.”

 

On the assists and turnovers:

“Sometimes when you’re a sense-oriented team, the ball goes to A to B to C and you know what the final outcome is. There are a lot of advantages for that, you can get back on defense better, you know where your shots are coming from. Your assist numbers always go up when you are making shots so that’s good for us. The turnover number I’m hoping will come down as we play out of more equal opportunity. It might not go from A-to-B, it might go from A-to-C and wherever else. Hopefully we get those down, especially against those teams that play fast. We made a lot of shots tonight. We had a critical time in the fourth quarter where last night we took a lot of jumpers coming down the stretch. But tonight we got in the penalty, went to the basket in the fourth quarter and that helps us set our defense.”

 

On the lineup:

“I certainly like the spacing. The two main guys who benefit from the spacing is Jeff Green and Mike Conley. Jeff Green really took advantage of it last night, had a big night, got up 20 shots and was aggressive. Those kind of things make more guys threats and so we just have to learn to play that way.”

 

On John Wall:

“Well you try to guard him with more than one guy, especially in transition. I thought we made the effort because we really wanted to win. It was an urgent status for us because it’s been a tough stretch. We just tried to show people that we were in front of him so he saw two or three people. That was a big emphasis for us tonight. He made two threes early and somebody asked, ‘Do you want me to fly out at him?’ And I said, ‘No’. He can make it but which one would you rather live with? He’s a heck of a player but he didn’t play a lot in the second half.”

 

On fatigue:

“When you play small ball, you know where the ball is going to go and you can punch it right or punch it left. Sometimes when you continue to play spread ball, this is where we have to be careful. We have to execute. You’re down to the last six minutes of the game, what are you looking for, and where are your go to guys? We ended up with a couple random shots last night but they were good looks and they were set plays. For us, in the past, it’s Zach (Randolph) or Marc (Gasol) pounding it in. It’s going to take a little bit to get that. The other thing is that it does get into your legs a little bit more as far as the amount of running that you’re doing. So jumpers can come short late in games.”

 

GRIZZLIES CENTER MARC GASOL (24 points, 6 assists, 12 rebounds)

 

On he and Mike Conley taking over tonight:

“I was a little bit more aggressive. I probably took more shots than I did yesterday. I felt a little bit better than I did yesterday. We won, so that’s all that matters. Defensively, we did a great job. I don’t know how many points they scored, but we did a really good job of keeping guys outside the paint. They made some tough jumpers, especially Gary Neal.”

 

On there being more space on offense with tonight’s starting lineup:

“Guys are moving and setting screens, but we still have to play our pace. We’ve got to get used to it, adapt and we’ve got to play.”

 

On if he pays attention what people say about the team:

“If I paid attention to everything people said for my whole life, I would not be here. What you’ve got to do is just do your job every day.”

 

GRIZZLIES FORWARD ZACH RANDOLPH (8 points, 4 rebounds)

 

On coming off the bench:

“It’s different. I’ve got to learn how to adjust to it. But as long as I go out there and keep playing hard, whether it’s eight minutes or five minutes, I just need to go out there and do what I can do.”

 

On getting a win after yesterday’s tough loss:

“It was definitely good. We thought we should have won last night in Miami, and tonight we came out with a lot of energy. We hit some shots, and Marc and Mike had great games. Everyone else contributed.”

 

WIZARDS HEAD COACH RANDY WITTMAN:

 

On tonight’s game:

“Until we get a commitment to defend, that’s going to be—we’re going to be on this roller coaster. Right now we get satisfied with one win. Right now our mindset is to try to outscore people. Our team isn’t made that way. I don’t have enough scorers to say we’re going to go out and not care what they do, we’re going to outscore them. You can go back through the games. Houston 109-103, 108-104 New Orleans, Dallas 114-111, these guys (Grizzlies) 112. We don’t have a commitment on the defensive end, and until we do, the other guys at the end—that just shows you, too. We got it to 11 points. We didn’t come out with intensity or grit to start the game, third quarter especially. We missed layups. We missed free throws. Not contested layups, uncontested layups. You’re not focused, that was really the story tonight. That group that was in there at the end that battled back and made them call a timeout and get the crowd a little antsy. Right now, it was an embarrassment from a defensive standpoint.”

 

On John Wall:

“Any time John Wall takes 11 shots and seven of them are threes, that’s not who he is. He’s been playing at a pretty high level coming into here and that ratio is not very good for us.”

 

WIZARDS GUARD GARY NEAL (24 POINTS, 2 REBOUNDS)

 

On the game:

“It’s tough because we’re playing this small line-up. With this small line-up we were right in the post which is fronting the post and when you’re doing that I think sometimes if their aggression isn’t there then you could probably get caught in rotation early in the shot clock. And when you’re caught in rotation early in the shot clock with 14 or 16 on the shot clock that means pretty much for the game you have to stop two, three, four dribble penetrations in a recovery type of mode and I think that just over the course of a game can take a toll on us.”

 

On tweaking line-ups:

“I’m a player. I am not going to get into what the line-up should or what it shouldn’t be. I’m a player. My job is to go out there and do the best I can do and try to make whatever game plan or scheme that coach comes up with work.”

 

On fourth quarter comeback:

“We just picked up our energy level. Sometimes when you are down 20 points, some teams fold and some teams tighten up. I think we were able to show our fight. I think we were able to get it to 10 points and then I think they hit a three off of an offensive rebound and that kind of just changed the momentum. The guys that were in there playing didn’t give up and we continued to fight. That would probably be the only positive from this game is that we didn’t give up and we didn’t lay down. We continued to fight and battle.”

 

WIZARDS CENTER MARCIN GORTAT (10 POINTS, 9 REBOUNDS)

 

On the game:

“That’s what it is. We decide to go small and obviously our offense is going to improve but at the same time defensively we are going to put ourselves in a little bit of a disadvantage. Teams like Memphis or Miami that have two bigs, you have to scramble around and you have to help each other. You have to do different things. It’s not easy. We are smaller size wise. We are smaller on the boards. They are cranking the boards hard. We have to play our best at that point to be able to play at the same level where they have two legit bigs.”

 

On not playing consistently:

“I don’t know. If I find the answer I’ll let you know. I have no idea, it’s not like we come out there and we don’t want to play basketball. You know we all want to play basketball. We are all taking the same shots that we take every day in practice or in a game and sometimes they just don’t go in. That’s why at the end of the year you have percentage and you know shots that you feel comfortable with. At the end of the year I went 4-11 at the end of the year I’m going to be around 55 or 56 percent because that’s how I’ve shot my whole life. It’s a part of the game. I may miss two easy lay ups but I’m going to make two tough ones. You know, next game somebody is going to make 10-10 or 10-15 because that’s how we go I think it was just a tough shooting night for us. I don’t have any reason why we did so bad but that’s just part of the game. It is part of the game. These guys were shooting very well today they made a lot of threes so I’ve got no explanation.”