What They Said!! Sixers at Grizzlies 11-29-2015

GRIZZLIES HEAD COACH DAVE JOERGER

Opening statement:

“Tough game, hard fought battle, happy to come out on top. We had some tremendous performances, Zach (Randolph) coming down the stretch did a really nice job for us. Mike Conley playing the number of minutes that he had to play tonight, he just wouldn’t let us lose. He kept pushing and kept pushing and he broke through and had a heck of a game. Matt Barnes, he’s got numbers in every single category and same with Jeff Green, I thought he had a big three when we needed it. Some guys certainly are out of gas and it will be tough to practice tomorrow, but we’ll bring it in and get some stuff done. The turnovers were a huge issue for us all night long, I think we had eight guys who had more than two turnovers, six guys who had three or more. It’s one of these things where you can press a little bit, you can get a little tight at times. You don’t want to be the team that broke their streak and I thought our concentration was something we really struggled with and getting the shots we were looking for and having the urgency defensively to get back. And certainly the third quarter. For them to score 36 indicated that. But all in all, it’s always good to get a win.”

On Zach Randolph’s effect on pace:

“I think their length affected him. I think he was a little rusty at first, thinking that he had sealed guys off and their youthfulness, their length, and their athleticism got a couple of shots blocked. But I thought he was pretty good. Bringing him back and he played 32 minutes, he wanted to play more, but I didn’t know that he could finish if I went to him too early, so I thought about the seven minute mark, eight minute mark, I was going to be able to put him in and let him finish and he did.”

On forcing Sixers to 27 turnovers:

“There was a lot of pressure, guys wanted to compete and get after them and we did that. They scored 13 points in the first quarter. Our defense was very, very solid. We were nervous at halftime, it was very similar to Atlanta. We had forced 13 turnovers, they were 3-for-16 from the three-point line, and it was a two possession game. It was really very scary and as coaches we don’t talk about that stuff with the players, but they’re going to make and they came out and hit seven threes in the third quarter. When you’re a team that puts them up like they do, you’re going to knock some down. So if they had cut their turnovers down and made a couple of threes, which is what they did in the third quarter, I think that scares all of us.”

On adjustments made after Sixers got first lead of the game:

“I was just trying to find guys that were in a rhythm. It was difficult to find which group you wanted to have in there coming down the stretch. We got settled to it and those guys were the guys that were on the floor. Matt (Barnes) and Jeff (Green) with Marc (Gasol) and Zach (Randolph) being able to do the things that we wanted to be able to do to execute. Zach did a terrific job coming down the stretch. Marc, to guard Okafor (Jahlil) as well as he did all night was terrific and a big key for us to go other places for offense. I thought that was the crew that had the best rhythm and maybe the fewest turnovers. You’re always going to want to put the ball in your best player’s hands coming down the stretch, so it was just a matters of which two guys were going to play with Mike (Conley), Marc and Zach.”

On Zach Randolph’s effect on the future of the small-ball lineup:

“It’s tough. It’s a good question of how it’s going to come out if Zach’s playing 30-something minutes a game. Marc is playing a lot, a lot of minutes and his load the last two weeks is incredible from all those cameras and the amount of pounding and the minutes and the force that is being on his body.  You’re starting to see fatigue already set in for him. I don’t like playing Zach at five. I don’t know how we’ll do that. We’ll just keep playing JaMychal (Green) at center. With Zach, otherwise, to play small for us means either JaMychal plays five and Matt plays four and what ends up happening is Marc plays 40 minutes. It’s very difficult to do.”

 

GRIZZLIES GUARD MIKE CONLEY (20 points, 5 assists)

On the third quarter:

“You have to stay poised in all those situations. They had absolutely nothing to lose there. They are out there playing as hard as any other team. They are scrapping and giving you different looks. It was an unorthodox type of situation but at the end of the day we stay true to what we do. We executed when we needed to and we got stops when we needed to, made free throws when we needed to. Luckily we were able to pull it out.”

On the turnovers:

“I panic when I have two turnovers and anything over that is unlike me. So for our team to have 20-plus turnovers is not like us. We want to be a better team at taking care of the ball and we have to be much better than that. Our focus has to be a lot better.”

 

76ERS HEAD COACH BRETT BROWN:

On tonight’s game:

“They’re really good players and they’re playing at home. I give them credit. They wound up the defense. We turned the ball over. We had a hard time again getting into some things. We tried to figure out who the best ball carriers were and who the best point guard was when pressure sets in. They wound up their defense and we didn’t handle it well.”

On scoring 36 points in the third quarter:

“Just pace and space. We knew that if you’re going to play half court and get into a fistfight with these men, they’re playoff experienced men they’ve played together for a long time then that doesn’t favor us. If you play with pace and you can play with space and avoid the fistfight, you knew you had the best chance of being in the game and maybe stealing a win. We played with speed and spread them out. We had 18 steals. We turned them over 26 times. The problem was that we turned it over a lot. That frantic pace and the deflections of the hands on balls allowed us have that volume of points in the third period.”

On positive take aways from the road trip:

“For people that don’t follow our program and they just simply see a record and the volume of losses, it would be hard to maybe justify that through words. For the people here, especially for the Philadelphia journalists, to have seen the effort and how close we are to playing with some really good players against some really good teams on the road. See that group diving on floors and helping each other off the court and being there. The game ends up a little too long. Most definitely, I leave very, very proud of our guys. We have made progress. It’s not going to display itself on the win side of things, but the people that follow us will know that. “

On playing Phil Pressey:

“We’ve had a decent sample size of kind of everything now. You feel the gym. You feel the physicality of the game. Phillip has a speed that allows him to go by people and get inside defenses and so we decided to do that. T.J. (McConnell) had a good game going, I just felt like then that we needed Phillip’s speed and his ability to get inside the defense and try to find Jahlil (Okafor) on rolls. We knew that posting Jahlil on Marc Gasol or Zach (Randolph) was maybe not going to be the wise thing when you became slow and sort of static. We thought we could him on rolls. Phillip is an excellent pick-and-roll player with speed, so we opted to go with Phillip.”

On the Grizzlies’ defense:

“I feel like we could’ve slipped out of some things more tonight to create some separation. They did a really good job of hedging, you know, hard showing on the pick-and-roll. Sometimes you can just take two steps towards the ball and get out of there. You got Jahlil (Okafor)30 on the open roll, which really was his best way to score. I think in general what you’re seeing is defenses amp up during crunch time and our young guys at times are having a hard time dealing with that. I feel like in this particular game we were far better off in the middle of the court. When we started playing on the sideline and getting stapled to a sideline, there’s just not much space. In the middle we had more room to see people and more space, but their defense did stand us up and we give them credit.”

76ERS CENTER JAHLIL OKAFOR (9 POINTS, 13 REBOUNDS)

On the fourth quarter:

“It was what you saw.  We turned it over a few times.  Missed some shots.  They hit some big threes down the stretch that really helped them out.  That was the end of the game.”

On the team’s progression:

“I think we made tons of progression.  We’re competing with every team.  We’re going all the way down to the wire.  That can easily be flipped to us coming out with the win.  I think we made a huge leap through this entire road trip, and we’re ready to get back home and play in front of our fans.”

On Kobe Bryant and playing the Lakers:

“I’m hearing it’s probably going to be sold out just because it’s Kobe’s (Bryant) last time playing in Philadelphia.  That’ll be great.  That’s somebody I grew up watching.  He’s been around 20 seasons.  That’s 20 years, and I’m 19.  That’s before I was even born.  It’s kind of bittersweet hearing that he’s retiring.  He’s one of the best all-time players ever, so I’m excited to play against him.”