What They Said!!! Grizzlies at Cavs 03-07-16

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POST GAME QUOTES

GRIZZLIES 106, CAVALIERS 103

 

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HEAD COACH DAVID JOERGER

On the game tonight:

“Obviously we knew it was going to be a tough game, coming in and playing with eight guys. Guys played their hearts out. Played extremely hard. Had a chance to get a wire to wire win, came down to the end. They’re a great team. Every shot that they shoot, you expect to go in. We just kept fighting. We had big performances. Each guy that played gave a lot of minutes. We had guys cramping, but they left it all out there and played their hearts out. It’s a happy locker room. Maybe one of the bigger wins I’ve had in my NBA career or in the nine years I’ve been with the Grizzlies. Coming in against an NBA Finalist team, as great as they are and get a road win against that team is (great).”

 

On what this win says about their team:

“This can go one of two ways, when this kind of thing happens. Things happen over the course of the season, things happen over the course of a game and you can’t let it get ugly. This team can make you look really bad. They beat us by 30 on opening night at our place and that was not enjoyable. Our guys stuck together. They kept fighting for each other. They wouldn’t let each other get negative or down, just very very impressive.”

 

On withstanding the Cavs run:

“To take the hit and go in there after being ahead for 46 minutes and go ‘Hey, we don’t play for moral victories.’ You guys have been in NBA locker rooms forever and ever. It’s like ‘Ah, you know, we tried hard.’ That still doesn’t sit well with you. Those kinds of things creep into your mind a little bit. To finish it out and take the hit from as good a team as that is is just a real credit to the chemistry that we’ve got and how hard guys played.”

 

 

VINCE CARTER

On whether tonight’s win was one of his most satisfying:

“That’s tough. That’s tough to rank. There are a lot of years to go back through. But in recent years, this is big time for us. We had a lot of guys down and the one thing we just told our young guys (was), ‘You’re going to play a lot of minutes. Just play hard and we’ll see what happens.’ When you see shots go down, you gain confidence and going into the half up (helped). I think the biggest thing for us was that we didn’t want to come out flat. We knew they were going to make their runs…We established that we need to give ourselves a chance and confidence, and the rest is history.”

 

On his team keeping its poise throughout the Cavs’ comeback attempt:

“We knew a run was coming. We knew they were going to make a run. We knew those three guys (LeBron James, Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love) were going to be the stars that they are. So I just think we just did a great job of executing on the offensive end and not getting rattled. There was a point where we had a couple turnovers in a row, but we locked down defensively, made them take a tough shot (and) got a couple steals. We kept them from the offensive glass late in the game, which was big for us to go down there and score, get fouled or whatever. So scoring with the clock stopped was big for us as well.”

 

 

TONY ALLEN

On how satisfying tonight’s win was:

“Honestly, it was just a game for us to get better. Guys like me, Mario (Chalmers), Lance (Stephenson) and J. Mych (JaMychal Green), we told each other before the game that we were just going to go out there, play hard and go to work as a team. We were confident coming in. When you’ve got all the guys from one through 15 (and) they believe, then the sky is the limit. I thought we kind of caught them off guard in the first quarter and from that point on, we felt good about ourselves and were confident throughout the game.”

 

 

 

 

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HEAD COACH TYRONN LUE

On what went wrong tonight:

“I just thought they were tougher than us tonight. They played hard and outscrapped us. You have to respect everybody in this league. Everyone gets a paycheck. That was the message before the game. We come out and turn over the ball 25 times. We give up 30 points on turnovers. They probably shot 60-something percent in the first quarter and a half. They just attacked us…Situations like this, when you’re playing a team that has a lot of players out, I’ve always learned a wounded animal is the most dangerous. (Memphis) came out and they competed. They played hard and they attacked us at every position.”

 

On the final shot:

“The biggest thing was just try to cause confusion. Set a few screens and cause confusion because we knew they were going to switch, and we were able to get a good look.”

 

On the Cavs’ 25 turnovers:

“It looked really bad. It was one of those games. We just didn’t have a good feel for the ball. We made some bad passes and had some bad turnovers, and they were able to get out in transition. Tony Allen having 26 points was way too many (to give up) but they got up into us, they pressured us, they were physical and they made us turn the ball over.”

 

 

KYRIE IRVING

On his final shot:

“Yeah (it felt good). I know I’m going to replay it for the next few hours or so. Short-term memory in this league, I got a good shot but a lot of our mistakes caused us to be in that position. I think it was a season-high in turnovers for us. They (Memphis) had 16 steals or something like that. Myself being careless with the ball having seven turnovers just can’t be like that.”

 

On the comeback in the fourth quarter:

“It’s just part of being in the NBA. You try to execute down the stretch. They hit a few tough shots. They got it going especially in the fourth quarter, made it tough. Guys were playing extremely hard in that locker room but a lot of our mistakes caused us to lose tonight.”

 

On tonight’s loss impacting momentum:

“No. It’s just one game. Like I said, it’s just short-term memory in this league. We fly to Sacramento, start our west coast trip. We’ve got to get ready for that.”

 

 

LEBRON JAMES

On tonight’s game:

“I was (concerned) especially because we had went over everything with the expectation that guys would be in the lineup this morning. We get here before the game and find out that no one, that we pretty much went over, is playing. But we’re professionals. You got to respect (the opponent). We are in this league for a reason. We didn’t respect them tonight and they beat us.”

 

On the turnovers:

“We gave up a lot of pick sixes. In NFL terms, that means straight to the house. (We) have 25 turnovers for 30 points, I don’t care who you’re playing. My son’s little league team, you’re going to lose when you give up that many points off turnovers. Just carelessness.”

 

On preparing for a short-handed team:

“You always prepare as if all guys are in the lineup. And when the lineup card comes or when we find out, you go with the flow and play the game. I think we were just very careless with our mindset and the ball.

Sharon Brown
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