What They Said!! Grizzlies vs Magic 01-25-16

POST GAME QUOTES

GRIZZLIES 108, MAGIC 102 [OT]

 

GRIZZLIES HEAD COACH DAVE JOERGER

Opening Statement:

“If you’re a fan of the game that’s a heck of an NBA game to be a part of. It was fast at times, it was defense-oriented at times. There were certainly a lot of threes, especially in the first half, just a lot of drama. I’m really proud of our guys, they’ve stuck together all season. They’re playing hard. The first-half defense wasn’t great but they also made some shots. They had three days to get ready for this game and were ready to play. To not quit when you’re down two and they have the ball at the side out-of-bounds and they have a timeout to take and you make a huge play to get after them and get a deflection… At that point I didn’t want to take a timeout, I thought we had a little bit of controlled chaos there to go down and make another play. Guys just care about each other and I’m so proud of how hard they have played. Mike Conley really gutted it out and was just getting in the paint. I thought Tony Allen was terrific; it’s not easy not playing for a couple games then playing 40 minutes. Zach [Randolph] didn’t put his head down, he came out in the overtime and got us two fouls and did a good job on Tobias Harris chasing him around. Jeff Green maybe had his best game as a Grizzly. He really kept us in the first half and gave us some juice. What can you say about Marc [Gasol]? He just keeps banging away and is just a winner of a player. We did get 10 stops out of 11 possessions in the overtime which is a big deal for us.”

 

On Jeff Green:

“We’ve talked about it before but when a guy gets a couple offensive rebounds, gets to the foul line a couple times, gets a couple in transition then you throw down a dunk and are just being aggressive it really charges up our whole team. That’s the thing – it certainly affects him but it affects our whole team. I thought he did a good job chasing Evan Fournier and Victor Oladipo and some of those smaller guys that have been giving us trouble.”

 

On getting into the paint:

“We talked about not settling at halftime. You might have a shot, but I thought our pace offensively was tremendous. I thought we ran out of gas at the end. We were playing very quickly in the first half, we were moving the basketball, moving bodies, getting screens and then we were attacking an open paint. We have to get back to going to the rim and good things will happen.”

 

On Mario Chalmers’ performance:

“I thought he had a tough night. I’d like to be able to play him at those end-of-game situations when you need that extra ball handler. It was just one of those nights where Mike [Conley] had it going and got everybody else going as well.”

 

On defense:

“We talked about our weak side at halftime a lot. We were just watching, they were getting first-pass kick-out threes instead of being more active and shortening space between guys so they have to swing it so they would be shooting under a little more duress. I thought the last four or five minutes of the second quarter we played with a lot more urgency and that’s what we talked about just carrying that over into the second half. They were beating us to balls and I don’t recall that happening in the second half.”

 

 

GRIZZLIES CENTER COURTNEY LEE (16 points, 2 assists)

On tonight’s game:

“It was tough at first because they were running on us and getting a lot of easy layups in transition. They had (Aaron) Gordon in at the four and he was running full speed pretty much the whole game, so it was tough. But once we started settling in and getting stops, it worked out to our benefit.”

 

On Jeff Green’s play tonight:

“I think he had his mind made up that he was going to come out and play aggressively. It worked out for us and he stuck with it the whole game and made some big shots, especially the one at the end of the regulation.”

 

On hurting his arm:

“Yeah I got a little stinger in my triceps. I don’t know what is. I am going to get some treatment after this.”

 

On being able to play different ways this season:

“It just says we are versatile – especially when you have guys like Matt (Barnes), Jeff (Green) and JaMychal (Green) that can get out and run. It helps us because of some teams that can out run us, we can play small ball and adjust to that.”

 

On making late game plays in the end and winning:

“We are creatures of habit. We work on late game situations in practice. You are in them a lot during games, whether it is at the end of the first quarter or end of the game. The more you work on them, the better you become and the better you will be.”

 

 

GRIZZLIES FORWARD TONY ALLEN (9 points, 12 rebounds)

On the difference of play in overtime:

“Basically, all five guys locked in defensively and held our heads on the defensive end and stuck to our coverage. We did everything just a little bit harder, and down the stretch we were aggressive on the defensive end. The coaches on the sideline called out the plays and that helped us a lot.”

 

On the importance of getting the game back to Grizzlies basketball:

“Like I said, we keyed in defensively and played to the things we worked on earlier in shootaround. We didn’t get beat off the dribble – not getting split on the pick-and-rolls and that helped us. We got in the right spot for the rebounds so we could get out and push the ball and play our tempo. For the most part, those young guys gave us a run for our money, but down the stretch, we locked in defensively.”

 

On Jeff Green performance tonight:

“When Jeff Green plays like that, it is big for our team. We are going to need him to continue to play like that for the remainder of the season. It just makes us a better team. We are unstoppable when he is playing like that. He is the X-factor. If we can get him playing like that more consistently, it is going to be tough for a lot of teams.”

 

On the team’s success in close games:

“We never get riled and it’s always going to be a game within a game. Each possession counts down the stretch. I think we value each possession down the stretch, defensively and offensively. And like I said, the coaches do a good job calling those guy’s sets as they are approaching us as well as everyone trusting each other. When you have all five guys keying in, it makes it that much hard for the opponents.

 

 

 

 

MAGIC HEAD COACH SCOTT SKILES:

On how the game got away:

“We gave it to them. We made a nice defensive play where we were able to get out, dunk the ball, and go up four. We just didn’t get matched up in transition. We had a foul to give and we made that clear in a timeout that we wanted to take a foul in that situation. We didn’t do either one. {Jeff} Green dunked it and then we moved it up and thought we made it clear that if we can’t get it in, take our last timeout and we threw the ball away and they got it to overtime. We missed a bunch of good looks and couldn’t get it.”

 

On back-to-back close losses:

“They are all tough. It’s tough when we caused this tonight. We did this to ourselves and the other night as well by not being sharp when we needed. Rather we go up four and we just think it’s over and they’re going to walk out of the gym, I have no idea. We just looked at it. They didn’t even push the ball back at us. They kind of took it slowly, inbounded the ball, took a dribble, threw it up the side, and we were just standing there. It’s inexplicable.”

 

On converting open looks:

“If you kind of cough up the game and the home team, especially a team like Memphis forces overtime, then you need those to go in. Those have to go in for you, if you’re going to win.”

 

On little things that lose ballgames:

“It’s just mental. It’s just about paying attention in a timeout. That’s not anything earth shattering. We gave them 70 paint points and 20 on the breaks. So 90 of their points were just on the break or in the paint. Even though our defense wasn’t as sharp as we would like for it to be, we had the game. We just gave it to them.”

 

On team’s resiliency:

“I don’t know if I am concerned about that. I am concerned about why we cover things in a shootaround and cover them again while the game is going on and then while live play is actually happening, for whatever reason mentally we are not able to do what we are supposed to do. That’s the most concerning thing.”

 

On Jeff Green:

“Jeff is a good player. At one point on the stat sheet, he had played 17-plus minutes and had 23 points. We just couldn’t anybody to match up with him. He hurt us and then he made the last two big plays as well.”

 

On the game:

“I felt like offensively we were pretty much okay. We bogged down a little bit in the fourth. We were able to gather ourselves and get it together again. As I said, we made enough plays to win the game but we didn’t.”

 

MAGIC GUARD EVAN FOURNIER (16 POINTS, 5 ASSISTS)

On frustration with losing lead:

“It’s obviously very frustrating, but if you look at the big picture I think we played pretty good tonight against a very good team in Memphis. We had it – up four with 17 seconds – it should be done. But mistakes not matching up, fouls, we blew that up.”

 

On difference in overtime:

“When you come back and force the overtime, you have the momentum. So they (Grizzlies) had the momentum, they made good plays and they stopped us defensively.”

 

On the little things making the difference for Magic:

“It’s definitely the little details that make you win that we don’t do right now. It makes a huge difference if you add it up.”

 

On Magic’s overall play:

“I feel we did well. We know Memphis is a team that doesn’t like to run a lot, they have two big guys that like to be in the paint and not necessarily run up and down the floor. We pushed the pace, we had a good chance, so that was pretty good.”

 

On facing a difficult streak:

“We have to keep playing this way, we just have to close it out. But if we keep playing this way we’re going to be in pretty good shape.”

 

 

 

MAGIC FORWARD TOBIAS HARRIS (16 POINTS, 4 REBOUNDS)

On two back-to-back losses:

“It’s very disappointing for us. Two games we felt we had the game in our hands and let it slip away. We just have to learn from it, stay confident in our play and get ready for tomorrow.”

 

On turning the ball over on in-bound play:

“Our play kind of broke down a little bit, so we had to scramble to get open. It was just a tough play. They had a lot of people around the area that got their hands on the basketball and were able to tip it and get a steal, so it’s just a tough sequence right there.”

 

On making little mistakes that cost them the game:

“Tonight, there were a lot of little things that cost us the game. We could’ve called a timeout on the in-bound play. I could’ve fouled Jeff Green because we had a foul to give. It’s things like that that add up and would eliminate some of the situations we put ourselves in down the stretch. It’s something that we have to learn from. It’s disappointing right now, but we have another game tomorrow. So as tough as it is, we have to let this one go and learn from it.”