HEAD COACH TERRY STOTTS What did you think of Lillard tonight? “He reminded me of Damian Lillard. He had a good flow offensively. He made big plays for us obviously down the stretch. I thought he played in a really good rhythm all night. It’s kind of the way he’s been playing in preseason. He’s healthy, he feels good. I thought he managed the game well. Obviously his stat line speaks for itself.” What happened in the third quarter? “Well, it was a little bit of us and them. They shoot 15 for 20 in the quarter. I thought they got to the paint a little bit too much more than anything else. We gave up I think 16 points in the paint in the first half and 22 in the third quarter. Their penetration hurt us. They were able to dump passes off to their bigs. We just weren’t able to control the ball as much as we needed to.” How would you describe Vonleh’s play? “Solid, solid. It’s easy to look at his 5 for 5 and he’s making shots but I thought defensively he was okay. Rebounding, he didn’t get a lot of rebounds but rebounding wasn’t a problem tonight. It was a good performance.” How do you feel about getting the win in the opener? “We’re not going to have any easy ones, or very many easy ones. It’s tough to win in this league. I’m glad we defended the way we did in the fourth quarter. Obviously we scored some points as well, but we have to be consistently better defensively. Winning at home is going to be important and winning a game against a division team is important, so it feels good.” DAMIAN LILLARD “We knew coming in that they were a capable team. They defend well. They play hard every possession. They can offensive rebound. They’ve got some guys that can get it going. But we made some mistakes on the defensive end, some of it had to do with how alert we were in our coverages. We had some communication issues, but the most important thing is we got the job done, and I’m proud of that.” You looked aggressive: “Yeah, coming off of a lot of the pick and rolls, I noticed that their big was back, he was back in the paint. A couple times I was able to give him a hesitation to get him to come forward and get to the rim. Other times he was back and I was able to pull up. So with those coverages, I felt like the way that we started to move the ball and make the defense react, once we got back to the pick and roll, we were able to get good looks. It just came down to if we were going to get stops and then score, because we could get shots that we wanted but we weren’t getting enough stops. Once we got stops, we continued to get good shots and that’s how we were able to get it done.” On keeping the home opener winning streak going: “We’ve got such a great crowd. Even moments tonight where they kind of had momentum, I could just head the crowd itching to get involved, getting loud cheering. That’s what we needed. We needed that pick-me-up at points in the game and with a streak that long – the longest in the NBA – you want it to keep going and I was proud that we were able to do that tonight.” On MVP talk and tonight’s performance: “This game isn’t going to win me MVP…. I think that people talk about what Steve Kerr said, and then they asked me and I said I wanted to be MVP and it seemed like I was seeing it everywhere. But the most important thing is your actions. I spent a lot of time this summer working on my game and trying to be a better player. We had a great camp. Our team competed really hard. Guys made it hard for me in camp. We fouled each other all through camp, it was a physical camp. So I feel prepared. The best way to show that I really mean that is by going out there and playing like it, and tonight was a good start.”
HEAD COACH QUIN SNYDER On his takeaways from tonight’s game and playing without three important players: “I thought we really competed. Damian Lillard is a really good player. We just wanted to try to control everything we could and we didn’t do that on the defensive end, I think we had break downs. Without those guys playing our margin just isn’t very large. Tonight, I thought we did everything from an effort standpoint that I wanted to see, we battled. Hats off to Portland and some of the plays that they made, but there’s certainly ways that we can, hopefully, be better.” On the combo of Rodney Hood and George Hill on the floor together: “They played off of each other well. I thought in the first half Sheldon (Mack) came in and did a good job. Our bench has to step up. When our starters were in there I thought we were able to score. We’ve just got to make up for anything with the guys off the bench by being solid defensively and not giving up easy baskets. That’s going to be the case, guys competed and you don’t always play as well as you want to, but that’s where we are.” On Joe Johnson’s game and whether he asked him to be more assertive offensively: “I was pretty animated after our last preseason game, because I felt like we weren’t paying attention to a lot of the little things defensively. I think some of our veteran guys, to their credit, are letting me coach them. Joe is somebody that we try not to put too much weight on his shoulders, but as he got it going it just made sense to get him the ball and he was obviously effective doing that, as were some other guys on the court. But he definitely picked his spots and made some plays tonight that he’s capable of making.” RODNEY HOOD On his ankle: “I have no idea what happened, I tweaked it a little bit but I was fine. I walked on it and it hurt a little bit but it’s getting better.” On what he thought of the game without three of their main players: “Our margin of error is smaller, we can’t make mistakes. We gave them some open shots tonight and that can’t happen, especially on the road, they’re a really hot team so we just have to continue to clean it up and I think we’ll be fine.” On his chemistry with George Hill: “Being aggressive, attacking downhill, midrange shots. Whatever we saw, we just told each other all game just to be aggressive and it was working for a while.” On their third quarter emphasis: “Defense, defense. We know that they’re known for third quarters and jumping up so we just had to defend and get some stops even though that’s tough because they’re a really good offensive team but we got some stops and got running so the offense came easy.” On the Blazers’ three point shooting: “A little bit of both, I think. One’s deflating and there’s ones we can control but we didn’t talk and they got an open shot. I think one time they double clutched and hit the three. Shots like that you have to live with but I just think we just have to clean the ones we let them get open.”
• The Trail Blazers have now won 16 consecutive home openers, extending their NBA record (14-Boston, 1979-92). • Portland has now won 10 of its past 13 regular season games against Utah since the start of the 2013-14 season. Portland has won seven of its past nine home games against the Jazz (three straight). • Damian Lillard finished with 39 points (13-20 FG, 4-6 3-PT), the second highest scoring total in a season opener in team history (47-Vandeweghe, 10/27/84). • Damian Lillard is the first player with at least 39 points, nine rebounds and six assists in a season opener since Michael Jordan (11/3/89 vs. Cle.). • Damian Lillard scored 39 points on 13-of-20 shooting (4-6 3-PT, 9-9 FT), and is now averaging 25.0 points and 7.0 assists in five career season openers. Lillard has now scored at least 20 points in four of his five season-opening games. • Damian Lillard (39 pts) has now scored at least 20 points in each of his past six regular season games against the Jazz. It was his 12th game with 20-plus points in 16 tries against Utah. • Damian Lillard and CJ McCollum combined to score 64 points on 21-for-36 shooting (6-8 3-PT, 16-16 FT). • Portland made each of its first seven shot attempts from beyond the arc, and finished the game 13-for-19 (68.4% 3-PT) from the three-point line. The Trail Blazers finished the 2016 NBA preseason ranked fifth in the NBA with a .384 shooting percentage from three. • The Trail Blazers bench outscored Utah’s reserves, 38-16, led by 18 points from Allen Crabbe on 6-of-10 shooting (4-5 3-PT). Noah Vonleh (11 pts) was the other Trail Blazer reserve to score in double figures. • Portland and Utah combined to shoot 38-of-38 from the free throw line, marking just the third time in an NBA game since 1963-64 where neither team missed a free throw (DET@MIL, 1/12/12; ATL@TOR, 12/22/00). • Noah Vonleh finished with 11 points on 5-of-5 shooting to record his highest point total without a missed field goal in his NBA career. • With six assists tonight, Damian Lillard (2,013) surpassed Jim Paxson (2,008) for sixth place on Portland’s all-time list for assists. • Utah forward Joe Johnson scored 27 points in the second half on 11-of-13 shooting (3-4 3-PT).
I'm curious as to what some of the other currently active home opener win streaks are, but I'm having trouble finding that data.
Am I alone in thinking that this is one of Stotts' better lines? What did you think of Lillard tonight? “He reminded me of Damian Lillard."
If there was any concern at all about last nights game, it is Dame leading the team in rebounds. That shouldnt happen.
Damian Lillard led the team in points (39), rebounds (9) and assists (6) last night, the 7th career game he’s paced Portland in each area.
I'm guessing this was a subtle dig at Steve Kerr's "He reminded me of Steph Curry" quote from last year regarding Lillard.
I tried, but all I got was this. For opening night wins since 1963 (confusingly listed as 1964), Portland ranks 7th, despite not existing the first few years. We have won 28 times. http://bkref.com/tiny/2iciT http://bkref.com/tiny/EK2kL
