HEAD COACH TERRY STOTTS “I thought that was a really solid win for us. I really liked our defense in the first quarter. We got off to a good start. I thought for the most part, offensively we were good for most of the night. Particularly in the first half, we moved the ball really well, the first quarter was terrific. We did have some lulls. I was disappointed we weren’t able to sustain some of our defensive mindset throughout. We were good in spots defensively, but offensively, we were pretty good all night.” On Vonleh’s game tonight: “I thought he played very well. He helped get us off to a good start. Obviously, I brought him back in the first half. He was just solid. He played good defense, took what the game gave him, didn’t make very many mistakes, so he was very good.” On Lillard’s performance “It was one of his more efficient games. Obviously he was shooting the ball very well. He didn’t force much. His stroke was really on. I think two days off his feet really helped him. He had a very efficient night.” Thoughts on crowd/atmosphere tonight: “There were too many Lakers’ supporters for my taste, but I’m glad they showed Kobe some appreciation – maybe a little too much, but…”
DAMIAN LILLARD Was this an emotional night? “I wouldn’t say emotional, it was just one of those nights where one of the greatest players to play the game was making his last stop here and like I said earlier, I was just grateful and honored to be a part of that.” On what was working for you tonight: “I mean, I just played the game simple. I took what they gave me. I came off screen and rolls hard. I knew coming in that Roy Hibbert liked to play back off of ball screens and I would have pull up jumpers. I made the first couple. Early in the game, Mase did a great job of finding the weak side out of the post. I got a couple threes out of that and once I saw the ball go in that many times in a row, I knew that I was going to be able to get into a good rhythm. The game just flowed easy.” Is it harder to lock in defensively when the offense is working so well? “I mean, I think it’s always hard for anybody when you’re scoring the ball well, you have a tendency to just try to keep outscoring them instead of locking in defensively. We had a little bit of that tonight. We came out tough in the first quarter, the second quarter we had a huge drop off, then we picked it up again in the third and the fourth was just okay. We just played a good offensive game so I think we played a little bit loose in certain situations on defense.”
GERALD HENDERSON On cheers for Kobe: “You have that most of the time when he’s in another arena – it’s not as heavy as this obviously, there’s a little more there. He got what he deserved for sure. He’s done so much for the league, he’s had such a great career and people showed their respect for him.” On good start tonight: “I think the starters came out and did a really good job on both ends of the court, they were attacking them offensively and did a good job on the defensive end. The second unit, as we came in, we kind of let down on defense a little bit and to be the kind of team we want to be, we have to do better. Offensively, tonight was good but defensively, we’re way better than that we feel like.” On emphasis to get to rim: “That’s any good offensive team – I mean, that’s key, that’s priority. If you can get into the lane, get to the rim, you might have layups but you open up opportunities for other guys for kick outs and threes.”
HEAD COACH BYRON SCOTT On his team’s defensive issues: “Well the number one thing is we didn’t do what we talked about doing. We didn’t do it in the first half, we talked about it again at halftime and we talked about hey, let’s at least try to do the things that we talked about doing and we still weren’t able to do it. When you’re not focused in the game plan and you don’t and you don’t pay attention to details, this is what happens.” On what specifically he wanted his team to do defensively: “We wanted to try to get the ball out of those two guy’s hands as much as possible. Obviously that means if they’re running pick n rolls, we want to try to double them, and we didn’t do it. Simple as that. Like I said, we talked about it before the game, we talked about it this morning, this is what we want to do as far as coming off and being aggressive, because those two guys are the head of the snake and we just didn’t do it. Our guards didn’t do a great job of getting through the screens and our bigs did a horrible job of being up and trapping them.” On his team’s defensive consistency: “Not at all… Not at all. I mean, we had for periods of time where it’s like three or four minutes where we played pretty good, solid defense and then we would go right back on our heels, we would make those mental and physical mistakes, and when you do that against a team like this that can shoot the ball like they can, especially with those two guards, you put yourself in a dilemma.” On Kobe’s night: “I thought Kobe was really trying to facilitate and get the guys moving on the offensive end, I thought we moved the ball pretty well, especially in the first half. He didn’t just look to be aggressive, he was looking to try to get the ball moving, so he had one of those nights where he did all the right things, unfortunately the game got out of hand and there was no need to put him back in there.”
JULIUS RANDLE On their defensive issues: “Some great ball screen defense, they were just coming off them and getting shots. Specifically (Damian) Lillard and (CJ) McCollum.” On if his jumpers and hook shots are becoming more reliable: “Yeah absolutely, its stuff I work on every day and I’m trying to get better. It’s good to see the improvement but I’d like it to translate to wins.”
KOBE BRYANT On his last visit to Portland: “Aside from our team performance, it was a blast to be here. I’ve got so many memories here and most of the time I ended up on the losing side of things in the regular season. There’s just so many great memories here, playoff battles, I just tried to take it all in as much as possible and just dance around.” On the fans chanting for him to come back in the game in the fourth quarter: “I was just trying to get loose at that point, just in case coach wanted to put me in. I would’ve completely understood if we were winning the game but to get that kind of reaction means a lot. I just wish there were more things I could do to thank them. Here and Sacramento, those are really special places to me and San Antonio because of the playoff battles that we’ve had. I’m just extremely appreciative.” On his favorite memory in Portland: “I think it was maybe game 3 in the 2000 finals I believe it was, either game 3 or game 4. I still remember the feeling I had when I came up with a big block on (Arvydas) Sabonis down the stretch. I remember it being a pivotal game in the series and it was a pretty cool memory. I was still a baby, only like 20 years old, had the afro when I could grow the afro. That time was a really, really good time.”
