HEAD COACH TERRY STOTTS “Well it was, obviously I thought, it was a gritty win in the second half, finding a way to win the game. Sacramento made their good run and got a lead, but one of the positives this year is that’ve been finding ways to win close games however they’ve become close. We’ve got some defensive stops when we needed them, made some big shots to get us back in the game late. It was definitely good to get that.” On playing Layman off the bench: “It was good to get him out there. I thought it was a game he had a good defensive matchup that worked for us. Sacramento kind of plays two different games with the two bigs then they have a lot of spacing, so anyway, I thought Jake played well. I was glad he was able to get a run.” “Honestly, I didn’t have that intention, I just thought the game worked out that way.” How did you feel Meyers did against Cousins? “I thought he was effective. Cousins is a handful. I thought Meyers really competed defensively. You think you do a good job on Cousins and he has 33, so I mean, he’s a tough guy to guard. When he starts making threes, it makes it even more challenging.” Would you say the team is playing well? “I think we play well in spots. Our challenge is to play well for longer periods.” MEYERS LEONARD Does part of you wish you could play against Cousins every night? “I wouldn’t necessarily say that, but he’s the matchup I look forward to more than any in the league. I mean, DeMarcus Cousins is the most skilled big in the NBA. Period. Not even close. He can handle the ball, he can shoot the three, face up, get to the basket. He’s extremely skilled. I’ve studied him a lot. It’s a fun matchup, but most importantly the fact that we got a gut check win tonight is huge. Do you look at it as a good thing you’re in close games or are you worried you’re in close games? “It’s early in the season, I’ll say that. Clearly there’re things we have to get better at – sustaining a lead, taking care of the ball on offense and executing, being more solid on the defensive end. That continues to come together as the season progresses. We have guys that care, guys that want to get better, and guys that are in it for the team, and so I know for example, tomorrow we’ll come in, watch the film and guys will understand what they need to do better, including myself. So it’s great we got a win, now we go watch the film, we get better and we get after it tomorrow.” DAMIAN LILLARD Do you look at it as a good thing you’re winning close games or bad that you’re involved in them? “It’s a good thing that we’re able to win close games, we’re able to fight through a lot of tough situations through the course of the game and find a way to get it done. I think that’s a positive. But at this point in the season, I think teams have a lot of hope and teams are competitive at the beginning of every season. Teams feel like this is the year for them, and you’re going to get teams’ best shot. I think it’s partly that too, everybody feels like they’re better. It’s always more competitive at the beginning. We had a great start to the game and once again we allowed them to get it going and it was a tough game all the way through, but I thought we fought hard. We defended hard, we defended as a group. They’ve got really, really good players. DeMarcus Cousins is a handful, a guy who can handle the ball on the perimeter and is a handful on the block and a willing passer. Then you've got him out there with Rudy Gay, speedy guards to go along with him. It was just a tough game. We could have done a lot of things better. It’s a lot that we can go pick apart on film but like I said last game, I’d rather be learning these lessons and getting better in W’s. I’m just happy that we can keep finding a way to get it done.”
HEAD COACH DAVE JOERGER On his team’s effort tonight: “I thought we played really hard. I’m really proud of our guys. Playing 11 games in 17 nights we were running on fumes. A couple shots go down and maybe the outcome is a little different, but how hard we fought was just fantastic. The difference in the game may be that our turnovers were very catastrophic. We turned it over 15 times, but they scored 25 points on those. They get out and spread the floor and they hit threes in transition that got them going early. Their two guards are just fantastic and other guys play off of them. I thought Rudy (Gay) and DeMarcus (Cousins) were equally as fantastic tonight. The spirit that we played with and how hard we played was just absolutely fantastic.” On using a different rotation tonight than he used in their previous game: “It can be difficult on guys, but you just have to be ready to play. I think I’ve proven that I’ll put you in at any game and different groups of guys will finish different games and different situations. Whoever is playing well around Rudy and DeMarcus, try to do a good job of playing one or the other on the court, all the time, so we have some scoring.” On what he saw from Garrett Temple tonight: “I thought he was fantastic. I thought he did a great job on CJ McCollum. I know he did end up with 31 points, but I thought what he did took away a lot of his stuff. (Damian) Lillard got going and some crazy plays at the end… it was a fun basketball game, I think.” DeMARCUS COUSINS On what he saw in the team tonight: “Throughout this whole season we’ve shown flashes of who we can be but we’ve got to get past this stage of just showing flashes and we’ve got to be the team that we want to be. We’ve shown we can do it, it’s just about us doing it on a consistent basis. Tough loss but I’m not mad about it, we fought hard, we fought to the end, on to the next one.” On having a bunch of games in a short time span to start the season: “We can make excuses all we want, I believe every time goes through this. We just got it earlier than most teams but those are the cards we were drawn. Like I said it’s up to us to become the team that we want to be, keep fighting, keep growing, stay together and ride this ship.” On playing through a lot of physical contact: “Just to speak on that, I don’t understand it. I don’t know what I have to do, I just don’t understand it. I have to play though a lot, not really rewarded for it. I’m trying to stay mentally strong. I don’t want to say too much, you know how that goes. Got to remain mentally strong through it and just keep fighting trying to win games. I really don’t understand it though, I don’t.” DARREN COLLISON On the game: “We just needed a few more stops, we still had a chance to win the game. Especially down the stretch I thought we did a good job executing, we just needed just about one more play down the stretch to win the game but we kind of let that one slip away from us, we can’t let that happen again.” On playing 38 minutes on a back to back game: “I’ll never complain about playing that many minutes but definitely some games are new to me still just trying to get my rhythm and timing back. Today was a little better but you can never just ease into this thing especially when everyone else has a rhythm playing eight more games than you. So that’s coming along pretty well.”
Postgame Notes - Nov. 11, 2016 Portland 122, Sacramento 120 (OT ) Game #10 • Home Game #5 • The Trail Blazers have now won seven straight games against Sacramento. Portland has also won seven consecutive home games against the Kings, and is 13-2 vs. Sacramento in its past 15 contests at the Moda Center. • Portland is 18-8 (.692) in overtime games since Terry Stotts took over as the team’s head coach at the start of the 2012-13 season (2-1 this year). • The Trail Blazers are now 3-1 in games separated by three points or less this season. • Damian Lillard (36 points) and CJ McCollum (31 points) have both scored at least 30 points in the same game for the second time this season and the fifth time overall (Portland: 5-0). • With a game-high 36 points, Damian Lillard has now totaled 306 points in 10 games this season. That represents the most points scored by a player through the first 10 games of any season in Trail Blazers history (282 - Vandeweghe, 1986). • Damian Lillard (36 points tonight), is the first Trail Blazer ever to score 30+ points six times in his first 10 games of a season. • CJ McCollum scored 31 points, marking the third time in his past five games against Sacramento that he has scored at least 30 points (26.0 ppg during that stretch). • CJ McCollum has now scored at least 30 points in three of his past four games (27.3 ppg over past four games). • Out of CJ McCollum’s 31 points, nine came in overtime on 3-of-4 shooting (1-2 3-PT, 2-2 FT). • The Trail Blazers have made 112 three-pointers through 10 games this season (13 tonight), the most by the Trail Blazers in the first 10 games of any season (108, 2014-15). • Damian Lillard scored nine points in the fourth quarter, and is now averaging 10.0 points in the fourth quarter this season. • Sacramento forward DeMarcus Cousins finished with 33 points, and has now scored at least 30 points in three of his past four games against the Trail Blazers (29.0 ppg). • Allen Crabbe scored 16 points on 6-of-10 shooting (2-5 3-PT), marking the fifth time in 10 games this season that he has scored at least 10 points (first time in past five games). • Portland’s 29 assists resembles a season-high (25, 11/2/16 at Phoenix). • Trailing 95-88 with 6:11 remaining in the fourth quarter, Portland scored 13 straight points over the next 2:26 to take a 101-95 lead.
"Teams feel like this is the year for them, and you’re going to get teams’ best shot. I think it’s partly that too, everybody feels like they’re better. It’s always more competitive at the beginning." This is soo true and if we are winning them now when we weren't last year, we are a better team regardless of what the individual stats say. Are we a contender now? No. But we are better. We are figuring out how to win these close games that we couldn't at the start of last year. As soon as we figure out how to play with a lead and maintain, we will start looking like a fringe contender. Add a potential trade and (assuming NO pulls the right trigger) we are a bonafide contender.
