Game Thread Game #4 BLAZERS VS GRIZZLIES - OCTOBER 27, 2021 - WEDNESDAY - 7:00 PM, ESPN, ROOT SPORTS

Maybe tell him it's a contract year and the better he plays the more he gets paid.

 

HEAD COACH CHAUNCEY BILLUPS

On holding Memphis to 39 points in the second half…

“Oh, absolutely. I mean, we did a good job of just focusing in on the game plan tonight. We really did. I thought Dame was great on his defense on Ja. Definitely driving up at the level, not allowing too much dribble penetration - which kills you when you play against him. He’s their general, when he plays well, they play well.”

On Anfernee Simons in the first half…

“He kept us afloat. He really did—with his shot-making. I’m always encouraging him to stay aggressive, and he gets opportunities. I mean, he’s one of the guys that he can get kind of where he wants to go on the floor. He’s really quick and he’s crafty, and he’s a big time shot maker. So, he did he really kept us afloat there. Obviously, our defense is what kept us in it. First quarter, we knew that they were great on the offensive glass, and they really imposed their will on us in the first quarter. But we did a ton better in the second quarter.”

“Ant kept us in it, and to be honest now I just though Larry and Cody made so many winning plays for us—offensive rebounds, lot of ball movement, catching the ball in the gap, making the next play. Those dudes were great.”

On changes made from first half to the second half…

“Well, I mean, they are breaking coverage down. Shoot, Taylor’s a really good coach, so a lot of times out of timeouts, they were running some good plays and they got shots that they wanted. I thought we did a good job of breaking on them late and at least contesting those shots, run them off the line. And then I mean, I thought we just wore them down a little bit with how hard we played.”

On switching to zone out of timeouts…

“Well yeah, I like to do that. And we haven’t had a lot of time, but we’ve started to work on our zone. So now I’m starting to feel a little more confident about it—guys know their areas and their responsibilities and things. So, you just kind of use it as a change-up to try to break the rhythm.”

On offensive changes in the third quarter …

“Well, it was just kind of reading the game. Their pick and roll coverage, a lot of times, when Dame started hitting shots, then they wanted to start switching. So obviously when they’re switching there’s no reason to really run all those. Pick the matchup that you want, let them switch, and see if you could take advantage of it. And then Dame finally hit a few shots— I wanted to ride him the rest of the quarter just for him to get going. I thought he was a little bit tired, but he finally had it going a little, so I wanted to keep him in there.”

On anything Damian Lillard did differently tonight …

“Again, I thought he had great floor game—10 assists, 2 turnovers, and his defense was great. He just hit a few shots tonight, but he’s consistently had really good floor game the entire season with the exception of the Clipper game—nobody played well, but he just made a few shots and I’m just happy with what he’s trying to give us every single night. From just being a point guard period, not even shot-making.”

On Anfernee Simons’ progress this season …

“Yeah, he’s been great man, he’s been great all season… He’s just so talented, and he works really hard, and in the league today where there’s a lot of pick-and-roll and 3-point shooting, he’s the perfect guy to have. Not only that, I think he’s improved his playmaking. A lot of times in the last few games, the right play to make was him shooting the ball. But when he gets opportunities to get to the basket, the team’s low man help, he does a great job of spraying it out to the weak side as well. So I think his next level, and I told him this this summer—we know that he can shoot, we know that he can score — our pick and rolls were going to be his playmaking and he really worked on that. And also, his finishing at the rim—his floaters in the paint, in the lane and things, and he’s shown some improvement there, too.”

 

DAMIAN LILLIARD


On offensive changes in the third quarter…

“We talked about it at halftime—just coming out here and being more aggressive. Don’t come out and have a slow, laid back third quarter easing ourselves into the game. I heard them saying, ‘One through five,’ you know, at one point in the third I heard them saying one through five. Basically saying we are going to switch everything and when they said that, the ball wasn’t going in. You know, I didn’t shoot well at all, but I knew that I would be able to probe and search a little bit to find something and get something going. I just went over to Chauncey and I was like, ‘Leave me out here for this quarter. Let me find it a little bit,’ and he was like, ‘I got you.’ I knew I would have that whole 12 minutes to find matchups, attack, get aggressive. That was it—I got it to go in a few times. I know at some point it’s going to be a big breakthrough. I don’t know when, but it is going to happen.”


On making shots…

“I want to see the ball go in. When you’re missing shots, rattling in an out and the ball kind of rolling off the rim, I think the easy thing to do is to be like, ‘I don’t have it going,’ and just kind of go away from it and get passive. When you going to stretch like I am shooting the ball, I think it’s important to just into it, to get more aggressive and get yourself out of it. That’s kind of where I got to in the third, where it was like it’s not going to be a good shooting night but I’m going to find something. I’m going to be aggressive trying to find something, and I got the ball to go in, so now it’s just a matter of time.”


On Anfernee Simons’ first half play…

“Yeah, I think we went into the half down six and we don’t have what we have from Ant then maybe we get a few more stops because we know we’re not shooting the ball well. But, that wasn’t the case. Ant comes in aggressive and making shots and keeping us afloat, keeping us alive. And that’s what he’s capable of, he’s super talented. It’s his fourth year, and it’s time. I think that’s the short way to put it is that it’s time. It’s not a secret how talented he is, it’s not a secret what he’s capable of. He’s shown flashes of it time and time again, but now it’s just time. That’s what we need him to do. Be aggressive, score the ball, get into the paint, take shots, go after it. That’s what he has to be for us, so we would have probably had a terrible half. Who knows what kind of deficit we would have went into the second half with if he doesn’t kind of explode in that moment? So we needed it, it was huge for us, and that’s what we need him to be.


On noticing a change in Anfernee Simons’ commitment during summer …

“I did. Since he’s come into the league, me and Ant, you know, we’ve been in Phoenix together training with Phil. We’ve been in Utah training together. Here training together. But this summer specifically, every time that I was reaching out to Phil, because you know, that’s my guy—I played for Phil in college. He’s my full-time trainer, so it’s like when I call him he’s coming. And I mean this summer, every time I saw Phil, I saw Ant. Even if Phil was somewhere random, it was like Ant was following him around…This summer was like, I noticed him following him everywhere. You know just getting his work in. It didn’t have to be convenient for him, he was seeking it out.”

 

Memphis Grizzlies head coach Taylor Jenkins


On the team being able to bounce back vs Golden State…

“We didn’t play well tonight. We got an opportunity tomorrow. Our guys have always bounced back and competed the next opportunity so learn from it, get better, and play better tomorrow.”

On what Portland did to make it tough tonight…

“We had some mistakes defensively they took advantage of but your not going to win an NBA game when you shoot thirty-seven percent from the field and forty-seven [percent] from the free-throw line and miss a lot of wide open threes. Give them credit, they made shots, we missed them and that was the game.”

On Portland forcing twenty-one turnovers…

“We knew they were an aggressive defense – give them credit – they played hard and turned us over but we still had plenty of opportunities kill runs and stay in this ball game and we didn’t take advantage.”

 

Memphis Grizzlies guard Ja Morant


On what the Portland Trail Blazers did defensively to make it tough on offense…


“They were blitzing and doubling me off ball-screens. We just had to make shots. I feel like we let our offensive struggles affect us on the other end of the floor and missing assignments. Really wasn’t locked into the game plan really that much. We just let our mistakes turn into more mistakes and they got hot and won the game.”


On if they’ll be able to process this game with Golden State up tomorrow…


“We can’t focus on this game with having another game tomorrow. We got to turn the page to [the] Golden State [Warriors] and be ready to go out and play and get a win on the road.”


On what it says about the team getting more national attention…


“I just feel like we earned it. We battled since I came into the league to get some type of respect, to get some TV games. I don’t know how much we got this year, I stopped paying attention after I’ve seen two or three my previous years. [We] just got to continue to play hard, continue to go out there and battle each and every night. We have a tough Western Conference with some good teams. We just got to lock into our game plan, play all forty-eight minutes, and go out and win.”

 

Memphis Grizzlies guard Tyus Jones


On the offense not clicking tonight …


“It was just one of those games. We just felt like we didn’t really get rolling. We are usually able to kind of hit a point in the game where we feel like we’re clicking, go on a decent run as well, and we just didn’t get to that point tonight. It was just one of those nights and luckily we play in twenty-four hours, so we get a chance to correct it right away.”


On what the Portland Trail Blazers did defensively to give them the most trouble…


“They were up on ball screens, showing hands, being active, and they just deflected a good amount of passes. If you’re not extremely careful with the ball, precises with passes, they’ll force a lot of turnovers then they get out and run and hit shots. They hit a lot of shots, a lot of contested shots so it kind of played into their hands a little bit. They were up on ball screens. We just got to do a better job capitalizing on that.”