HEAD COACH TERRY STOTTS “Obviously, it was a very good defensive game. Consistently, our defense throughout the game was locked in as far as what we wanted to accomplish individually and collectively. The defense really spurred our offense in the third quarter especially and helped us build a lead. It was good to get another win against a team that we’re fighting with in the standings.” On ball movement: “I thought we did, especially at the end of the first half when we were down, I thought the ball movement created opportunities for us. It wasn’t necessarily coming off screens for shots, but it kind of got the defense moving. I thought Dallas did a really good job particularly in the first half of loading to the strong side. We got a little stagnant with some post ups and the ball stopped, but then some of our movement sets helped break it open, I shouldn’t say broke it open, but at least helped get us the lead at the end of the first half.” On Batum: “He played a good game on the heels of last night. I think it’s safe to say he’s back and everybody can stop worrying about Nic.” Was there redemption: “I don’t know about redemption but certainly when they cut it to 12 with five minutes to go, I thought it was important that we lock in and learn from that game. It was probably in the back of everybody’s mind since it was relatively recent.” On depth: “Yeah, Arron, I thought Alonzo Gee came in and provided a spark and it was good to get him some minutes. Obviously Dorell played in the first half and playing Nic at the four in the second half, CJ being able to come in for however long Wes is out, that’s important. But the depth, we have a lot of guys being able to contribute and that’s with Meyers and Joel not really getting much of a run, so I like our depth. It’s helped us to get to where we are so far this season.” On defense performing well in back to back: “I guess, I didn’t look at it like that. Obviously the Clippers and Dallas are very good offensive teams, but I guess our expectations of ourselves are regardless of if it’s a good offensive team or not. We kind of hold ourselves to a certain standard.” LAMARCUS ALDRIDGE On ball movement: “I thought we played very unselfish and together. I thought we guarded for most of the night, we got better defensively as the game went on and I thought that’s why we kind of pulled away late in the game.” What did you like defensively? “I thought we got better. The whole game, we kind of played great defense. When they made a little run, unlike in Dallas, we got better defensively and we executed better down the stretch. Down there, they kind of trapped us and went zone and we kind of gave into it but I thought this game, we did better and just stayed locked in.” Reaction to news about Matthews injury: “Just stunned. He’s the heart and soul of this team. He means a lot to this team. I’ve played with him for seven, eight years now so to not have him out there is going to be tough. He’s a very competitive guy and I don’t see this holding him down at all.” What does Matthews give the team? “Just an overall great player, plays offensively, plays defensively and sets the tone for us in every way as far as guarding pick and rolls and talking to guys and keeping everybody in it. So he does everything for this team.” Does it help to have Afflalo and McCollum with Matthews out? “Sure. I don’t want to go there, but sure. It definitely doesn’t hurt to have those guys but you cant replace who he is and what he’s meant to this organization with those guys. They’re going to help us but they can’t be him.”
HEAD COACH RICK CARLISLE On what went wrong: “We didn’t make shots, for one thing. I thought we had quite a few good looks in the first half and then some in the second. We just had a bad shooting night. The threes weren’t there, and so nights like that, you got to somehow hang in with your defense and we were doing all right defensively for a while and then they kind of popped it open in the second half. The rebounding deficit hurt us again. Untimely turnovers hurt us. The possession aspect of the game is something we’ve got to do better with. We just got to keep turnovers down. We got to rebound better.” On Monta Ellis’s health: “He plays no matter what. That’s just how he is. I know he has aches and pains. I got to work harder to get him better shots. It’s got to be my responsibility. He’s not going to make any excuses about it, but I got to do better to get him better shots. Simple as that. As a team, taking care of the ball is huge, especially when you get way out here, playing teams like this and teams like tomorrow night, you got no room for error. No margin for error at all.” On the team’s health after being banged up tonight: “I don’t know for sure Devin’s [health]. We don’t know. I think he’s getting checked out. As far as I know, everybody else is okay, but I haven’t talked to Casey yet.” On how difficult of a matchup it was for Dirk Nowitzki: “It’s just a difficult matchup period. I don’t know that it’s all just one guy’s matchup. We’re a team. We got to own it when it doesn’t go well and we got to stick together when it doesn’t go well. Right now we got to stick together and keep fighting through this. We’re working at playing better basketball and we’re just not there yet, but everybody’s sticking with it.” TYSON CHANDLER On what happened to their offense: “I don’t know, I thought we played great defense especially in the first half, even going into the third quarter up until the last two or three minutes. Our offense was just not executing very steadily, we were penetrating early in the game and I thought we kind of went away from that. We just struggled tonight offensively.” On the road trip not getting any easier: “It’s very disappointing I thought especially because we were catching them on a back to back and the way we came out in the first half. I thought our defense was very solid and I thought if our offense could ever get going then we could make things difficult for them but our offense never really got going.” DIRK NOWITZKI On what happened offensively: “Well we didn’t score much, we didn’t shoot the ball well, 2 for 16 from three is obviously not good, and we didn’t get to the line so we didn’t really do much good offensively. I thought we had a decent first quarter with a nice little lead but it felt like offensively we couldn’t really get anything going. Defensively I thought we were actually pretty solid for most of the night, they were going to make some shots eventually since they’re one of the best three point shooting teams in this league. We just couldn’t make enough plays offensively to make this an interesting game.” On them just not making good looking shots: “That’s what they’re going to give us, some in between shots. Especially when Monta [Ellis] plays pick and rolls with the five, Lopez is really far back and he had a bunch of pull ups that he makes normally. I had some threes that I would like to shoot over. It was a tough one offensively, I thought we had some good looks but you’ve got give them credit, they’re long on pretty much every position and that makes it hard.” On if he is concerned on Monta Ellis’ struggles: “I don’t know what’s going on with his hip but I know he’s just got to keep stepping into shots since we obviously rely on him a lot on offense. He runs tons of pick and rolls for us and he leads the attack force every night. He has to carry a lot of the load on the offensive ends. He’ll be okay.”
