HEAD COACH TERRY STOTTS “Well we let that one get away from us. A 13 point lead in the fourth quarter at home, you feel like you’re in a position to win the game. Memphis did a good job of pressuring us. I certainly thought we could have played better in the fourth quarter to get a win, but we didn’t do the things we needed to do in the fourth quarter and in the second half defensively and offensively, we struggled in the fourth quarter.” Do you attribute losing lead to struggles offensively or Memphis defense? “Usually it’s a little bit of both. I thought they played good defense. We had a nice run, got up 13, had the momentum, but they brought their guys back in, tightened up the defense – they’re an excellent defensive team. I thought we had some opportunities. I was surprised we only turned the ball over three times in the quarter, so we were getting shots, but it was a little bit of both.” On difficulty playing without Aldridge: “Well, LA is the guy we go to when we’re struggling. The fact that we didn’t have him in the fourth quarter, that’s pretty obvious. When he’s not there, we’ve got to be able to create some offense for each other. I thought we moved the ball well when we got our lead and it came off good ball movement and good shot making. I thought that wasn’t quite the same, but you have to hand it to them. They played good defense but we didn’t necessarily play the same way.” What did you see from Afflalo in his first game? He had good energy. I think you saw him play good defense, good activity, made some shots. It was good. We’ve got to kind of get his minutes up a little bit but I thought for the first night, it was good to see him out there.” On pace of game changing from third to fourth quarter: “We didn’t get as many stops as we needed to and they got in the bonus early. In the fourth quarter, they got in bonus with two and a half minutes into the quarter, so that slowed it down. It’s easier when you’re getting stops, not at the free throw line, getting stops and play in flow and get out in transition or if nothing else, not play against set defense.” WESLEY MATTHEWS Thoughts on losing lead: “We’ll look at it again, I’m still kind of in awe of what happened. I don’t know, we were up 13 or something like that, kind of bogged down and obviously missing LA is a huge thing, but we’ve played without him before, so no real excuse tonight. Memphis stepped their game up but it’s that time where we can’t be having situations like that.” On offensive struggles after good games against Memphis previously: “Just missed shots. Missed shots and didn’t really have a rhythm. That’s really it. There’s nights like that.” On standings in Western Conference and losing two in a row: “We need every win. Every game is important. Every game is even more so important when we’re playing teams that are above us or next to us. We can’t do anything about this one. We played a great game for a lot of it. The first half, defensively we were extremely good and we moved the ball a lot in the start of the second half. We got ourselves a nice lead, we just blew it. Now we’ve got to go back and look at exactly what happened, but we have to get to the point where if we turn the ball over or we put up a bad shot and they score, we make sure that our next possession is a great one, make or miss. What happened to lose lead? “We missed shots. They turned their defense up, they missed shots – everything that you could say to attribute a comeback for them. We didn’t make shots, we didn’t get the greatest shots, they played hard defense, they became the aggressors.”
HEAD COACH DAVE JOERGER On the game: “It’s always a weird wacky game when you come out of a long break of eleven days off. I thought we settled and took a lot of jump shots early. I thought we had a nice game going and then in the end of third quarter the three ball became a real problem for us. We laid on some screens and they got good shooters…I thought as the game went on we just kept getting more urgency, both offensively and defensively.” On the fourth quarter: “I thought we were active. The problem was early we didn’t guard the ball very well. Then they had to go help on the ball and then they get the kick out threes. The kick out threes are the ones that kill you…Wes Mathews is a very, very good shooter and has hurt us a lot, and he does a really good job of playing of LaMarcus Aldridge so I know he struggled a little bit tonight but Steve Blake shot it really well. The pick and roll gave us a little bit of problems for about five minutes, but those five minutes cost us about five threes, which pushed it up pretty good, but our guys didn’t quit and kept attacking. TONY ALLEN On what was different about the team’s defense in the fourth quarter: “It was out mindset, that’s what we’ve been working on for the past five days. Just Basically our defensive sets and how to execute offensively. Today I think we got a hang of our defensive end, we weathered the storm and worked on the things that we’ve done for the past five days.” On the difference of the third and fourth quarters: “You saw the game didn’t you? Well, I was put in and we had to compete with him. With the help of my teammates and great defensive schemes, I was able to go in and make it difficult for him. For the most part you have to credit our team, just sticking in there when they made that run and then executing in the fourth quarter.” On what goes on in their huddles: “Just keeping everybody engaged, keeping everybody on the same page and understanding that our focus is focusing on us and doing the things we do. That’s playing inside, outside basketball, feeding off of Marc [Gasol] and Zach [Randolph] and execute our coverages on the defensive end. Whenever we’re doing that consistently and 110% then the ballgame is in our favor.” MARC GASOL On what didn’t go their way in the third quarter: “A little bit of everything, we got really static offensively, we were not executing the way we normally do, we kept the ball on one side of the floor instead of stringing it, stringing it, stringing it and making them work and defensively we didn’t communicate as well. There was no ball pressure, just all the bad things but eventually we got some stops and won the game.” On the big win out of the All-Star break: “It’s a good win, and hopefully tomorrow we’ll go down to LA and do the same thing.” On shutting down Wesley Matthews: “It’s big. I thought that everyone that was one him did a good job on him when he tried to go to the post. As a team we did a good job of stopping him.”
> Those are the best tech stats I have ever seen. After losing to UTAH?!?!?! then eroding to Memphis (0-3) you ought to send these to Stotts for torture effect. I predicted 2-2 after the all star break I hope it comes to fruition. As we all know we Should be 2-0
> Hold on. He probabaly has a very good non sense excuse for the awlful way he played and was not quoted as of this date. Memphis toyed with us at the end A lot of stuff in the center of and below that foul line.
