HEAD COACH TERRY STOTTS “Well it was a shame we threw away three good quarters of basketball, but Detroit obviously outplayed us in the fourth quarter. Their defense picked up and we had a lot of turnovers that either they caused or were self-inflicted. Hand it to them, being down and they, them being Detroit, they kept playing and obviously we didn’t handle it very well. We’ve got to learn from it and move on.” On Jackson’s game: “He had a terrific game. We had difficulty guarding their pick and roll with him and Drummond in there and spacing lineup, they made some threes out of it and I thought he did a good job of knowing when to score and pass and create for others. Obviously when a guy scores 40, it’s pretty good.” On Drummond: “We didn’t have an answer for Drummond. He scored in the paint, offensive rebounds – I mean tonight was a possession game. When you have a turnover differential like that, and you give up offensive rebounds like that, they take 20 more shots. Drummond had a lot to do with that obviously.” Do you move on to next game from this? “I don’t think we flush it, we’ve got to learn from it. We can’t back down when teams turn up their pressure, we’ve got to be aggressive, we’ve got to do things a little bit better. We’ve got to learn from it, we’re not going to flush this one.” MEYERS LEONARD How would you describe the fourth quarter? “A part of the learning process. Obviously a very frustrating fourth quarter for us. I think they told us it was 41 to 11scoring wise, I mean that’s a 30 point swing. Like I said, we clearly have to learn from it. It’s definitely a frustrating loss. You talk about having an 18 point lead, playing well at home, playing in the flow and then all of a sudden things start to go the other way – that’s where, again, we have to learn. We have to understand and we have to stick with what has worked, what was working early in the game, and be able to sort of weather the storm when teams start to turn it up. That’s when you’ve got to hit better on screens, make crisper passes, be solid within your defensive coverages and continue to play the game the right way. Again, it’s definitely a frustrating loss. It’s one we should have gotten at home, but not it’s short term memory win and lose. You learn from it and tomorrow night we have to bounce back and be better in Denver.” What changed? “I think they just turned up their energy. A lot of times when the energy changes and a team gets feeling good, they can get on a roll, they start to make shots and we don’t necessarily have shots falling, that’s again when we have to rely on what we’ve learned, what we’ve put in place as far as our structure and be able to bounce back during those times. It’s a part of the learning for this young team and for myself. We’ll just move on. Like I said, this is one that stings a little, it’s early in the season but this is one we should have had.”
