Exclusive Blazers vs Rockets - 03/11/2015 - Quote Book

HEAD COACH TERRY STOTTS
“I liked the way we played. I thought it was a very good basketball game. The first half was more offensive, the second half was more defensive. Our second half defensive numbers were very good. The job that primarily Arron and Nic did on Harden was exceptional and they made him work for it. For a guy like James Harden to only have, what, four points or something like that in the second half, it was pretty impressive with our defense. I was disappointed with some of our turnovers. I think that fueled them. They were very aggressive and some of it obviously is a credit to them but I thought we could have been better at taking care of the ball. Nonetheless, to get the tie break with them if it comes to that, that’s going to be big for us.”


On defending Harden:

“I thought Arron and Nic did a very good job on him. As a team, we did a nice job of corralling him, but those two guys worked really hard to try and take away some of the things he does well. He didn’t shoot a lot of free throws. For whatever reason, he didn’t shoot a lot of free throws, he didn’t get a lot of clean looks, so good individual defense, good team defense.”


Is limiting Harden’s free throws a point of emphasis coming in?

“I think every team talks about the same things when they get ready to play James Harden. They say make him take tough shots, don’t foul him, don’t put him on the line, all the same things. Some nights you’re able to do it better than others, but to answer your question, yes.”


On success of big men against smaller lineups:

“I thought Meyers coming in really helped turn the momentum of the game. Obviously, LA went out with his fouls and the game started turning the other way against us. The shots that Meyers hit really gave us some momentum. Ro-Lo is always good finishing around the basket on pick and rolls. When they played different lineups, obviously without Dwight Howard, they’re undersized so we were able to take advantage of that. Towards the end when they went small, we had matchups with LA. Going into the game, we wanted to take advantage of our size.”


LAMARCUS ALDRIDGE

On win over Western Conference foe and winning tie breaker:

“It was a big game for us and we all knew it and I thought everybody was locked in, focused and ready to go. I thought guys played great. We played great defense, concentrated at both ends of the floor.”

“I think we’re just trying to find our rhythm right now. We’re coming down to the home stretch and I think it’s the best time to be playing great and right now guys are locked in and that’s what I’m more focused on right now.”


On winning rebounding battle 60-40:

“We pride ourselves on trying to get extra possessions and trying to be a good rebounding team. I thought RoLo was great going for offensive boards early and I thought that gave us energy early.”


On defending Harden:

“Guys competed. Arron, Nico, Dame, I thought every guy that guarded him, they competed. They tried to make his looks tough. He’s a big time scorer so you never going to stop him but I Thought guys competed on the defensive end.”



ROBIN LOPEZ

On success on glass:

“I think that was a big part of our success. Going in, last game they had a lot of success especially on the offensive glass and that was just one of the things we wanted to limit. They’re very adept at getting easy points and we have to take away some facet of that.”


On team defense against Harden:

“I thought it was pretty good. Obviously he can get a little hot sometimes, and Arron did a great job, Nic did a great job when we was on him. I think everybody was very good about keying in on him.”

 

HEAD COACH KEVIN McHALE
On not getting the shots they wanted in the second half:

“We weren’t very good offensively, the full game. They slowed us down and we had opportunities, [LaMarcus] Aldridge had fouls, we didn’t go in the post and once we did we missed a few shots. We didn’t play very efficiently offensively and we couldn’t keep them off the glass and that kept hurting us.”




On if the last shot was set up for Corey Brewer:

“We tried to get Brewer in on something but he just made one. We tried to get him pulling up and they tried getting a backside pick on it. We could’ve taken a two at that point I think and drove in there and then fouled one more time, we had one more 20 second but we didn’t.”




On if he is okay with how the ball moves when teams swarm James Harden off the dribble:

“We’ve got to move the ball better than that, we’ve just got to move it earlier. We’ve just got to make better decisions once we get the ball, we could have better spacing, need an extra pass, and a couple times we didn’t get it. I say we weren’t very good. It seemed like for a while we got some really good shots and we didn’t make them and then everybody didn’t really flow offensively.”




On James Harden’s performance:

“He didn’t play very well.”



On keeping teams off the offensive rebounds:

“They pushed us first, you’ve got to hit them first and we didn’t do it.”


COREY BREWER

On his game tying three point shot attempt:

“I had a good look… I got the look I wanted, I was just short. Hit the front of the rim”



On how his last shot attempt felt:

“It felt good when it left my hand, I was just short. You exhaust a lot of energy trying to come back like that. Tough shot, but it felt good whenit left my hand.”



On the difference between the second half and the first half:

“We weren’t as aggressive. They came out and were aggressive, they ran the pick n roll really well, their big guys were rebounding and we couldn’t get them off of the offensive glass.”



On their ball movement:

“Yeah, we couldn’t get the ball movement we were looking for, but they were playing us tough, they were denying a lot of stuff and we weren’t moving the ball. We’ve got to move the ball and we’ve got to get out and run in transition. Once we got it going in transition we made a little comeback.”


JOSH SMITH

On their play in the second half:

“We had a rough start to the fourth quarter, but then we turned up the pressure a little bit and got ourselves back in the ball game.”



On coach McHale’s comments that it was a bad game for Houston:

“I agree with what my coach says.”