Exclusive Blazers vs Spurs, 2/25/2015 - Quote Book

HEAD COACH TERRY STOTTS
“Well I really liked the way we came out with our energy at both ends of the court in the first half. I thought we set the tone defensively, being able to get out in transition, and ball movement was very good. Obviously, the second quarter was disappointing with primarily our defense and turnovers, but I thought we played an extremely solid second half at both ends of the court as well. Wes having a 16 point fourth quarter was very big, but I thought we had a lot of good performances. Chris Kaman came in and made a difference, especially in the second half. LA, even though his shot wasn’t going, defensively his rebounds, reading double teams, he had a very good game. I just thought it was very solid win with a lot of good performances.


What did you see different in Afflalo’s second game:

“Not necessarily anything different. What I like about him right now is that he’s picking his spots to be aggressive. Obviously he wants to it in, but he’s picking his spots and taking advantage of them when they’re there, rather than just trying to fit in. We need him to be aggressive when he’s in there and I thought he felt a little bit more comfortable in some of our sets and just being out on the court with the other guys on the court.”


On Batum’s performance:

“Nic, I should have mentioned Nic before – I think everybody kind of looks at his shooting to gauge whether he’s being aggressive or not, but the last game against Memphis and then tonight were two very complete games. You look at his assists tonight, but he’s taking shots that are there, he’s taking drives that are there and looks like he is playing with a lot of confidence.”


On closing out game in fourth quarter after recent late game problems:

“It’s important in this league to play well in the fourth quarter. It’s easy to remember the games you don’t play well in the fourth quarter. They stick out, but we’ve got a lot of important games coming up and we’re going to need that most nights.”



On shooting success tonight:

“It usually is a combination of things. We have a lot of good shooters, I thought the shots were good, the ball movement was good. In the past, we haven’t been able to get on rolls that I think that we can, but I think tonight that we did. We’ve been kind of waiting to break out. I would say in comparison to say the whole season, I just don’t think that we’ve shot the ball as well. I think the shots in general have been good, but it was good to have a break out night.”


DAMIAN LILLARD
On getting this win with OKC coming in on Friday:

“It was great. We had a rough one in Utah in our first game back and then played well for three and a half quarters against Memphis and let that game get away from us. Tonight, the Spurs, against a tough Western Conference team, it was a tough game, but we defended, we played hard, got stops and got out and moved the ball around. We played Trail Blazers basketball. We got the W, now it’s great momentum going into a tough game. Russ is playing great, like and MVP right now. We’ve got to be prepared for that team because he’s making everybody else around him better also.”



On fourth quarter

“We’ve been here before. We were in that situation against Dallas, and against Houston and against Memphis and then tonight, and two out of those three we let get away and almost let the one in Houston get away. So tonight, everybody was locked in. We know how we felt when we let the one in Dallas get away and we felt last game against Memphis when we played so well to let it slip away. We didn’t want that feeling again, so everybody game out and did whatever we needed to do for our team to be able to pull it out.”

 

HEAD COACH GREGG POPOVICH
On the Spurs play in the second half:

“We had a poor beginning to the third quarter… Just like the first quarter we didn’t score and we got back in a hole again.”



On how concerning the team’s play is at this stage in the season:
“Even when you win coaches are concerned, so it’s not like you only get concerned if you lose a game or you have a stretch where you lose, that’s not what we do. There’s always things to be concerned about, whether you have Golden State’s record or our record… I can guarantee you that Steve (Kerr) is concerned about certain things, just like we are. So it’s not about winning and losing, it’s about trying to get better all the time.”


On Jerome Kersey’s passing:
“He was a big part of our championship just because of his maturity, his experience, his toughness… He was a great teammate for everybody. Guys like Timmy (Duncan) learned from him and respected him because of the way he conducted himself, and that was huge when this group was really young. Like everyone else, just shocked when we all got the news, but he was a huge factor for us.”


On how you translate frustration into better results:
“It seems like we lost by a lot, but we actually played better tonight than we have in a while. It seems odd to say that, but I was encouraged that we were getting back to the way we play… We do it together, we don’t have people to give it to and say go score. We can’t do that. We don’t have anybody like that. We’ve always done it for each other and we don’t know who’s going to score and that type of thing, but we got away from that and we’re trying to get back to it.”



TIM DUNCAN

On what’s concerning right now in the teams’ losing streak:

“We are not playing consistently. Offensively we are making too many mistakes, we’re allowing people to dictate the pace and offensively we’re getting a little too comfortable and I think one thing leads to another.”


On if the teams’ current situation is frustrating:

“It’s very frustrating. We’re not used to losing like this, consecutively, we came out of the break feeling pretty good and just kind of stumbled out of the break with some tough losses. Games that we could’ve and probably should’ve won. So that in itself is bothersome but nothing we can do about it. We’ll take some positives from tonight, we played probably two quarters the way we wanted to and the other two, they just got totally away from us and the result is what the result is. Hopefully we can build on that, watch some film based on that and continue to build something positive so our confidence continues to grow and we can get back to the team that we can be.”



On his thoughts of Jerome Kersey as a teammate:

“I loved Jerome. Great energy, always smiling. He took the game very, very seriously and took winning and losing very seriously and I loved his approach to the game in that respect. I was just absolutely floored by the news, I had a great conversation with him the last time we [the Spurs] were here, five or ten minute conversation. To hear that is just unbelievable.”



TONY PARKER

On if he knows of anything that will help the team get out of their funk:

“It’s tough right now, it’s tough. Since I’ve been with the Spurs I’ve never really experienced that in a three game, four game stretch. We’re not really making shots and it starts with me, I’m not making shots and our three point shooter isn’t making shots and then everything is tough. We just have to stay positive. I was excited after the Clippers game because even though we lost, it was a great game and I felt good and now it’s just struggle time. Sometimes we’ve just been so successful, you just have to stay positive and hope it will turn.”


On if he is worrying about his own numbers right now:

“I can’t even worry about just me, that’s the thing, I’ve got to worry about the whole team too. That’s the tough part because at the same time I’m trying to get my own game back and try to get teammates off but like I said, I’m not making shots so they’re not really helping and it’s tough so we just have to stay positive and hopefully it will come back. I don’t think we suddenly became bad so it’s just weird. I’ve been through a lot of challenges in my life, with the Spurs, so we just have got to keep pushing and keep pounding that rock and hopefully it will come back to us.”