HEAD COACH TERRY STOTTS “For the first game of preseason, we did some good things and a lot of things we need to get better at. Obviously there was a lot of different combinations. I thought Dame and Nurk played very well. CJ had a rough time getting it going in the second half. We played hard, but we had a stretch in the second half with the young guys where we just weren’t getting much done. I was glad they were able to battle back and at least have a chance to win it.” On Turner initiating the offense: “We’re trying to. I mean, one of the things is to take advantage of his ball handling and make it a little less taxing for Dame and CJ. That’s something we want to do better this year than we did last year.”’ On Swanigan: “He had a good first half. I thought in the second half, we probably pressed a little bit. He tried to make some tight passes, but I thought he tried to make the right plays.” On Ed Davis looking like Ed of two years ago: “Like I’ve said since day one, he’s got a bounce. He’s finishing around the basket. He’s getting offensive rebounds. He made a lot of good help side reads, particularly in the first half defensively. Again, I thought, as I said after the first day or two of practice, he’s back to doing the things we know Ed can do.”
CALEB SWANIGAN How’d you feel? “I felt well. We went out there and tried to execute what we could. It’s the preseason so we’re trying to make sure we’re doing things we’ve got to do as a team, not necessarily focusing on the Suns or anyone else but just getting where we need to be.” Did you feel comfortable with the plays? “Yeah, I mean I’m still getting there. There’s a lot of them and a lot of it is just a read, so it’s going to come eventually.” On looking comfortable with your shot: “Shooting is shooting. You’ve just got to know when to take a shot and just work on your shot every day.” On not hesitating to shoot: “I mean, basketball-wise, you get your first open shot if you’re a good shooter, you shoot it and that helps your team. If you pass up a good shot as a good shooter, you may not get something better that possession. The game is fast in the NBA so the first good shot necessarily isn’t a bad thing.”
CJ MCCOLLUM “From a chemistry and continuity standpoint, I thought we tried to move the ball around a little bit. Defensively, being in our shell, trying to help each other out, rotate, stunt and things of that nature. But overall, I think it was a step in the right direction but we’ve got a long way to go. Looking forward to the next few games.” On emphasis “Just trying to get him more familiar with running the one, understanding the plays from all the positions. I think that obviously as the season progresses and as we get closer to the regular season, lineups will change, play calling will change and positions will change a little bit but for now, it will be good to get used to running some one and get more familiar with initiating the offense.”
HEAD COACH EARL WATSON On tonight’s game: “I thought our guys did a great job of implementing our game plan in the second half. I don’t know what it was in the first half to be honest with you, but we stayed positive and continued to emphasize and bring awareness to our strategy. In the second half we wanted to get to the free throw line more, we wanted to get to the rim more, we wanted to get more threes and guys stuck with that and we got more stops and then, of course, it was easier.” On Mike James’ performance: “We had Mike a couple of years ago, Mike is Mike. We know we have to push him in practice, but he’s a complete gamer. In practice we want to continue to push him so he can grow, but we know in games he’s always fine.” On other players that stuck out to him: “I thought Alex Len and Dragan (Bender) did a great job of protecting the rim and rebounding. I thought Troy Daniels had some big threes, we got him just for that. As soon as we signed him, the initial conversation was that we have two rules: be on time and shoot the ball every effin’ time you touch it. He said “lol I got it.”
TJ WARREN On the win: “It was a good all-around effort, started off kind of slow but we picked it back up in the second half. We executed and made the right plays to win the game.” On leading the team in points: “Just coming out and playing aggressive, being real hard. My teammates did a good job of finding me in situations. It was a good all-around preseason game, just have to build on that and get ready for the year, that’s what we’re really focused on but we got to work on getting the rust out during the first couple of games. We need to come out and play the next game the same way.” On their fourth quarter comeback: “We just got stops at the right time. We changed up our coverages a little bit and just wanted to run what our coach has been teaching us during the preseason, we just wanted to emphasize that during the game and we did that.”
JOSH JACKSON On his satisfaction from his first preseason game: “I’m just glad that we won. I knew coming out that it was going to be a learning curve for me and I was going to come out and make some mistakes just because it is my first time but I’m just glad we won.” On if he had any nerves going into tonight: “Oh yeah, definitely. I was a little bit nervous but I just tried to get though it as quick as possible. Every time I come out and play in something like this where it’s my first time, I’m always nervous but I just knew I had to just get over it as fast as I could and that’s what I tried to do.” On their comeback: “Mike James did a terrific job at controlling the pace of the game and just coming down running what coach wanted us to run. I think in the beginning of the game, like I said, we were just playing a little too fast and towards the end you could see him really slow it down and just run our stuff.”
TEAM • With 112 points, the Trail Blazers scored more points than they had in their previous six preseason openers. • Portland bested Phoenix on the offensive glass, finishing with 16 offensive rebounds to the Suns’ eight offensive boards. • The Trail Blazers outscored Phoenix in the paint, 48-38. • Portland (21 assists) registered more assists than Phoenix (20 assists) while also turning the ball over fewer times (15) than the Suns (19).
PLAYER • Damian Lillard led the Trail Blazers in scoring with 18 points (8-15 FG, 1-6 3-PT, 1-1 FT) to go along with four assists, two steals and one rebound. • In just 16 minutes of action, Jusuf Nurkic recorded 16 points (8-13 FG), surpassing the 10.2 points he averaged while playing 21.4 minutes per game during the 2016-17 regular season. • Caleb Swanigan led all bench players with 18 points (6-10 FG) while also pulling down six rebounds. • CJ McCollum rounded out the four Trail Blazers in double figure scoring with 10 points (4-14 FG, 2-5 3-PT). • Rookie Zach Collins led Portland with seven rebounds.
Pat and Jake were a combined 2-14... that's what lost us the game. It's all good, won't happen in the regular season.
Wait... am I seeing this right..? 5 & 4 min. for Collins & Swanigan AND the PRODUCTION in that time...? HOLY FUCK! Tell me that's right!
Maybe the maker of the boxscore is saying that it didn't FEEL like the rookies played enough, and that Biebs played too much?
I'm not the maker of the boxscore but I CAN tell u the LeoTARD IS playing too much, 14min TOO much in this case