HEAD COACH TERRY STOTTS “It was good to get another win at home. I think overall it was a good game for us. We had different areas that I think we struggled with all night – our defensive rebounding in the first quarter, controlling the ball a little bit, a bad stretch with some turnovers – but on the whole, we bounced back. Every time something wasn’t going right, we kind of bounced back. It got crazy with the small lineups but I liked the way we finished and it’s good to have three in a row.” On playing Harkless at the four: “Playing that lineup whether it was Sacramento or here at the four, he’s strong, he can rebound that position. In the first half he was guarding Faried and he held his own with Faried as a four. He could guard perimeter guys in the second half. Then he made some shots and he was active going to the basket and things like that. But the last two games, the matchups have been favorable for us and for him.” On consistency from McCollum: “I like how he’s scoring without necessarily forcing the issue. I think he’s picking his spots well, he’s running the team well. He’s in a position where he hasn’t been before where he has to guard point guards the entire game, so you have to expend a lot of energy as a scorer and as a point guard defender. He’s playing with a lot of composure and confidence not only as a scorer but as a point guard.” Do you notice a difference in the last three games winning without Lillard? “It’s hard to say. The first game was Atlanta where we didn’t have Dame or CJ. New Orleans obviously was a tough game for us then we got some rest. Guys got some of their rest after the road trip. I think the Cleveland game gave us a lot of confidence and being at home has given us some energy. Obviously we look forward to having Damian back, but it’s cliché but everybody is picked up their game a little bit.” On Will Barton: “I’ll tell you, I’ll hand it to Will. He’s playing terrific. He looks very comfortable out there, he’s playing with a lot of confidence, his three looks good. Will’s put in a lot of time. He’s a gym rat and he spends a lot of time in the gym getting better and it’s showing.” ALLEN CRABBE On winning 3 straight without Lillard: “Just shows that everybody is stepping up, stepping up and everybody is playing with confidence. I feel like that game against Cleveland helped us gain our confidence. We’ve been playing great defense lately as a team and I feel like our defense is helping us offensively. We’re out there moving the ball, executing and the game is just fun for us right now.” On making most of opportunity to get minutes and be productive: “It’s what I’ve been waiting for ever since I got into the league. A lot of hard work is paying off. Can’t get complacent. Just got to keep working hard and the opportunity is there and I’m just trying to take full advantage of it.” On consistently scoring: “I just feel like more and more the games are going on, just confident man. That’s all you can really say is confidence. Just going out there and playing basketball, executing and our offense is perfect for me, running off of screens, flares and we’re an unselfish team and when we get the ball moving, I feel like we’re hard to stop.” On how to find offense without Lillard: “Defense. I feel like if we can turn teams over and we can get stops, it’s easy for us to get out and when we go to the small lineups it’s easy for us to get up and down the floor, so just creating easy points for us. When we execute well through the offense and running plays, that helps us out a lot too.” Do you expect CJ to have 25+ points per game now? “You know what CJ does. CJ scores so CJ’s doing what CJ does.”
HEAD COACH MICHAEL MALONE On his team’s performance: “I give our guys credit… Down 16 on the road, fourth game in five nights, are we going to bend or are we going to break? I applaud or our guys effort for not just rolling over and giving in. We were able to get back and cut it to 5 points, and we had Kenneth Faried throw his hands over the backboard, a couple of breaks where it could’ve gotten more interesting. But you turn the ball over, you give them 21 points off of turnovers, that’s always a problem. We did a poor job of defending for most of the game. In the fourth quarter we got back in it because we held them to 42 percent shooting in that quarter. But CJ (McCollum), he can score, he scores at a very, very high level and (Allen) Crabbe also gave them a big lift. So those two guys shooting and shooting from three were a problem for us tonight.” On if he needs to get his team to play for 48 minutes: “I think our biggest thing right now is to get healthy. I think we have guys that are starting that are not starters for us, and we’ve got guys that are playing heavy minutes that maybe when we’re healthy, may not play that many minutes. And it’s been a very tough go, four games in five nights against some very good teams. But not to make any excuses, we do have to play for 48 minutes. I told them after, I’m tired of the ‘hey, I’m proud of you guys, you played hard, you competed, but you came up short’. That gets old after a while. Obviously we need to see some positivity, some wins, some payoff for the hard work and obviously that hasn’t come lately, and that’s frustrating, but I do like that fact that we’re competing and we’re playing hard most of the time.” WILL BARTON On what happened for them not to make a comeback: “We cut the lead to five but they hit some big shots, CJ hit some big pull-up jumpers, Allen Crabbe hit a dagger three right at the end in front of our bench in the corner. Every time we cut it down, they made some big shots.” On his game and how it felt to be back in Portland: “Bittersweet, man. I wanted to get the win really bad because we’re on a losing streak, tried to get the last win of the year. We just came up short so it really doesn’t matter how I played if we didn’t get the win.” On how much it will help to get their injured players healthy: “First thing I say is there’s no excuses, there’s been enough time for us who are playing right now to get the job done but it is going to be vital. To get guys like (Danilo) Gallinari back, (Emmanuel) Mudiay and (Jusuf) Nurkic is going to be huge. We just have to keep fighting until everyone comes back. Like I said we’ve got enough time, we just have to figure out a way to get the job done.” On their morale: “We’re still a tightknit group, everyone is pulling for each other. That’s not the problem, we just got to figure out how to compete game to game.”
