HEAD COACH TERRY STOTTS “It was a hard fought game. I liked the way we competed. We came out in the second half and competed. I can’t say we necessarily played well enough to win the game but we competed and that’s what you need. The Clippers are a good team, they’re physical, they’re veteran, they know how to kind of get away with some things, so they took advantage of that. Like I said, I liked the way we competed. We were down in the first half, we came back, took the lead, and some things didn’t go our way late in the game.” On physicality, flagrants, techs – is that what you expect when these teams play? “Yeah… I think both teams play at a high level. The Clippers are very physical. Like I said, they’ve been in the league a long time and it kind of works itself out.” Were struggles shooting from three more shooting or their defense? “I don’t know – I mean, I thought we had some good looks, we had some rushed looks. We were 4 for 18 – obviously we’re used to getting more than that so you’ve got to credit their defense for that. I thought we had some good looks, but that’s a part of it. You’ve got to give them credit. When you don’t shoot the ball well, it’s little bit on both sides.” DAMIAN LILLARD How do you feel the team handled the chippiness? “I thought we did well. We stood up for ourselves. When it gets chippy like that, it is what it is. We’re going to always stand up for ourselves and that’s what we did.” How are your emotions right now? “I’m fine now. Once you get off the floor, sometimes that walk from the court to the locker room and the shower and you relax for a second, it always calms you down, but it’s pretty frustrating.” How did you feel about the physical nature of the game? “I thought we dealt with it fine. I thought we answered the call. In that situation you could either let somebody come in and punk you or you stand up and you do something about it and I thought in every situation where it was a little bit of physical activity, we stood up to it. That’s what you’re supposed to do. I didn’t think it really made a difference for them. They did something, we was ready to do something back and that was it.” Do you feel like you were distracted by the officiating? “I don’t think we were distracted by it because we continued to play all the way through the finish. I just think we grew frustrated with the way some things went. When we’re in that situation, we’ve probably got to do a better job of controlling what we can control.” On 4 for 18 shooting from three: “I think it was a little bit of both – they play physical defense, they compete on the defensive end, and sometimes you hot, sometimes you hit some, you miss some and sometimes you get a little bit cold. Tonight I thought we got really good looks early, we had some good looks late, and they just didn’t go in. When those shots aren’t going in, we’ve got to do other things to make up for the shots that we usually make not going in. One or two more stops, one or two more deflections, things like that. Tonight it seemed like when those shots weren’t going, we couldn’t get a break. We couldn’t find something else. I thought in the third quarter, we picked up the pressure defensively, we got ourselves going, we got out in transition, we got stops, we got steals. In the fourth quarter, I just feel like the game – it wasn’t a game. We couldn’t really have a game.”
HEAD COACH DOC RIVERS On tonight’s game: “That was a great win for us. Our bench was phenomenal. It’s rare that you win a game where your starters are all in the minus and your bench is all in the plus, that was just phenomenal. Mo [Speights] in the second half and Austin [Rivers] all game, kept popping balls loose and you get layups from it. It’s rare that you win a game where you shoot 40 percent on the road and you have the grit to still win the game. That was pretty cool.” On whether his team played with more grit because they lost to Portland in the previous postseason: “We kind of didn’t lose our composure, let me put it that way. Both teams kind of lost it a little bit, but overall I just like how we hung in there. We weathered their runs, and that’s something in the past, maybe we don’t do. They came out in the beginning of the third quarter and tied the game, we bring our bench in and get the lead back, and then the starters came in and extended it. That’s nice that everybody’s kind of understanding their roles.” On Blake Griffin and Chris Paul solidifying the game down the stretch: “Both of them were good all game. I didn’t like how we executed offensively, we were in the four corners, North Carolina, except for there’s a 24 second clock. Other than that I was really happy with everyone’s effort.” CHRIS PAUL On their rebounding efforts: “You know what’s funny is that I haven’t even looked at the box score and seen the rebounding, did we win? We even talked about in shoot around this morning and the one play I remember is that the shot went up and I saw [Mason] Plumlee crashing the backboard and I had to go get him. That’s just something we talked about all game is just rebound, rebound, rebound.” On if the ball stuck with only having 12 assists on 37 made shots: “It did stick sometimes and a lot of that is my fault. I think we’ll get better, I think a lot to do with that is the fact that they were switching so many screens and that’s something we have to get better at but we’ll take the win.” On the second unit: “Man, they played the right way. They defended, the ball was moving, they made some big shots that stretched out the lead at one point but the biggest thing I think right now is we’re playing with the right energy, we’re playing with the right spirit. And as long as we do that, we’re going to be alright. We didn’t close out the game the way I would’ve liked to, especially with the turnovers and that’s me running offense but all in all game one on the road, we’ll take it.” JAMAL CRAWFORD On the new look second unit: “I think it was great, we didn’t play with an agenda we just played to win. Obviously we got off to a slow start watching the game and we said this is going to be one of our nights, we’ve got to leave our imprint. I thought we did a great job of that the first stint we were in, the second stint wasn’t quite as spectacular but we still increased the lead and the starters started rolling again. That’s our job every single night.” On why the second unit seamed ‘seamless’: “Because playing with no agenda, not playing in thought. We have three guards out there, we’ve got to get a good set, and we’re going to get a good shot. Playing for each other and we understand whose roll is what and we go from there.” On if they had revenge on their minds: “No actually if we would’ve opened up in Philadelphia or Memphis or Phoenix, we’d have been just as excited. We felt like last year that was one of the first times it wasn’t self-inflicted, the injuries we can’t control so couldn’t be on the court fast enough no matter who it is.”
• Maurice Harkless scored 23 on 10-of-15 shooting, his most points scored as a Trail Blazer (20, 4/5/16 at Sacramento). • Mason Plumlee finished with 17 points (7-9 FG) and eight rebounds tonight, and has now averaged 15.0 points and 9.2 rebounds in five games against the Clippers as a member of the Trail Blazers. Plumlee has now scored in double figures in four of those five games. • Allen Crabbe finished with 10 points tonight, and has now scored in double figures in both of Portland’s games this season (18 pts, 10/25 vs. Uta.). • Through two games, Damian Lillard has averaged 34.0 points (24-44 FG) and 9.5 rebounds. • Damian Lillard hauled in 10 rebounds, marking the first time in his NBA career that he has had at least nine rebounds in back-to-back games (9, 10.25 vs. Uta.). Lillard had eight or more rebounds in five games last season. • Damian Lillard recorded Portland’s first double-double of the season with 29 points and 10 rebounds. Lillard had a career-high 15 double-doubles in 2015-16. • Tonight represents just the second 20-point, 10-rebound performance in Damian Lillard’s NBA career (23 pts, 10 reb, 12/15/14 vs. SAS). • Trailing by nine points after two quarters (58-49), Portland opened the second half on an 10-0 run in the first 3:03 to take a 59-58 lead.
