Game Thread GAME # 2: TRAIL BLAZERS VS PHOENIX SUNS - OCTOBER 23, 2021 - SATURDAY, 7:00 PM, ROOT SPORTS, NBATV

Daaaaamn.

 

HEAD COACH BILLUPS


On tonight’s game…

“That was an incredible win for us today. Things came together—we just played extremely hard on the defensive end, and we finally started getting some shots to go. Nowadays when you get shots to go, it helps the defense. If people are playing with confidence, everybody’s kind of getting and moving the ball, sharing the ball. There were times out there when it looked like we may have had six guys on the floor. People were just—so many different efforts defensively. So, it was fun, it was fun to be a part of.”


On showing everything previously critiqued last game…

“We played as good as we could play, to be honest. I mean, we made shots, defensively we did a really good job; we took care of the basketball, we were focused in on all of our coverages, and man it was just beautiful. It was beautiful not only for me, but for the guys to see what we’re capable of when we’re focused, right? I mean, that’s a championship caliber team that is hungry.”


On advantages of tonight’s game…

“Obviously, we caught them on a back-to-back; that’s an advantage. It’s one of the advantages of being here in Portland—one is our crowd, two; where we are located, whenever we catch somebody on a back-to-back. I mean, it’s a lot of long flights coming here. So, I’m proud of these dudes, man. We’ve been working extremely hard. We have shown some spurts obviously, and today we did for the entire game.”


On cleaning up from the Kings game…

“I feel like we did clean some things up. Like I said after Game 1, I felt like we played hard enough to win the game. We just didn’t shoot the ball well. I thought we generated good shots tonight, we made shots, and defensively, man, we were just all over the place.


One thing we haven’t done a great job of is having a good start. Let’s focus in on our good starts. We focused in on sprinting back—getting back in transition, which has kind of an issue for us. We’ve been a poor transition defense team early this season. So, I said if we can do that, if we can load our defense up and get back, then we have a better chance of stopping them, or containing them at least.


A lot of times [when on defense] they got some lobs there, they got some layups there which happens, but a lot of times we messed up that coverage, but we were playing so hard. This is what I preach to our team all the time—when you’re playing extremely hard you can mess up some coverages, but those multiple efforts cover up for some of those things, and I thought tonight we did that.”


On CJ McCollum…

“CJ has been great, man. Tonight he held us. He continued to stay aggressive. We were spreading the floor, and we were able to take advantage of the coverage they played on him, and he stayed aggressive. Like, there was a time or two when I wanted to get him out of there,


because he had been running kind of long. And I just kept saying, “Alright, next play,” because he keeps making the shot. “Maybe I’ll get him next play.” And he just kept going. CJ has been, to me, he’s been really focused—he asks more questions than anybody on the team in practice and coverages and offenses, I mean he’s always asking questions trying to pick it up. It was good to see him continue to play well.”


On Billups wanting Nassir Little to be hardest playing guy on the court…

“Absolutely. I mean you look at the effort Nas is putting out there. He’s playing so hard, and I told him, I said, “First of all, you got to be the hardest guy playing out there, and then we can start talking about other things.” You know, slowing down a bit, playing a little smarter, paying attention to coverages, but that’s all secondary. I just want him to play hard, use his God-given talent and gifts that he has, and then we’ll work on all that other stuff later.”


On enjoying the moment…

“Yes, yes I was, I was definitely able to enjoy it. It’s good to see all those guys play well. You see them every single day. At practice, these guys are there early, they’re working their behinds off. And you talk about some of the guys that aren’t really in the rotation, and for them to have the opportunity to play and play well, you know, because their families and moms and grandmas—everybody’s watching them play, so this is a great moment for these guys to definitely enjoy.”


On first coaching win…

“This game goes up at the top, at the top of my accomplishments in my trophy room. I mean, that ball will be right there. First time getting a win, playing with a team that really just believes in me and what myself and my staff is trying to do, so that’s big time for me.”

 

Nassir Little

How do you feel about your performance tonight? You were high energy, what did you think of your show?

“Yeah, so what you felt. My role is to come out there and be a spark off the bench, bring that energy and compete. Play hard. And I think we did that, all of us.”

Chauncey has said he wanted you to focus specifically on playing hard. How close are you to that?

“I really think I’m there now. Honestly, I think I’m there now.”

On difference between defense on Game 1 and tonight…

“I think we played hard Game 1. I think we just kind of, did it a little bit even more, not just played hard but did it smartly as well. You know I think we kind of got that combination tonight. On our weak side we were X-ing out the right way. Running guys off the line, they weren’t getting a lot of wide open threes. On D Book specifically, I think we did a good job on staying down on pump fakes. I think all around we played solid. I think we just did what we were supposed to do.”

On improving from Game 1 to Game 2…

“We watched film from Wednesday and it wasn’t bad, it wasn’t a lot of mental breakdowns, it’s just effort on the backside and it was an easy fix. We talked about it the next day at practice and we all just kind of locked in and made it a point of emphasis coming out tonight.”

How fun was it to play a game like this?

“It was really fun. I think we came out and we started the game and set the tone. When I go out there I just run the court. Whoever gets the rebound, I just take off. I think it forces guys to honor that and allows guys to get open shots when the defense has to honor somebody that’s wide open under the basket and we just took advantage of it. I think we just came out there and applied all the pressure. We did that from start to finish.”

Chauncey as a teacher…

“Very detailed and not just Chauncey, all the coaches. They’re very detailed in what they are saying and they don’t let anything slide through the cracks as they’re teaching it. The way they break things down from close outs to the footwork, to who goes where on which rotation, it’s so detailed to the point where if you’re messing up in the game, it’s on you. It’s not the coach’s thing. It’s really all effort. I think we’ve done such a great job at drilling it and being taught it that it’s going to come down to effort every time. It’s consistence. As long as we’re playing hard.”





On believing in the system after a tough preseason…

“It’s being realistic. I mean, it’s hard - we have a new staff, we have a lot of new players on our team. It’s tough. It takes time. Especially because Terry had a great run here. We’ve been doing things a certain way for a long time. Obviously it’s tough to change all this. I think everybody knows that so it’s tough for a coach to come in and change something that people have been doing for a long time. Terry was my first coach so everything that he has taught me is what I know in the NBA and it’s hard for me to change sometimes. But just being consistent and believing what he (Coach Billups) is saying, trusting the process. We were seeing progress from practice to even our first game. We were seeing progress so that’s what gave us our confidence to keep doing it. We believe in Chauncey. ..”

On the locker room celebration…

It was a surreal moment. It was his first win as a head coach, first win of the season, first win of a new era. We were all excited for him and for ourselves. Especially for the players - we played great tonight and we just look forward and keep it going.

 

ANFERNEE SIMONS


On how they celebrated with Coach Billups…

“We did the normal stuff. We just waited for him and poured a bunch of water on him.”


How important was it for you guys to play well tonight?

“It was very important. It was a boost of confidence for us. We’ve been working so hard to fix the things we done in preseason and the first game and I think after the first game we came with a positive attitude saying we did a lot of things well, some stuff we need to work on. Today we just wanted to come in and go full head of steam. I think we did well in that.”


Watching you it seems like there’s a difference in confidence and skill set. Do you feel like it’s coming together? Where do you feel like you are at?

“Yeah, for sure. The natural trust that Chauncey has in me gives me enough confidence to go out there and play my game, go out there and play free. I go out there and play my game no matter what. Doesn’t matter how bad it is, how good it is, he just trusts me to be myself each and every time I go out on the court.”


On feedback during the game…

“Yeah, for sure. We had that conversation before the season how I wanted to be coached and I told him you can be hard on me because that’s all I know. My dad was hard on me growing up so that’s the only way I can get better is somebody constantly on me on certain things. It’s been good, good feedback. Tell me anything no matter what. Have no filter for me. And that’s the only way we’re going to get a better relationship and how we get better.”


On Nas’ energy on the court...

“It’s really big. He’s a big athletic guy. He comes in and gives us a lot of energy. Gives us shooting. Gives us hustle plays as well. It’s big for us. It’s just a different pace we go at when he is in there. We play a little faster. It’s good for us.”

 

Phoenix Suns head coach Monty Williams


On tonight’s loss…

“I didn’t have us ready to play, that was the deal. Our communication was not to the level that it needed to be, and typically when you don’t communicate it means your mind is crowded with stuff so that’s on me to get us clear on what we’re supposed to be doing. And they played with a great deal of pace and their screen setting was the best that we’ve seen, it’s a short season but those guys were intent on getting the ball open and downhill tonight. Those were sacrificial screens that they set. But we did not play at a great level tonight defensively, the first quarter we were terrible but after that it just snowballed. They hit a lot of off the dribble shots tonight, which is what you want to force [but] they just hit them. There was a point tonight where in the NBA sometimes you have night’s like that, you can just leave it there, but I can’t do that as a coach. We have to be better and more consistent with our defense.”

On Portland’s offense tonight…

“They have two guys that play off the dribble, about as good as any guards in the league, and they now have two screen-setters that can free those guys up. We lost to Denver [Nuggets] and all I talked about was us, but the bottom line is they beat us tonight. The same way Denver did so credit to them.”

On what the offense can improve on…

“We didn’t generate enough three’s tonight. Portland’s a team that gives up threes because they have their bigs up in the pick-and-roll, so that’s on us. If you can get the ball to the big and find on the backside, we’d love to get Mikal [Bridges] at least twelve shots a night, playing with Chris [Paul] and Devin [Booker] you should be able to do that and we just didn’t do it tonight. But I don’t know that number, when he [Bridges] got his shots he made them tonight, we just have to be aware of that and try to find him when he’s hot.”

On attributing Portland’s twenty-four assists to their off the dribble shots made…

“Yeah, I mean you can use that as an excuse, it’s a fact but I don’t want to rest on that or use it as a pass but they made a ton of off the dribble shots tonight – even three’s. You got to close to their feet and get them off the line, and get them out of rhythm, but even when we did that, they still made tough shots. They had a great night, it happens in the NBA. We can’t get down about that part but there’s still some things that we can get better at. Like I said from the jump, the communication wasn’t there and then there were other areas where we have breakdowns and then we missed a ton of shots in the first half and that fueled their break. When you score that many points you expect them to have way more assists but they made so many off the dribble shots tonight, it was something you don’t typically see in an NBA game.”

 

Phoenix Suns guard Devin Booker


On what went wrong tonight…


“There was a combination of a few things. I think when you get beat like that it’s obviously more than one thing that went wrong. Thinking of the beginning [of the game] just defense and guarding better, I think we are not on a string right now. You can blame the first back-to-back of the season or you can go in and make the corrections that we need to make and I think that’s what we are going to do. We got a few days off now, I think getting our first back-to-back under our belts is good for us, getting us up to speed a little bit.”


On what went wrong after getting the lead down to fifteen points…


“Just guarding, I mean they got it rolling. I feel everybody was hitting shot’s, not just the two stars over there. I think the other guys played well and made big shots for them, so you know it was a combination of a team effort for them, they played well.”


On getting Mikal Bridges more opportunities…


“He knows how to play ball and nobody on this team really forces it, we try to get the best available look every time down. That’s worked for us in the past and that’s something we’re going to stick with. I mean, obviously we’re telling him to be more aggressive, but you don’t have to go out of your way, in our offense everybody touches it and we share the ball very well.”


On how the team feels after a loss like tonight…


“It’s such a long season and I feel like we’ve been tested. I think last season was good for us and to not hit the panic button and just understanding how long the season is and when we get it rolling, you know how good we are. I mean, we have the experience over here now so I think we understand what an NBA season entails, and I think we’ll be alright, I know we will.”


On how to get on the same page defensively…


“Just communication, feeling each other out. Getting in better shape, all of us. A little bit of everything but just talking to each other.”