HEAD COACH TERRY STOTTS “Well after a good start, we never really quite got back on track. I thought Milwaukee’s length and aggressiveness defensively gave us troubles throughout the night. We had a hard time finishing around the basket, especially in the first half. I think that kind of affected us on the other end a little bit. The second half, we just never quite could get there.” On trouble entering the ball to the post tonight: “Yeah, for different reasons. I think Nurk’s got to hold off his defender a little bit better, we’ve got to put a little bit more air under the pass and put it up there. One time it was to Chief with Jason Terry on him. It goes on both the passer and the guy posting up. We don’t play through the post very much but I think tonight it was pretty evident we did have trouble.” On defense against Middleton: “I thought most of his shots were contested. He was 10 for 17 but I thought a lot of them were contested. I don’t think he got a lot in the paint per se. From our defensive standpoint, obviously the transition was troublesome. They just made a lot of good plays.” On Aminu returning: “I thought he looked good. The little run that we had in the first half, he made back to back threes. I thought physically he looked fine. He didn’t seem to be favoring his leg at all. His conditioning seemed like it was good. We were going to keep him at 20 minutes but we were able to go over a little bit; if we had gotten it close, he probably would have finished the game so that was a positive.” On defense overall tonight: “Up and down. I thought for the most part, we did much better on Giannis than we did in Milwaukee. I think it’s hard to evaluate because our offense kind of struggled and then our defense was suspect at times. We competed in the second half, obviously we were much better in the second half defensively.”
DAMIAN LILLARD What did you think? “Tough game. I thought they played physical, they played aggressive defensively. We know they like to load up and use their length. They were allowed to play that way. So I mean, it is what it is.” What did they do defensively against you and McCollum? “I mean, they just loaded up on the ball. They gave us a lot of attention. Each time we came off a pick and roll, it was two guys there aggressively, not just trying to make it hard, they was trying to make us get rid of the ball. I thought they did a good job of that. They did what they planned on doing coming into the game.” Was it frustrating to have good road trip and come home and lose? “Yeah it is. I mean, typically this is the way it goes. You have a good road trip and then the first game back at home, it’s a setup for a letdown. We talked about that before the game. We wanted to come out and I guess play above that. They came in ready, they played a good game. We made one too many mistakes to give ourselves a great chance of winning the game.” On Aminu returning from injury: “It was good to see him out there, see a couple shots go in, hear him out there talking defensively, but jus this presence. When Chief is out there, it’s a different type of game. It’s always good to see a guy back healthy and back out there with the team.”
HEAD COACH JASON KIDD On this win carrying over from their last win in Sacramento: “Yeah, I thought again we got off to a good start. I thought our defense again gave us the opportunity to get this win on the road. This is a very talented team, a very hot team and I thought again for 48 minutes we played defense. We tried to take the 3 out of the game, we tried to contest every shot but I thought the group played tonight with good position.” On the growth of the team over the past couple of games: “They’ve grown a lot. Understanding how to finish a game, it is hard to keep a big lead, teams are going to make runs. We have the tendency to relax and I thought again the guys did a great job on both ends, defensively and offensively. It’s hard to win here and they’re very talented but the guys played hard for 48 minutes and I thought the carryover, not just from the Sacramento game but for the last four or five days they’ve been really attentive and you can see that on the floor.” On the trio of Eric Bledsoe, Giannis Antetokounmpo and Khris Middleton: “Well when you have both guys over 20 points so you have three guys scoring the ball but I thought again on defense I thought EB [Eric Bledsoe] was great defensively coming up with deflections and steals and then for us to be able to get out and run. I thought again the ball was moving on the offensive end, the ball just didn’t stick.” On if this is the best game Bledsoe, Antetokounmpo and Middleton have played together: “I guess. I would say San Antonio was the best game. For a group to add a new piece, without practice just showed the acceptance but also showing that they can put someone in and they can help him. So being able to do that in San Antonio was not very easy but I thought again this road trip, even though we didn’t play well in Utah, we knew what we did wrong and we made the correction.” On what he takes away from their road trip: “Any time you go 3-1 on the road trip no matter west or east, it’s a big road trip. We were in this position last year when we went west and had a big road trip but the road trip is over. Now we have to go back home for one day and prepare for Sacramento, we can’t have a letdown and then we go back on the road.”
MALCOLM BROGDON How were you able to get into this high gear half way through the trip? You rely on your teammates. We rely on each other. Some games, guys aren’t going to have it, and other guys have to step up. Trust the system, we trust in Coach Kidd and what he’s teaching us. I think we’ve done a better job of that this season 20 games in, quarter mark of the season, what’s your assessment so far? I think we’ve done well. I think we’ve had some let downs, but as a whole I think we’ve bounced back. Right now, we finished a really good road trip. I think we would have struggled on that a bit last year, and I’m happy with where we’re at. We have to continue to work.
JOHN HENSON How are you feeling about this season so far and ending the road trip like this? We’re in a groove, man. We have a game on Saturday that we need to win and try to lock in. It’s always hard coming off the west coast. We need to win that. What was it about the defense these last couple of games? Tonight we were just tight on Lillard and McCollum. We forced someone else to win the game for them. That’s how you have to play these guys. If we would have lost with our coverage, I think we would have lived with it, but we got the win. How would you assess the season up to this point? It could be better. We’re not in the hole… which we’re usually in by now. We just have to play this out until All-Star break, and try to get over .500. Keep leading the playoffs and try to get home court advantage and go from there.
GIANNIS ANTETOKOUNMPO Does it get much better than tonight the way you guys are playing? No. I think the guys did a great job playing hard both of the games. Now we’re going back home and have to take care of business back home. You, Middleton, Bledsoe all really clicked tonight. Would you say this was your best performance together? Yeah. It’s one of our best games playing together, but we have a long way to go. It’s just the beginning. It was great to see all the guys get going. It was really nice… makes the game a lot easier for all of us. Do you think you won this game more with offense or defense? Defense. Definitely defense. I think we did a great job… our bigs did a great job on McCollum and Lillard being up a touch. They just made the night difficult. They did a great job.
TEAM • Portland held the Bucks to 16 points in the fourth quarter, tying the fewest points they have allowed in the fourth quarter this season (Nov. 13 vs. Denver). • Portland outrebounded the Bucks, 50-35. • The Trail Blazers bench outscored the Milwaukee reserves, 25-17. • Portland converted 10 offensive rebounds into 19 second chance points, while Milwaukee scored nine second chance points off of five offensive rebounds. • The Trail Blazers shot 15-of-17 from the free throw line (88.2%), while the Bucks shot 13-of-15 from the free throw line (86.7%).
PLAYER • Jusuf Nurkic recorded his sixth double-double of the season, finishing with 25 points (9-17 FG, 7-8 FT) and 11 rebounds. Nurkic also registered one assist, three steals and one block. • Jusuf Nurkic is one of six NBA players to register 25+ points, 11+ rebounds, 3+ steals and 1+ blocks in a game this season. He is the first Portland player to record 25+ points, 11+ rebounds, 3+ steals and 1+ blocks in a game since CJ McCollum did so on December 17, 2015. • Damian Lillard had 18 points (7-16 FG, 2-7 3-PT, 2-3 FT), seven rebounds and seven assists. It is the fifth time this season that Lillard has had seven-plus rebounds and seven-plus assists in a game, matching his career best totals in the 2014-15 and 2015-16 seasons. • Damian Lillard (2,041 career free throws) is now tied with Cliff Robinson for fifth place on Portland’s all-time free throws made list. • CJ McCollum recorded 15 points (7-20 FG, 1-6 3-PT), six rebounds and five assits. • Evan Turner recorded eight points and seven rebounds to lead Portland’s bench in both categories. • In his return to action after missing 13 games due to an ankle injury, Al-Farouq Aminu scored six points (2-3 FG, 2-3 3-PT) and pulled down five rebounds. • Khris Middleton led Milwaukee with 26 points (10-17 FG, 4-6 3-PT, 2-2 FT) to go with seven rebounds and four assists. It was his eighth 20-point game of the season.
Just say what you want to say Meyers. No need for the passive aggressive “I’m going to keep it professional.”
The Rose Colored Glasses Brigade? Seriously, I think all the guys on that sub cry when Scar pushes Simba off the cliff. They will brigade you for saying Harkless is playing bad.
Yeah. Just disagree with them on something. Reddit is as Reddit does. But hey, we are all Blazer fans.
GLAD SOMEONE NOTICED IT. WTF, our entry passes are horrible. EARTH TO STOTTS, is pretty obvious we need to start.
