PORTLAND TRAIL BLAZERS HEAD COACH TERRY STOTTS: On the overall performance: "It was kind of a grind-it-out game by both teams tonight. I thought offensively it was challenging for both teams for parts of the game. Dame's (Damian Lillard) threes were big, but even more so the passes he made, and the trust he had in his teammates at the end ultimately made the difference." On putting Hassan Whiteside in with 6:58 left: "We looked at a small lineup with Muscala out there and as soon as we put Hassan out there, he did a nice job. They put Noel in, and it turned it from a perimeter game more into an interior game." On winning on the road: "To come out on the winning end of some close games on the road, yes that's a good thing. You take wins on the road anyway you can get them. All three of them could have gone either way. We haven't hit our stride yet, but it was good to get some threes up. We had a good three-point shooting night. (The Thunder) didn't shoot the ball well, but I don't think anyone has hit their stride yet. It's early in the season and everybody is trying to find themselves out."
PORTLAND TRAIL BLAZERS GUARD DAMIAN LILLARD: On closing out the game: “Yeah, I mean it was a close game. It was an ugly game with both teams turning it over, missing shots, a lot of bad possessions, and low scoring. You knew it was going to come to the last five or six minutes where it was who was going to be better in that stretch at both ends of the floor. I told Coach at the end of the third, ‘do you want me to stay in to start the fourth or do you want to give me two minutes?’ Because I was kind of saving a little bit of energy to make a real push. He was like, ‘I’m going to give you two minutes.’ Even the whole time I was sitting on the bench I knew I was going to come in and try to keep it in my hands a little bit more and try to attack to impose my will on the end of the game a little bit more. It worked out, scoring and play-making.” On what he has learned about his team: “Just that we stay together. I think in this entire road trip it has been weird how many ups and downs we have had in every game. It has been really good for a quarter and then really bad for two quarters, and then we find ourselves in a game and we just figure it out. I think to be able to do that so early in the season when you are still trying to find your identity, that shows character. I think that is one thing from top to bottom that we all have that about us. We will play to the end if it’s going well and if it’s going bad, we will keep doing the right thing. I think it is paying off for us early in the season, especially on such a tough road trip.”
PORTLAND TRAIL BLAZERS GUARD CJ MCCOLLUM: On the biggest take away from this win: “We’ve got a lot of fighters on this team: a lot of guys who had to grind to get to this point. You have guys who went to their major schools, then you have guys like Anthony (Tolliver) who was undrafted. So guys have a bigger appreciation for the game of basketball. It wasn’t a great night. I had seven turnovers, so it was a little sluggish. We had to figure out a way to win, and I think down the stretch guys hit big shots, Dame made great decisions, and we weathered the storm. We got enough stops, got rid of all the travels and stuff like that, and found a way to win.”
OKLAHOMA CITY THUNDER HEAD COACH BILLY DONOVAN Opening statement: “I thought a couple things. One, I thought our guys really, really played hard, and I think coming out of the third quarter against Houston, I really felt like offensively we had really good movement, good pace. I thought we generated really, really good shots, and we sustained it, I thought, for most of the game. We didn’t shoot the ball particularly well around the basket, nor from behind the line. A couple things; I think we dug ourselves, not too much of a hole, but the 10 turnovers in the first half really hurt us in terms of our transition defense, because I think that they maybe had made eight threes in the first half, and five of the eight were in transition. So, we had a hard time getting back and getting matched in certain situations. Obviously, [Damian] Lillard got going there at the end late. Our defense, I thought, was good. They scored 102. We got to the free-throw line a lot. The biggest difference was, you look at our four to their 17 made threes. We got to the free-throw line quite a bit, which kept it close, but the three-point probably line was the difference, and we just did not shoot it certainly as well as they did or as timely as they did.” On the team’s plan late in games: “We’ve done a pretty good job. We got some shots down the stretch tonight. I do think early in the year as you’re looking at your team and they’re figuring out how to play with one another, that can somewhat be maybe ‘OK, what’s the best things to run in these situations?’ I didn’t feel like that was a problem tonight. I did think that at Utah we weren’t as organized as I would like, I think we’ve gotten better from that game, but I didn’t really feel that was an issue. I thought that Gallo [Danilo Gallinari] had a great look in the corner and came up a little bit short. We had some opportunities on some drives to the rim that we didn’t finish. We’re going to have to be a ball movement team and I don’t think we’re going to be this team that’s going to just put the ball in one guy’s hands, and everyone’s going to stand and watch them. Portland has got that luxury. That’s what they did. They put the ball in that guy’s hands, and they expect him to make the right decisions and more often than not, he does. I think we’ve got to generate some looks for one another. I did think we did some good things offensively, but we need to obviously continue to play and get better in some of these situations.”
OKLAHOMA CITY THUNDER GUARD TERRANCE FERGUSON On the effort tonight: “We have been working. That is our identity, is just hard work and the defensive end staying together. Obviously, we moved the ball pretty well and scored the ball. Like I said, that fourth quarter when they went off, they really got us down.” On Hamidou Diallo’s play: “Hami is a beast. It’s as simple as that. He always had it in him and as you can see, he is showing it now. Not even on the offensive end, but on the defensive end, he’s been hectic with the offensive players and just overall he is a beast.”
OKLAHOMA CITY THUNDER GUARD HAMIDOU DIALLO On using his athleticism on the offensive end: “On the offensive end, it comes with reading guys; reading how players are guarding me, how teams are guarding me, and just knowing when to pick and choose my spots. That just comes with putting in hard work at the gym and just sticking at it.” On taking pride in the team playing close games: “It just speaks for what kind of team we are. We are a team that is going to fight, we’re never going to stop fighting and no matter what the scoreboard says we’re going to come out there and we’re going to keep pushing and keep pushing. That’s what we did tonight, and we came up short again.”
