Portland Trail Blazers Head Coach Terry Stotts “There’s a lot to like about that game. I thought defensively we were solid all night. To win a game for us shooting 6 for 33 from three is kind of indicative of our defense. I thought we got three’s offensively, we made a lot of good plays, Nurk (Jusuf Nurkic) was really good around the basket, especially late in the game. Road wins are hard to come by and this is a good win against a good team.” Re 4th quarter making the plays down the stretch to secure win: “Yeah. Like I said, Nurk (Jusuf Nurkic) was effective, Mo (Maurice) Harkless had an outstanding defensive game throughout. They made their run and coming back and getting the stops. The offense was kind of up and down, I like the looks, but we went with our defensive tonight.” Re Talk about Mo (Maurice Harkles) tonight. Seems like he did a little of everything and what did you like about what he did defensively: “He was all over the place from the very beginning. He got his hands on balls, he was aggressive going to the basket offensively, rebounded the ball, obviously plus/minus speaks for itself. He had an outstanding game. When he had his man, he was aggressive, but I thought just his overall alertness and his aggressiveness.”
Jusuf Nurkic What do you like the most about your team’s playing right now? “We are a team and you can tell there is a lot of guys in the league right now that are still trying to figure out and we are right there. We know what we are doing, and we know what role we are.” This was a good defensive win for your team don’t you think? “Some days you’re going to play a team that makes all the shots in the world and you’re going to be playing good defense. But overall I agree I think this was a good defensive game.”
Damian Lillard Re: The mindset of your team “We are focused I think our minds are right. We are playing for each other, and we are playing together offensively. Defensively, we have been sharp to the scouting report and we are getting it from everybody on both ends of the floor. It has been consistent, when you get that type of consistent effort from multiple guys everybody in the rotation this is what it looks like.” Re: Your defensive game tonight “They are a talented team. I thought we did a great job of just being there the whole game. We were physical, we were in the lane, we had our hands were active, and we played their tendencies. You know they were going to score some points, but we made them work. Even sometimes when they did end up hitting the shot it was three, four, five extra passes because somebody helped somebody and then they throw it out where somebody else helped and they had a lot of possessions like that. Even if they got a good shot up, they had to work so hard they were a little tired, a little fatigued. Now when we go on the other end, we can get a quality possession.”
Boston Celtics Head Coach Brad Stevens At the end, were you trying to trap Damian Lillard or trying to foul? “Ah, trying to trap him initially, then he got away. And came awfully close to the half-court line but I think he stayed on the right side of it. And then obviously if you can get away with not fouling Damian Lillard that’d be good. So, trying to trap and get the ball out of his hands. Good job by Marcus Smart, intentionally miss that free throw, and great job by Kyrie (Irving) to knock in that shot and give us a little bit of life there at the end.” Re: Strategy against teams (particularly Milwaukee, Philadelphia, and Toronto) with big men (like Portland’s Jusuf Nurkic) “Well I think if you look at us in the past against those guys, we’ve – you know, we’ve usually played one, one big at a time for the most part. There’s been some times against Philadelphia that we’ve played double bigs, and (Aron) Baynes is a big part of that, obviously, and will be when he comes back. So, Al (Horford) and Baynes will play the majority of those minutes against big posts like that. And you know, we tried to steal a few minutes here or there with (Daniel) Theis on (Enes) Kanter or even Robert Williams for a possession; Marcus Morris played some small-ball five, so that Al wouldn’t have to play 40 tonight. Because that’s hard to do against that size. Those guys are both really good. Adding – adding Kanter, I think, really solidifies their ability to score when things get going tough, and you know in the playoffs when things get tough and you need to be able to throw in on the block to somebody, with that second unit there was just one of those two guards in the game, that’s a good addition and he did a good job tonight.” Re: Playing engaged and ‘locked in’ “Today was good… I mean, it sucks we didn’t – we didn’t shoot the ball well, but that’s part of it. I thought that – I actually just told the guys, like, you walk out of here a little bit more encouraged because the reason we lost, if anything, was we didn’t make shots and I think it was because we were pressing. Like, I think we were disappointed in ourselves and we looked like a team that really wanted tonight to go well. And it didn’t. And you’re going to have games like that and so, a lot more encouraged tonight than I was last night. Tonight, you know, to come back and guard this team on the second night of a back-to-back and hold them under 100 is – we give ourselves a chance to win. We just didn’t score enough.” Re: Possession in fourth quarter with zone defense “I need to go back and watch it. We’ve done that a couple of times; we did it at the end of the first half as well and it got us another possession right before halftime. You’re just trying to break the rhythm and give them a different look and obviously it didn’t go well on that possession. But it was good in the Bulls game at the end; it was good at the end of the first quarter, and, but, yeah, that possession, I’ll go back and watch it and we’ll figure out how to try to not let that happen again.” Re: Going to an eight-man rotation, without Terry Rozier “You know, I’m asking probably the same questions you’re asking after the game as maybe those other guys could’ve given us a little bit energy or lift but I thought we were playing hard. I didn’t want to – I wanted to continue with – basically whenever we had to sit two wings we could bring two wings in, so ultimately, you know hindsight might be 20/20, maybe you – maybe you play (Brad) Wanamaker, (Semi) Ojeleye, but I didn’t have any plans to stick with an eight-man – or, I didn’t have plans to go much higher than an eight-man tonight.”
Marcus Smart What creates the energy on a night-to-night basis? “That’s us. You know, we’re out there playing. Brad (Stevens) and his coaching staff can only do so much for us. We got to do it. Especially on the road, the momentum for us isn’t there. We’re playing against the crowd, we have to be able to generate our own energy.” What builds it on nights like tonight when you did have it? “It was just one of those nights for us. We have to take from that and we have to keep going. We can’t detour from this. We can’t start going downhill the next game and the game after that. We have to keep exceling and going up from here.” Do you think there was a shift to it coming back home to play? “Definitely, it is a different feeling when you get back home to your home court, playing in front of your own fans and things like that. It is a little colder here than we might have liked it but it felt good to be back in this building.”
Kyrie Irving How was the energy tonight different from the past few games? “It just wasn’t enough. We just have to make that decision early on in the game, how much effort we need to give in order to be great in this league. That’s about it.” What this game a step in the right direction? “I mean, we know what we are capable of. We know what we are capable of. When we don’t play to that level we know it. There is no sugar coating it. We know the type of level we have to play at, it is just doing it consistently.” What do you think the reason is for the four game losing streak? “It’s part of the NBA season, you never know. I’ve been a part of two organizations, one where I was in Cleveland. In 2017, we’re down the stretch and we lose a bunch of games in a row. We end up sweeping the whole Eastern Conference. I don’t think anybody in the Eastern Conference could really compete with us at a high level when we’re playing the way we’re supposed to be playing.”
TEAM Boston’s four consecutive losses marks the team’s longest losing streak in 2018-19. Boston scored 92 points, marking the first time this season that the Celtics have failed to reach the 100-point mark in consecutive games. Boston has finished with fewer than 100 points in three of its last four contests (two straight). Boston’s five 3-point field goals matches its season low (5, Nov. 17 vs. UTA). The Celtics are 11-of-58 from beyond the arc over their last two games (6-30 3-PT, Feb. 26 at TOR).
INDIVIDUAL Kyrie Irving scored a team-high 31 points on 14-of-24 shooting (3-5 3-PT), marking his fourth 30-point game over his last nine contests (12th overall). Jaylen Brown (10 pts, 10 reb) recorded the fourth double-double of his NBA career (2nd this season). Brown’s other double-double in 2018-19 came against Charlotte on Jan. 30 (24 pts, 10 reb). Marcus Smart scored 11 of his 13 points in the fourth quarter on 4-of-7 shooting (1-3 3-PT). Smart and Kyrie Irving combined to score 20 of Boston’s 28 fourth-quarter points on 8-of-14 shooting. Jayson Tatum (14 points) scored in double figures for the 12th straight time, good for the third-longest streak of his NBA career.
