HEAD COACH TERRY STOTTS “It was good to get a win, but it was kind of disappointing that some of the things that ended up happening to get us to that point. It was good to get a win in overtime. But for us to compete for a playoff spot, we have to be more consistent with our effort. We have to be making better decisions when it matters. We can’t have lulls. I thought Philly played a very good game, very similar to Brooklyn, they play hard, they share the ball, they compete, they push the tempo and again, it was very similar to our game in Philly. Like I told the team, I’m glad we won, but we need to learn from it. I’d rather learn from a win than a loss at this point in the season.” On Nurkic: “He had a good game.” “He was outstanding. I mean, he set the tone early with the four blocks. He made the game look easy. His assists – I was hoping he’d get a triple double. He had the 8 assists early and I was hoping that we’d be able to get a triple double out of him, but his rebounds, his presence in the paint – he had an outstanding game.” Do you recall being part of something like this with a player coming in and making such a big impact so quickly? “Not that I’ve been around. Rasheed Wallace came in and made a big impact midseason – I was on the other end of that trade. I mean, it’s certainly unusual. I think he’s, as I’ve said before, I don’t know if he can play much better than tonight statistically, but I think he’s going to continue to get better.”
CJ MCCOLLUM On Nurkic: “He’s doing a terrific job. He’s coming along well, fast obviously. A historic performance tonight – 28, 20, 8 assists, 6 blocks. He’s doing really well for us. He’s protecting the paint. He’s starting to learn the playbook more, so we’re able to run a little bit more volume of different sets and more of a variety. I’m happy for him, he’s playing well.” How did you feel you played as a team? “Good enough to win. We had a lot of mistakes down the stretch. We had a foul in the corner, some turnovers, but overall at this point, you just want to win try and get through each game.” On sustaining a winning streak “I mean, we’re winning games we’re supposed to win, playing at home and taking advantage of that. Favorable travel schedule with a game getting cancelled. So just got to continue to try to win as many games as we can. Obviously the eight seed is available, it’s there for the taking. So winning games at home, beating sub-500 teams is a way to get in.”
HEAD COACH BRETT BROWN On the final 20 second of regulation: “After Robert’s (Covington) foul? He thought (Jusuf) Nurkic made both free throws. Stuff like that happens. I think what we should all, sort of, finally remember, is how good of an effort he made to get that put back at the end of the game and really what a good game he had. That play was a mistake and you move on.” On Dario Saric’s game tonight: “He just keeps getting better and better. His mom is here with us. I think it’s great for her to see her son play on the road in the NBA. I think that’s a tremendous experience for their family. He just keeps getting better and better. He made big shots. We put him in a lot of pick and rolls. He’s unique in that there aren’t many four-men in the league that you can invite the pick and roll with. He’s calling for them, we put hit in some just out of our structure, but he was excellent tonight.” On Jahlil Okafor’s rhythm improving throughout the game: “At the start of each half he got winded quickly, but I thought for not having played for a while he was really good. We went into a little bit of offensive/defensive mode at the end. I thought that Richaun’s (Holmes) wind at the end was going to be better than Jahlil’s, we walked out a game with that in mind. I thought, in general, once Jahlil started going a little bit, he went at Nurkic and that was a good battle for a while.”
GERALD HENDERSON On his teams’ performance: “We played well, it’s a hard team to defend. I think for the most part in the first half we kind of had to get used to their speed and all of those screens they set. It’s a hard offense to defend especially with the skilled guys that they have but in the second half we did a better job and we attacked them with our best. We just couldn’t come up with enough plays to get it done in overtime.” On positives to take away despite the loss: “I think it definitely puts us back on track, we had a few games there that were just out of character. This is a good team and we played well against them so in terms of how we’re playing I think we’ll take some positives from it but you want to turn that into winning.” On playing well with the Warriors and Clippers coming up next: “Yeah, obviously you want to be playing well going into games like that so we’ll try to take some of what we did tonight into those games and we’ll definitely need it because they’re some good teams
DARIO SARIC Thoughts on his career scoring night: “I thought I started good. I thought that this could be my night and I just tried to play, tried to stay hungry the whole game, tried to be smart, tried to show the emotional side of me. To not push me in some kind of hole, to not judge, to want too much and don’t get in trouble because of it. That was in my mind the whole time and I tried to keep myself from rushing it, to just take my time to shoot, take my time to go one on one. Don’t try to play too fast but because of it I started to rush again. I had a good game and I handled it… When you lose a game like this it’s tough but we need to change our minds, we need to be ready for the next game… I think this is the way how we’re supposed to play, starting hard. You see that we start a good first quarter, we start a good second quarter and the game is tied the whole time but sometimes we start the first quarter and the game is going minus 15, 20 by the middle of the quarter. Tonight we showed to everybody that we can play and I hope we will have the same kind of preparation for the next game.” On guarding Jusuf Nurkic: “From what I’ve seen, he’s been good in Portland. Especially tonight and I know from before he’s a very good player. He’s tall and he has got a huge body and I hope he’ll continue to play like that.”
Post Game Notes – March 9, 2017 Portland 114, Philadelphia 108 (OT) Game #63 Home Game #30 Team · Portland has won four straight games, representing the longest winning-streak of the season. · The Trail Blazers have won three consecutive games at the Moda Center, matching a season high (two other times). · The Trail Blazers have won three consecutive home games against the 76ers. · Portland has played in eight overtime games this season, more than any other team in the league (NOP, Sac. -7). · The 12 blocked shots by the Trail Blazers tie a season high (Jan. 18 at Cha.) Player · Jusuf Nurkic set new career highs points (28), rebounds (20), assists (8), and blocks (6). · Jusuf Nurkic is the first NBA player to log 28+ points, 20+ rebounds, 8+ assists and 6+ blocks in a game since Charles Barkley (11/28/86). · Jusuf Nurkic is the first Trail Blazer to have 20+ points and 20+ rebounds in a game since LaMarcus Aldridge did it on Jan. 20, 2014. · Damian Lillard (24 points) scored his 1,500th point of the season on his second free throw of overtime. He is the 17th player in NBA history to score 1,500+ points in each of his first five seasons, and the second Trail Blazer (Sidney Wicks, 1971-76). The five most recent players to accomplish the feat are Kevin Durant, LeBron James, Carmelo Anthony, David Robinson and Hakeem Olajuwon. · CJ McCollum (23 points, 3-5 3-PT) has made three or more three-pointers in three of the past five games. He is shooting 58.3% from behind the arc in that span. · Allen Crabbe (18 points, 8-12 FG, 2-5 3-PT) scored in double figures for the fourth time in the last five games. He is averaging 14.6 points on 65.0% shooting (60.0% 3-PT) during that span. · Maurice Harkless (10 points, 5-9 FG) has scored in double figures in six of the last nine games. · Dario Saric (28 points, 9 rebounds) has reached double-digit scoring in 14 straight games. · Robert Covington (24 points, 4-8 3-PT) has made two or more three-pointers in 11 straight games.
