HEAD COACH TERRY STOTTS “A really big win for us. We did a lot of good things. We certainly had some breakdowns here or there, but I liked our energy, I liked our fight, I liked our resilience bouncing back from last game. Our focus on some of the things we did differently with pick and rolls, we were pretty solid with it. This was certainly a game we needed to have.” On starting Harkless and his play tonight: “He did well. Obviously he got off to a great start. Mainly, I wanted to have Chief guard and match minutes with Dirk. The best way to do that was to have him at four and have a perimeter player. I thought Mo came in and had an impact in the game early and had was solid for us.” On Aminu’s contributions: “He was really locked in. Obviously he had the responsibility with Dirk and that’s a big responsibility on pick and rolls and post ups and every possession he had to be locked in defensively. His offense was fine, but the importance of what he did defensively was key.” On going to the basket more tonight “Well they changed their pick and roll coverage. Rather than extending and opening up shots on the weak side which was a way we got a lot of the threes last game, they dropped their bigs a little bit more and so the threes that we were getting two nights ago weren’t there tonight.” On boost from Davis tonight: “Ed, in the first half, his energy, his scoring, his rebounding – I mean, Ed is pretty solid but the first half he had really was really very impressive.”
DAMIAN LILLARD On contributions of teammates tonight: “Mo was huge for us, just to start the game on both ends of the floor with his length and his athleticism. He was really active. He disturbed a lot of the things they wanted to do early and then he got out and ran and got easy baskets, brought energy to the game. Ed gave us a lot of second chance opportunities. He was a monster on the glass and in the paint, he was finishing a lot of stuff. I thought he got fouled on a lot of them and he was just playing through it, he beasted up tonight. Also, I thought Mase did a great job at the rim. He was as good as he’s been all season at the rim as far as just protecting it and making guys change shots at the rim, how physical he was. He just had a huge presence on the game tonight.” Did you feel like you had a more concentrated effort defensively? “Definitely. Yesterday we talked about it, at shoot around this morning we talked about it – hey, it’s eleven games left and it’s tightening up. We’re in control of where we want to be. We can finish this thing out the right way but we’ve got to defend the way we did when we had that great stretch. Tonight we looked like that team. We had a pretty complete game defensively and our strongest third quarter start in a long time.” On big game tonight against Dallas: “The big games that we had earlier, it wasn’t at this time. It was a tight playoff race and it wasn’t almost over. At this point, that game with a team who could have taken us over, could have passes us up tonight with a win, they could have swept us on the season on our home court, we go into the Clippers tomorrow, it would have been a tough spot to be in. We didn’t let that linger in our minds, we just said we’re going to go out there, we’re going to play the kind of basketball we need to play and we did that and we won the game.”
HEAD COACH RICK CARLISLE On what he thought of Salah Mejri tonight: “Salah did good things. He just… He’s getting tired. So I’ve got to watch his minutes that way, but he’s doing a lot of positive things. He’s making some mistakes, but he’s doing a lot of positive things, so I like the way he played.” On Deron Williams play tonight: “Well I loved his aggression, I love the way he’s attacking. They’re paying an awful lot of attention to him, so he’s not getting a lot of easy shots. He’s clearly… He and Dirk are the two best players, so they’re all over those two guys and it’s difficult, but hey, the guy fought his butt off the entire game and I love the way he competed. We just need him to keep doing that the last 11 games.” On whether Dwight Powell is an option at the 4 or if he’s purely a 5: “Everything’s on the table. I’ve been saying that for weeks now. And so, moving forward we’ll keep looking at it, but we’ve done everything there is to do with this team in terms of the rotation. We have numbers and I’ve looked at all that stuff, and if it’s time to revisit some things we did before then we’ll do it. But right now we’re disappointed… I’m disappointed with the outcome, but not the effort.”
WESLEY MATTHEWS On playing at the 4 for stretches of games: “I’m a basketball player, play me at the 5 it doesn’t really matter. I’ll do whatever it takes in my power to help this team win and if that’s at the 4 then it’s at the 4.” On Salah Mejri’s game: “He was solid. He blocked shots, rebounded, he was rolling. There’s still a huge curve for him right now, we didn’t know if we were going to see Salah again, I’m sure he didn’t know if he was going to get off the suit jacket with the neck thing but then he’s the impact player in the Portland game and now he started the next game. We’ve got to stay with him, we’re all confident in him, we stay in his ear and teach the game.” On being back in the Moda Center again: “It’s cool, not as cool because we didn’t win but the fans were awesome again. Much love and appreciation and respect for them. Would’ve felt better to get a win though.” On his celebration after making a 3 pointer: “We just flipped it, the bench shot them at me and I was just catching them.”
DIRK NOWITZKI On taking so long into the game to make a run at the Blazers’ lead: “Like I said, every time we turn the ball over it pretty much was a layup at the other end. We couldn’t recover and they made some tough shots, there were a couple bad bounces here and there but I liked the way we competed. We just couldn’t overcome some of the mistakes we made.” On the Blazers changing their coverage on him: “They didn’t switch hardly at all if I can remember. They started off with all of their starters switching off last game, I don’t remember maybe a few times I fell into it but they tried to keep (Al-Farouq) Aminu on me, trying to get back on pick and rolls. I didn’t really get a lot of looks until late when I was able to make a few plays, I was able to get open some.” On missing Chandler Parsons at a forward spot: “You know Charlie (Villanueva) is going to see some time, he’ll hopefully be good for us and spread the floor. Like I said this morning, at this point we’ve got to throw everybody out there, everybody has to be ready. From game to game it’s going to be different, with different decisions made at this point in the season we’ll do it by committee. If we’re going to go small, I think Wes (Matthews) was at the 4 today a little bit so whatever needs to be done we have to make it work.”
TEAM • The Trail Blazers are now 14-3 in their past 17 games played at the Moda Center (22-12 overall). • Portland improves to 18-9 over its past 27 contests (Jan. 23). • Portland is now 22-1 over its past 39 games when leading at halftime (led tonight: 57-53). • All five Trail Blazers starters scored in double figures for the first time since Feb. 6 at Houston.
PLAYER • Damian Lillard went 5-for-5 from the free throw line, and has now made 52 consecutive free throws. That is the longest such streak since Damon Stoudamire made 57 straight in 2005. Over his past 16 games, Lillard has gone 118-of-121 from the free throw line (97.5% FT). • Mason Plumlee scored 10 points (5-9 FG), marking the first time this season that he has had at least 10 points in four consecutive games (3/17 to 3/23). • Ed Davis scored all 16 of his points in the first half on 6-of-7 shooting (4-4 FT). • Maurice Harkless made his fourth start of the season and finished with 14 points (5-13 FG) and four rebounds. Harkless has averaged 12.3 points (52.6% FG) and 6.0 rebounds in four starts this season. • Damian Lillard (27 points) has scored at least 20 points in five consecutive games (25+ pts in three straight contests). • Damian Lillard (27) and CJ McCollum (14 pts) outscored the Mavericks’ opposing starting backcourt of Raymond Felton and Deron Williams by 27 points (41-14), marking the 12th time in the past 14 games that they have done so (+180 points). • Gerald Henderson logged 10 points off Portland’s bench (4-9 FG), marking the sixth time in his past eight games that he has scored in double figures. • Al-Farouq Aminu (10 points, 10 rebounds) logged his eighth double-double, and is now just two double-doubles of matching his career-high (10, 2012-13).
