HEAD COACH TERRY STOTTS Thoughts on clinching spot for the playoffs: “I’m very excited about clinching the playoffs. It was a goal at the beginning of the season. It’s been a long year, we’ve still got a couple games to go that are important. We want to continue that. It’s good to have a couple days rest. I’m proud of what we’ve accomplished so far.” Does this mean more because of low expectations and roster turnover? “Well I think a combination of things. We got off to a slow start. We kicked some games early. It’s a young roster, a lot of players in position to do things that they hadn’t been in position to do before in their career. Expectations, that was a long time ago. I think it’s the fact that we came back from whatever our record was in December and put together a run and stayed with the process and grew as a team. Players got better and it’s very rewarding.” Was there a time where it started to feel like a real possibility? I don’t know if there was necessarily a moment. In January, we were able to string together some wins. We knew December was going to be tough and I liked the fact that we stayed resilient. Beating Cleveland right after Christmas was an important game for us as far as after that tough December, to get a signature win like that was important. Beating Oklahoma City here was a big game for us. When you’re able to look back over the season, you don’t know it at the time and what lies ahead, but there were certainly key points to the season.” Where have you seen the most growth? “Probably end of game, fourth quarter. When you look through the first five weeks of the season and the number of games – they’re still fresh in everybody’s mind, I know people still refer to some of the games that we kicked, but they were three, four months ago. We learned from them, we got better from them. I think we found ways either to hold on to leads or find ways to win games in the fourth quarter that we kind of let slip away in the season.” On Aminu’s performances lately: “He’s playing with a lot of confidence. I thought his start tonight, since they started two big guys, he made them pay at the offensive end with his scoring. He did a terrific job guarding Kanter at the beginning of the game. They hurt us more probably with pick and rolls than with his post ups. [Kanter] had an outstanding game but I thought Chief really did a good job one on one guarding him.”
DAMIAN LILLARD Feelings on clinching Playoff spot: “It’s a great feeling. We put in our time. It’s been a long season, we believed in ourselves. We’ve played through the tough times, we didn’t get too high off of the good times, and here we are. We finally got our spot and our work still isn’t done.” Are you tempted to give a ‘I told you so’? “You’re definitely going to hear some comments from me the next couple days… no, but like I said, our work isn’t done. We still want to do more. We want to get in the playoffs and make some noise.” On importance of getting highest seed possible: “We want to go after that fifth spot, get that fifth spot and end up playing the Clippers at the four spot. We like that matchup.” Where has team grown the most? “We’ve had so many guys step up and just get better over the course of the season. I think that’s been the biggest reason why we’ve been able to keep getting better and why we’re in the playoffs now. It seems like every ten games, it’s a new guy just exploding. We had CJ at the beginning of the season, Meyers had a stretch where he played well, Ed had a stretch, then G had a stretch and Mo came and then Chief lately. We’ve had so many guys just play huge for us. All season, it’s been a great group effort. We’ve stayed together and it’s been impressive to see us be able to lean on so many different guys over the course of the season.”
HEAD COACH BILLY DONOVAN On what he learned about his team tonight without his starters: “The whole group collectively, they’re a battling group. They compete. They really give you great effort all the time. I thought in the first half we got hurt behind the 3-point line. That hurt us. We missed nine or 11 free throws in that first half. That hurt. And the nine turnovers. So we kind of dug ourselves a hole. We got down by 19 or 20 there in the third. We just kept battling and fighting our way back. We got some stops. We’re a little bit inconsistent defensively. It was encouraging to see with, obviously, the starters being out that we were able to score like we did in the game. That was encouraging. It was pretty well-rounded scoring wise…We had a chance there a couple times. Anthony Morrow had a couple threes. I thought if we could have knocked down, it could have went from eight to five. Maybe we could have given ourselves a chance there late, but overall, I think there were some really positive things and some things we can learn and grow from.” On what he learned about Enes with his 30-20 game being the first in Thunder history: “It was good because we started big and we got hurt a little bit there. We just wanted to see what it looked like. I knew that Portland was going to go small. They’ve kind of gone to that line-up where they’ve played Aminu at the four, and we got hurt there a little bit. He knocked down a couple threes, he had a drive on Steven Adams, but overall, it was pretty good, pretty positive…We really thought, with them being small, if we could play both bigs, maybe get some post touches, post feeds for him, and we did that.” On if the team expected to win: “These guys are NBA players. They’ve got confidence in and belief in themselves, and as a group collectively. So they should go out there. And we expected to go out there and really compete and play well and give ourselves a chance to win. I want those guys to think that. I know we’re missing obviously some terrific players and I’m not taking away from anything, but these other guys we have here are good players and they work hard and it was good to see.”
ENES KANTER On his 30-20 performance: “I wish it meant anything, we lost the game. Even if I had like, 100 points it doesn’t really matter, we lost the game. So after the game I wasn’t really thinking about it, because I was just thinking about the game. I think we know we could’ve been better on the defensive game.” On playing with Steven Adams: “Well, you know we’re used to it from last year, because last year when Serge was hurt, me and him almost started and today I think once we started we were really physical out there. What I like about it is we were physical on the defensive end.” On whether he knew he’d be featured in the post going into the game: “Yeah, because Serge, KD and Russell didn’t play, so we knew that we needed someone to help out with offense out there. This was the first game posting up for me and I think they did a really good job of feeding me.”
TEAM • Portland has clinched it’s third straight playoff berth, and its 32nd in franchise history. That is the fourth-most in the NBA since joining the league in 1970-71 (LAL, SAS, BOS). • The Trail Blazers are the first team in NBA history to make the playoffs while returning only two or fewer players who logged 1,000+ minutes with the team in the previous season (Lillard, Kaman). • The Trail Blazers have won a season-high eight straight home games, and are 17-2 in their past 19 contests at the Moda Center (27-12 overall). • Portland has won six of its past seven games, and is a season-high six games above .500. • Portland improves to 34-7 when leading after three quarters (23-3 at home). • Over the past 47 games, Portland is 26-1 when leading at halftime. • Six Portland players scored in double figures, marking the 12th straight game that at least five Trail Blazers have scored 10+ points. • Portland’s 844 three-pointers this season (15 tonight) are the sixth-most all-time by any NBA team in a season. • Portland’s bench outscored the Thunder reserves, 32-18, marking the 29th time in the past 42 games that the Trail Blazers’ bench has outscored the opposing reserves. • Portland is now 4-1 against the Thunder when Kevin Durant does not play (13-18 when he does).
PLAYER • Damian Lillard joins LeBron James, James Harden and Russell Westbrook as the only NBA players with 1,800 points and 500+ assists this season. • Al-Farouq Aminu scored 27 points, marking the second-highest scoring total of his career (28, 3/31/16 vs. BOS). Aminu’s two-highest scoring totals have come in the past seven games. • Maurice Harkless (14 points) has now scored in double figures in 10 of his 12 starts this season. The Trail Blazers are 9-3 with Harkless in the starting lineup. • CJ McCollum scored 26 points on 10-of-18 shooting (4-8 3-PT). Portland is now 24-14 when McCollum scores 20+ points. • Mason Plumlee tied his career-high with seven assists (1/18/16 at Washington). • Al-Farouq Aminu scored 13 points in the first quarter alone on 5-of-8 shooting (2-5 3-PT) • Enes Kanter recorded career-highs in both points (33) and rebounds (20).
I'm surprised no one else is responding to this! Meanwhile, people hang out in the Westbrook gay thread complaining about it. If you want Blazers news, here's the biggest of the night: The Blazers WANT the Clippers and like the matchup. Read above.
