Postgame quotes: Cavaliers 106, Blazers 94
BLAZERS POST GAME QUOTES
Sunday, Jan. 10, 2010 – Final Score: Cleveland 106, Portland 94
COACH NATE McMILLAN
“It comes down to making plays. They had about 3 offensive rebounds –we had some stops – I think there was one possession where they had 1 or 2 offensive boards in a row and some break downs where we started to double team LeBron when we could get to him. Now it’s just if they miss some shots… I thought the kid Williams hit a big 3. You’re trying to force some things to happen and when you force the miss, you’ve got to get the board. Then, of course, you’ve got to go down and score.”
“They certainly came out as the aggressors. LeBron was just unbelievable. You normally don’t make adjustments in the first quarter. His 20 points came so fast. I think he had about 3 possessions where we didn’t get in front of him and he was at the rim. Then he hit some threes and before you know it, he had 20 points. We wanted to double team but we couldn’t get close to him to do that. I thought we came out in the second half and played the way we play where we started to scrap and we got our gos- our traps going and were able to get in transition and get some movement and get back in the game.”
“We could get to [LeBron] in the second half. That first quarter, he pretty much just was in attack mode. He got to the basket. He had 2 or 3 threes at that time and some of them were off the ball. They weren’t running isolation plays for him in the first quarter. He was just making shots. One thing we could have done better was get help over to him when he was penetrating.”
Take the game as a positive for staying close?:
“We didn’t play to stay close. I thought the second half we had a better half. The first half, they came out like a team that had dropped one and had respect for what we had done. They came in here ready to play and jumped on us right away. We didn’t give in in the second half and got ourselves back in the ball game with an opportunity to win it. Then it comes down to making some plays.”
“I thought Varejeo was huge coming in off the bench. Their bench was really good with Williams and Varejao getting offensive boards and knocking down some shots.”
BRANDON ROY
“We wanted to win this game but I think our effort was much better in the second half, just competing a lot harder. They’re a big team and they’ve got a lot of second chance points down the stretch. Guys competed though. Our bigs worked hard. They were all in foul trouble so we’ve got to give them credit for trying to battle against this team.”
On responding to LeBron’s game:
“I just wanted to be aggressive. I think Martell did a good job in the second half of tring to deny the basketball, making his shots tougher. For me, I just tried to be aggressive. I didn’t have to guard him as much tonight so I had a little bit more energy offensively. I was being aggressive and I told the guys we’ve got to play a little more free. I felt like in the first half we were playing too controlled and playing that style of basketball, we can’t compete against them. We played a little looser in the second half and were able to get ourselves back in the game, just not enough down the stretch.”
“I think once we came back, we started playing tight again. They’re just physically too big and strong for us to play a half court game with. Once we came back, we started to slow it down and try to play their style. It was too difficult in the half court set. I told the guys next time we’ve got to continue to play loose down the stretch. We can’t match up with them man for man so we’ve got to do a better job of playing loose and taking our shots like we did when we were able to come back.”
Frustrating loss?:
“It was difficult because we made a big run there in the second half and the energy was there in the building. Again, they did a good job of slowing us down. They put Shaq back in the game and kinda pounded us inside. It was a tough game but I have to give our guys credit. They fought. Martell – I think he did a great job in that second half with slowing LeBron down – 31 in the first half and 10 in the second – give him a lot of credit. And our bigs, they did a good job of fighting. They fought with those big dudes tonight.”
CAVS POST GAME QUOTES
Sunday, Jan. 10, 2010 – Final Score: Cleveland 106, Portland 94
COACH MIKE BROWN
ON GAME
“I thought Brandon Roy had a heck of a game. He was tough for the entire night, he did a well of job keeping those guys in it. Obviously, for us Lebron with the 41-10-8, it was very good in the 40-plus minutes he played. I thought Shaquille was terrific for us…for a big fella to have five assists in the minutes that he played is spectacular. What he did for us also was he got us into the bonus quickly…Anderson had missed some gimmies in the beginning of the 3rd quarter-shots he normally makes-but the one thing you like about Andy is he gives it to you at the other end of the floor. The stuff that he did may not show up in the box score but it was unbelievable for us.”
ON HOLDING OFF COMEBACK
“There was a stretch there where we let them hit a couple of open threes…Brandon got loose in some situations…We just did a better job of cleaning those two areas up.”
ON MO WILLIAMS
I thought Mo did a nice job running the team down the stretch. He made the right pass a couple of times…he did a nice job down the stretch for us on both ends of the floor.”
ON JUWAD WILLIAMS
“Juwad goes against guys like Lebron almost every day. He goes against our bigs when we slide him to the 4 in practice. He’s tough. He’s tough and he’s not afraid. When you have a guy with that size and that toughness, and is fearless. When he gets an opportunity he’s going to make the most of it and that’s exactly what he’s done. He’s earned his minutes.”
Lebron James
ON GAME
“In order to get road wins you have to come out aggressive and that was just my whole mindset to come into the game…We continue to execute offensively, guys continue to rotate, we made shots and then on the defensive end we got stops. That’s what it’s about. You have to get stops to win close games, especially on the road and especially in the 4th quarter.”
ON ANDERSON VAREJAO
“He has a motor that is undescribable. He does things that don’t show up in the stat sheet and he’s a big party of why we are so successful, why we’ve been successful in the last few years and he continues to work on his game.”
ON JUWAD WILLIAMS
“We have confidence in all of our guys. Juwad is one of those guys who work hard. He works with me every single day, we try to get a lot of work in and when Jamario got hurt he was ready to accept the challenge and take on the roll. He’s great. His ability to shoot the basketball and be 6-9 really helped us.”
ON ROAD WIN
“To me, to be a great team you have to be able to get road wins in tough environments and we’ve done that for the most part so far this year.”
