Postgame quotes: Blazers 102, Magic 87
BLAZERS POST GAME QUOTES
Friday, Jan. 15, 2010 – Final Score: Portland 102, Orlando 87
COACH NATE McMILLAN
“Again, great basketball by our guys. They just keep stepping up and rising to the occasion. I was asked earlier – how are we winning? Is it one or two players that are making the difference in this stretch where we’ve won games without players? It’s not. It’s been a collective effort. Not only the players, but the coaching staff and we just keep stepping up. Tonight it was everybody again. I thought the first unit did a great job of establishing themselves. The second unit got their rhythm in the second half and beat a very good team.”
ON GAME AS REPRESENTATIVE OF SEASON SO FAR:
“We’re playing good basketball. We’re playing the game the right way and we’re playing the game together. I think that must happen regardless of who you have – whether we have all of our guys together – because I’ve seen it go the other way where you’re not playing together and you’re worried about different things. All of a sudden, it blows up. But this group is coming out, they’re playing hard, they’re playing together, and they beat the Magic tonight. Executing – defensively we were aggressive. Offensively, we got 87 attempts so we were attacking.”
ON GUYS STEPPING UP WITHOUT ROY:
“It’s not a shocker to these guys to have to be called on to step up and play or fill in for a guy. It’s still a challenge and the month of December, that was difficult to handle when you were losing guys for the season. Tonight, Brandon – most of these guys found out right before the game that he wasn’t playing. They keep having themselves ready and they’re productive when they get their opportunity.”
ON DEFENSIVE SUCCESS, STARTING WITH DWIGHT HOWARD:
“We tried to mix up our defense on him. They (Blazers’ bigs) did a good job of just making him work, beating him to his spots. I thought our guards did a good job of mixing up their defense, double teaming, faking the double team, rotating out to their shooters. We had to defend the three-ball and we did a good job of defending the three as well. That’s a tough team to defend when you have a guy like Howard in the post who can score but that three-point threat and being able to cover both. Our guys did a great job of rotating out and then getting back and rebounding. We controlled the boards tonight.”
STEVE BLAKE
“I feel good. I’m just happy we won, that I contributed, and my health is great. I’ve been pushing myself pretty hard to get back in shape and I’m just happy to be out there.”
“It’s nice to have momentum going into a long road trip after being home for a while playing some teams that are talented. We’ve got to get better on the road so this is a challenge for us.”
ON PLAYING WITHOUT ROY:
“Whenever you hear someone isn’t playing, obviously it sucks for him… you never want to see someone hurt but we’re kinda used to that around here. You push forward as soon as you hear, then you have to change your mindset to a different type of game plan.”
KEYS TO SUCCESS:
“Defensively, we stayed with our concept of trying to keep the ball away from Dwight as much as possible, run their guys off the three point line, and make them take tough, contested threes. That kept their percentage down. Offensively, push the ball with tempo and ball movement. Guys were making shots tonight.”
MARTELL WEBSTER
WHAT WAS KEY TO THE GAME?
“Not letting them have anything easy in the paint. Everything that they had down low had to be worked for and particular guys weren’t going to get a shot up. We wanted to foul. We excecuted that gameplan perfectly tonight.”
ON PLAYING GOOD BASKETBALL:
“Guys are just, night in night out, putting forth their best effort. We have to compensate for a lot of losses and I think we’ve done a great job at that…. It felt really good. I think we could do better but as of yet, yeah, so far it was the best we’ve done, best style of basketball we’ve played.”
MAGIC POST GAME QUOTES
Friday, Jan. 15, 2010 – Final Score: Portland 102, Orlando 87
COACH STAN VAN GUNDY
ON GAME
“We couldn’t get anything going. For a while we hung in defensively even when we were struggling and again I think frustration sets in and we just lose our resolve defensively. The first half tonight I though was pretty similar to the second half in Denver the other night, it just got away from us.”
ON PORTLAND
“We just got totally out played. I thought they played tremendously. They played the game about as well as you can play the game. They played with tremendous energy, great unselfishness and ball movement, worked very hard defensively, played a speed and quickness level far exceeding ours. I thought they were tremendous and I told our team afterwards that that was a great team we played tonight. I thought they were fantastic. They competed very hard and worked very very hard defensively…They did a very very good job.
ON TEAM
“When you get beat the way we did, I’m not going to get up here and start on one guy or another guy. There’s plenty of blame to go around tonight. We played 10 guys and I coached, so there’s enough blame for the 11 of us to handle on a game like tonight. I think trying to single one guy would be #1 pretty difficult tonight.”
ON DWIGHT HOWARD
“They doubled teamed him all night. You can limit post guy’s shots. That’s not a hard thing to do. When he got good position they just fouled him every time. It’s a little deceptive because he had a lot of free throws also and a lot where they fouled him before he could even get a shot up and the ball on the side…Every time he got goo position they fouled him, if he got it off the lane they doubled teamed him. Not an easy thing to do. It’s been a game plan we’ve seen a lot and when you go 3 for 10 or 11 from the line then that’s a game plan you’re going to continue to see.
J.J. REDICK
ON GAME
“Portland played with so much energy tonight and we didn’t match that. We were down 20 at half time; you can’t dig yourself a hole like that. On both ends of the floor they just kicked out butts.”
RASHARD LEWIS
ON TEAM
“We’re going to get everybody’s best shot. We knew that coming into the season. Last year we kind of flew under the radar, this year we’re not flying under the radar and teams are going to give us their best.”
