Postgame quotes: Blazers 91, Lakers 88
Official postgame quotes following the Portland Trail Blazers 91-88 victory over the Los Angeles Lakers on Sunday at the Staples Center.
‘Trail Blazers Players’ POST GAME QUOTES
Portland Trail Blazers vs. Los Angeles Lakers
STAPLES Center
April 11, 2010
Portland Trail Blazers’ Martell Webster on today’s game:
“It was definitely hostile out there. That’s the kind of atmosphere that will be there in the play-offs. It’s a good chance we might be playing these guys in the first round. So going out there you can have butterflies, but once that ball tips in the air you got to let go and go. And we did that tonight.”
Portland Trail Blazers’ Martell Webster’s thoughts before he made the three free-throws to seal the victory:
“Just making them. That’s what I was thinking when I walked up to the line, kind of visualizing myself making all three of them. I just went up there and shot them with confidence.”
Portland Trail Blazers’ Martell Webster on going up against Kobe Bryant tonight:
“It’s always a challenge going up against the premier guys in the league. Kobe is definitely one of those guys. Basically what you try and do is make him take tough contested jump-shots and I think we did a good job of that tonight.”
Portland Trail Blazers’ LaMarcus Aldridge on the ending to today’s game:
“A little crazy. First fouling Kobe, then fouling Fish. Everyone was like okay, we’re trying to give it away. They missed free-throws and then Martell taking a one-legged runner. It was a crazy game. But he made the free-throws and we got the win tonight.”
Portland Trail Blazers’ LaMarcus Aldridge on if the last play of the game was designed for him to take a shot rather than Martell Webster:
“I can’t even remember it now. It was but they played him a little different. He acted and it worked out.”
Portland Trail Blazers’ Andre Miller on today’s game:
“It was one of the weirder games, but it’s good to be on the W side.”
Portland Trail Blazers’ Andrew Miller on the potential play-off match-up against the Lakers:
“We play them pretty well. We match-up well with them. We want to duck out of there in the first part of the play-offs but even if we match-up, I think we’ll be alright.”
‘Nate McMillan’ Post game Quotes
Los Angeles Lakers vs. Portland Trail Blazers
STAPLES Center
April 11, 2010
Blazers’ Coach Nate McMillan on Brandon Roy’s injury:
“Yea we’re hoping that it’s not too serious. We decided to hold him the second half and get some x-rays and we’ll look at him again tomorrow.”
Blazers’ Coach Nate McMillan on the end of today’s game:
“Crazy. That was just crazy. We fouled Kobe, they foul us, Kobe missed two free throws, Fisher missed a free throw. I mean, just a crazy ending. I’m glad we were on the winning side of that though.”
Blazers’ Coach Nate McMillan on this game affects the Trail Blazers’ confidence playing against the Lakers:
“I feel and I’ve said to our guys, I think we can play with these teams. And I thought the first quarter, we were kind of feeling them out and you can’t do that. We’ve got to be aggressive; we’ve got to be the aggressors. Then we started to play, I felt like, after they hit us in the mouth and we got up and played better defense. Offensively, we got some movement, started to attack. Defensively, you know, in the fourth quarter to hold them to 17 points is pretty good. I thought the last three quarters is how we have to play and if we can get that type of basketball consistently then we’ll be able to give ourselves a chance.”
Blazers’ Coach Nate McMillan on keeping Martell Webster in the game in the fourth quarter:
“I thought he was playing, you know, Kobe, you’re not going to stop Kobe. But I thought he was playing pretty good defense for us, making him get to spots and he was knocking down shots. We needed that out on the floor, both he and Rudy (Fernandez), we tried to make Kobe (or) Artest, one of them run on the defensive end of the floor… I thought he was playing pretty decent defense, he was rebounding the ball, and he was knocking down shots. Big free throws by Martell.”
Blazers’ Coach Nate McMillan on if he wanted his team to foul Kobe near the end of the game:
“When I huddled the group together, and told them… if they run with the ball we’re going to trap Kobe and at that time Martell was on the bench, he didn’t think he was in the game so he didn’t hear me give the instructions on what we wanted to do if Kobe had the ball and as I was telling them to red. He thought I was saying foul so the communication, again, weird situation. We definitely didn’t want to foul in that situation.”
Blazer’ Coach Nate McMillan on this game foreshadowing the potential playoff matchup:
“Well, you know, the Lakers are good. And whoever we face is going to be a challenge. It’s been a tough, grinded-out type of game every time we’ve played them and it was the same thing tonight.”
LAKERS PLAYERS POST GAME QUOTES
Los Angeles Lakers vs. Portland Trail Blazers
STAPLES Center
April 11, 2010
Lakers Guard Kobe Bryant on his missed free throws at the end of the game:
“I haven’t been shooting free throws very well, anyway. I’m trying to brush up on them, change it up a little bit and get it right for the playoffs.”
Lakers Guard Kobe Bryant on his knee:
“It’s a little rusty, a little stiff from not playing, not being active. I’ll be fine. It’s nice to get out there and play a little bit, loosen up the joints a little bit.”
Lakers Guard Kobe Bryant on taking a few games off:
“The rest did me good. You can’t rest too much because then you get rusty and your joints get stiff.”
Lakers Forward Pau Gasol on what the Lakers need to do for the playoffs:
“Everyone needs to step up their game and produce a little more to beat the best teams out there. Otherwise if we continue like this it is going to be tough.”
Lakers Forward Pau Gasol on Lakers’ performance compared to this time last season:
“We are not playing as well as we were last year. We are more banged up than we were last year. We had Andrew out but we have guys struggling with injuries and we are trying to get them back in the game. We all want to be healthy for that last run.”
Lakers Forward Lamar Odom on how this game got away in the second half:
“We just didn’t make enough defensive plays throughout the game. I guess their defense was better than ours.”
Lakers Forward Lamar Odom on how this season compares to last season:
“Teams are different. They way you view teams, they way teams view you is different. Everybody wants to play their best game against us. We’ll take our licks.”
‘PHIL JACKSON’ POST GAME QUOTES
Lakers’ Coach Phil Jackson on what he hopes to accomplish in the remaining regular season games:
“Well there’s not much left for us to accomplish as for that, except for wins. You always want to put wins the column. But we want to get some guys playing, we want to get some rhythm, we want to use some of things that we’re going to use in the playoffs to our advantage. We have some things that we want to correct and we have an opportunity to work on it.”
Lakers’ Coach Phil Jackson on whether he will rest the players in preparation for the playoffs:
“They’ll play, they won’t play heavy minutes but they’ll certainly play. We’ll play guys in the minutes that they’re accustomed to, 30 minutes hopefully, at least. So that they get the work and we’ll try to keep guys out of 40 minute games.”
Lakers’ Coach Phil Jackson on the Blazers’ scoring in tonight’s game:
“Well some of that is just natural rotation. The fact that a player like Brandon Roy went out of the game and they had to use somebody off the bench for 40 minutes, or whatever. Somebody’s gonna be out there playing and when you play minutes, someone’s gonna score.
Lakers’ Coach Phil Jackson on the difference between now and in the playoffs:
“Well I told the staff when we were sitting out there on the bench and watching the game that the level of intensity is gonna be so different in one week. From this Sunday to next Sunday, there is going to be an incredible amount of difference in intensity that’s there in the games. The critical nature of every play becomes very obvious. If we can match that, we’ll be fine.”
Lakers’ Coach Phil Jackson on what the Lakers’ can improve upon:
“We would like to get a practice down here in STAPLES actually, because of the way we shot the ball today. We’ll try to get a practice here and we’ll try to get some things done that we want to get accomplished. A lot of it is film work and about execution, defensive stances.”
