Trail Blazers vs Pistons Wednesday, 11/18/09 AT 07:00PM

Trail Blazers 87, Pistons 81: Postgame Quotes

11/18/09

Written by: caseyholdahl  / avg. rating: 5.0



COACH NATE McMILLAN
“You play the game 48 minutes. I’ve often been criticized for not playing guys down the stretch and you don’t play with the game. It was a good game for us, it was a good lesson that you play that game 48 minutes and you play it the right way. You don’t relax because it’s never over. I think a bad shot or a turnover can always give a team momentum. That’s how I coach, to win games when we feel like we had that game under control, we’ll make substitutions. We had our guys in there and we had to bring back that group that got us there. We stopped doing the things that we needed to do, execute both ways – you start launching quick j’s and turning that ball over and being loose and playing the scoreboard as opposed to playing that game the right way. Anything can happen. For three quarters, we were good coming off the road. We wanted to give a strong effort on both ends of the floor, defensively as well as offensively and we did that for three quarters.”

“The margin for error is where it’s at because of the group. It’s a young group that is still trying to learn how to win and win big. We have a lot of work to do. We had one year where we won some games so we’re not there yet. We have got to play the game right for 48 minutes.”

“The thing is turnovers and I thought maybe just relaxing. You turn the ball over, you don’t execute offensively, you lose your rhythm, you lose a bit of confidence, they get excited and make some plays, get some momentum and you start to get a little tight.”

On Blake’s three-point FG late in the game
“We needed it and we don’t want him to hesitate. He had an open look and he can knock that shot down. As you mentioned, last game he had similar shots that didn’t fall, but it was a big shot and big free throws for Blake and those guys down the stretch.”

On Roy and Aldridge having good offensive games together
“Those are the guys. We have got to get them going. Tonight, to see both of them score – we haven’t seen that this season. We had a third guy with Blake and Miller being able to score. I thought our assists were really good throughout the night for the most part, turnovers were pretty good until that fourth quarter.”

BRANDON ROY
 “We just blew that lead. We tried to get our starters back in there late. We did the best we could trying to get in that game once they had a flow. We held them off. The best thing about this was that we lost a game like this a couple years ago in Philadelphia and it’s much better to learn a lesson in a win than it is in a loss. I’m just happy that we pulled it out and hopefully this doesn’t happen again.”

On Steve Blake
“He stuck with it. You can tell Blake is tough. He’s a fiery guy and he kept taking his shot. That’s what we love about him. He wants to make big plays. When he turned the ball over you could just sense that he had to do something to make up for it and I’m just happy he made that three to give us a cushion.”

“Our defense has been great for us. We would have liked to finish this game much better in the fourth quarter. Our free throw shooting was really good down the stretch. ‘Dre and Blake stepped up and made big free throws. That team, they got confidence in the fourth quarter. It’s tough to just break it but we did a good job of holding them off.”

“We wanted to have a complete game tonight. We felt like we were coming home and we had that 20 point lead going to the fourth quarter. Some of it is missing Travis. That’s his time to come in and get some easy baskets for us in that fourth quarter to keep our rhythm. We’ve just got to learn that he’s not going to be there so we need guys like Martell and Rudy to continue to step up.”

COACH JOHN KUESTER
On Comeback
“We just need to do a better job in the 3rd quarter, but our players worked so hard in the 4th quarter they gave themselves an opportunity…we just can’t put ourselves in such a big hole.”


CHARLIE VILLANUEVA
“I was just trying to give our team a chance to win. I think we played terrible basketball the first three quarters, that fourth quarter, we turned it around, but we need to play like that a whole game. We were right there; we were so close, with a very good team…it’s been kind of the theme, we dig ourselves into a big hole and then try to dig ourselves out…we need to play 48 minutes of basketball…If we play together and get open shots, we should be fine.”
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