Postgame Quotes: Kings vs. Timberwolves
December 18, 2009 by kingsconnect
Kings Head Coach Paul Westphal
“Bad game for us tonight. Our defense was a step behind all night. Give Minnesota credit, they out played us. They played great, we did not play great and that’s what happens in this league. I don’t know if we’re tired or if we are believing all the good things people are saying about us, we just had a bad game.”
On comparison to the last meeting with Minnesota
“They hung with us for two and a half quarters (previous meeting). We cracked first tonight. They kept it up for 48 minutes. We couldn’t get our shots to fall. I give them a lot of credit. I think Kevin Love was brilliant. They got really good performances offensively from pretty much everyone who went in there.”
On poor three point shooting
“We had some good looks from good shooters and we missed. When you do that you lose.”
On lineup
“Our rotation was hurt a little tonight, with Brockman unable to play and Sean May continually unable to play. We will regroup. We are not going to stop believing in these guys.”
Kings Guard Tyreke Evans
“We let this one get away. This wasn’t us tonight. We weren’t making shots or playing hard defense.”
On performing every night
“Everybody is not going to play perfect every single game, nobody is going to go out there and win 81 games. It happens, you just have to move on and learn from it.”
On looking forward to rookie Brandon Jennings
“I’m looking forward to every game. I think tonight we had a lot of good looks in the first half but we just shot terrible. I have played with him a lot. He is a good player. (Brandon Jennings)”
On injured knee
“I keep fighting through it and this is the NBA, you have to be tough. It is a long season. I am just trying to take care of my body and get ready for the rest of these games.”
On how long the knee has bothered him
“Since before the Washington game. It is nothing serious I just have to keep treating it well.”
On what it will take to win tomorrow
“We just have to come with energy. We just have to try to go to Milwaukee and get the win.”
Kings Guard Beno Udrih
“We just had a bad stretch. Basically you are trying really hard and come back to eight or six points, and then they make a run back at you.”
On poor communication
“We definitely didn’t communicate as good as we should. We just had a really bad game on defense and that is why we lost this game. Especially on the road, you have to go out there and play much harder on defense and the offense will come to you.”
On playing defense while shooting poorly
“They got way too many fast break points on us. It is tough, that is basketball. As a team we are way better than that. I think any NBA team can beat any other team.”
Wolves Head Coach Kurt Rambis
“I thought our guys did a really good job tonight of executing our game plan… we were solid with points in the paint, not great. But they were trying, for the most part I could see them doing the right things. Matchup wise, I think Damien did a good job on Evans and I think that really helped out, took one of their key components out of the ball game. We got key performances from our bench… Those are all reason why we win, is that they can step up and have offensive nights for us. We did a good job rebounding the basketball and for the most part executing our offense and playing the game like we wanted to, in terms of attacking the basketball and being aggressive inside…”
Was the game plan to put Wilkins on Evans prior to the game?
“We talked it. We didn’t know exactly how they were going to start so we had to fiddle with it from the very beginning, but we had to go over our gameplan in shootaround, make sure we could handle Jonny playing different people, because we still had to double-team off of it. Jonny did make a good attempt early to be aggressive on the post, that’s something that he has to learn — all small guards have to learn…. You have to get the reputation that you can’t be posted up… I thought his aggression level and learning how to do that really helped him out… You take the ball out of Tyreke’s hands and put it into someone else’s hands who’s not used to handling things like that, it takes away from what they wanted to do offensively.”
Did your heart skip when Brewer fell?
“As he was falling, yes, because that’s where players can really hurt their back, but the way that he landed — he was going to be okay. You want to avoid your tail bone and obviously their neck and head, and he ended up kind of sitting down when he fell.”
Do you see any correlation between when Corey is on and when he’s off?
“It looks that way to you too, huh? We obviously need some outside shooting for our team to be productive. The nights where our guys are able to knock down shots, it just adds a whole other element to our offense. We execute our offense. When guys do the right thing and execute the offense, we get quality looks. It’s up to our guys to be able to knock down those shots and have the confidence to do that. That’s what we’ve been preaching since Day 1 in Training Camp: it’s your shot, you’re open, it’s the rhythm of our offense you have to shoot it. There was one sequence where we ended up getting a 24-sec violation… Damien was in the corner and he didn’t take the shot. I told him after the game that that’s a shot you have to take. Not taking the shot that the defense that the defense has told you to take is just as bad as taking a bad shot… It’s a learning experience for our guys. They have to shoot the shots the offense creates and that the defense tells you to take.”
Are you more willing now to run with teams?
“I do want to push the basketball, and I do want to push it with speed. As we continue to grow as a team defensively … we can rebound the basketball with Kevin in the ballgame, we can certainly get outside. But what I’ve been stressing with the players since training camp is that it’s all about quality. I don’t want it to be about quantity because then we’re taking away some of our strengths which is our inside game. As long as we have something of quality and we can get the ball up early, then that’s what we want to do. (Explains a specific play sequence in the game, missed part of it)… then you end up giving the ball to a seven foot, 300-lb guy and expect him to create something when he’s running 100 miles/hour. Those are just decisions that the team has to learn are not the right decisions. The hard part for guards in doing this is that they have to be able to make a split-second decision — whether there’s something of quality there… It’s tough. I know it’s tough, but as they grow as guards they’ll be able to make those decisions easy.”
Third quarter…
“We showed them things that they were doing right offensively on the tape, and we showed them things where they were making mistakes defensively, and we as the coaching staff encourage them, but they took over. That was a good sign for me, that they got together in a group and were talking and encouraging amongst themselves… They kind of sense about themselves too, that they’re not doing the right things coming out of the locker room after halftime. So that’s good, that three or four players took ownership of that and everybody followed suit.”
Do you think Kevin Love is completely settled in?
“No. He looks like he’s out of shape a lot, when he’s getting up and down the floor. You can see a lot when players get tired, when they get the ball on the post and they have a small guy on them, they settle for a jump shot. That’s a sign of fatigue instead of taking the guy to the inside and really punishing him. There was one instance where Kevin goes after the offensive rebound and was then jogging back, so I got on him about getting back on defense, and he said “do you want me to crash the offensive boards, or do you want me to get back on defense?” And I said, “yes. I expect you to do both. When you get in shape you’ll be able to do that.” Those are things that I demand of him and expect him to do.”
He seemed to be successful second half…
“He’s going to have advantages as he grows as a player and develops and matures over the years… he doesn’t get a whole lot of lift on his shot, so he has to get crafty or down low and be able to get his defender off balance so that he can manipulate him and get higher quality shots. Whether he’s being guarded by a smaller guy or a bigger guy. Then he’s going to be able to transfer his game to a pick-and-roll…”
How do you get consistent?
“When the person finds out how to be consistent, I want to talk to that individual. Because that’s the hardest thing for players to be in this league, is to be consistent. It’s the hardest thing for any athlete, the consistency. Really, in my mind, that’s the mark of a true pro — someone that delivers night in and night out. I’ve always felt that any athlete in any professional sport can play good every once in awhile, that’s why you have an example of someone that averages four points a game, but when you look at his season plays he’ll have 25 points. But those are anomalies, those aren’t when he’s being consistent. It’s very difficult for young players to be consistent. They have good days, they have bad days, they’re learning how to play in this league… different strategies, learning about themselves and their teammates, so it’s very difficult to be consistent. The thing that I harp on them the most is that you have to consistent with your effort. I don’t expect them to play well. I do expect them to play hard.”
Wolves Forward Al Jefferson
On difference from this time than the last time they played the Kings
“We double-teamed well, we kept them out of their comfort zone. That was different from the last time we played them, we let them do what they wanted to do.”
On energy level
“We played full of energy and played hard. We came out with the win.”
On the up-tempo offense
“Our offense is all about pushing the ball, pushing the ball to run our offense and not pushing the ball to get bad shots. That’s what we did.”
On the effort
“We played hard man, we get wins when we play hard. Our last game we didn’t play hard.”
Wolves Forward Kevin Love
On second half
“We wanted to really jump on them. We knew if we got up 10-15 points they wouldn’t necessarily quit, but they would give up a little bit.”
On the team play
“They fought back a little bit, but we kept pushing the ball, kept getting layups, kept getting steals, kept getting stops, kept pounding the ball inside. I took advantage of Nocioni guarding me and I felt like we executed the ball well.”
On rebounding
“I think we out-rebounded them by 10, so that was big for us. Anytime we do that we’ll have a chance to win, especially in the offense we run.”
Wolves Guard Ramon Sessions
On crowd noise
“We need that, when the crowd’s behind us that gives us the energy to go out there and do what we did tonight.”
On his 5 assists
“Those guys were knocking down the shots. There was nothing I was doing special, they were just hitting shots.”
On their high shooting-percentage
“That was something that we focused on, shooting a percentage like that you are going to come out with a lot of wins.”
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