Postgame Quotes: Kings @ Warriors
January 8, 2010 by kingsconnect
Coach Paul Westphal
“They played a messy first half and a better second half, and unfortunately we did just the opposite. They kept attacking, and we stopped attacking. They took over the game and there was nothing we could do about it. We stopped executing, we stopped playing together, we stopped playing good defense and when you do that, you lose. We didn’t run our offense and we acted like we didn’t know where we were supposed to be.”
(On Monta Ellis)
“We went away from our game plan in regards to guarding him. He can do so many things that it takes a team to play defense to stop him, and that’s what we didn’t do. He got rolling. I thought our defense broke down and stopped the initial pass, and he took advantage of that.”
Tyreke Evans
“We came out strong, but they came out in the second half and turned it up. We have to play better defense than we did tonight or we will not win many games. We started getting into a one-on-one contest and got out of the team concept. We can’t continue to use the excuse that we are a young team, because this is the NBA and we can’t have that mindset. We have to be better at closing out games. We knew that they weren’t going to stop playing, but we stopped.”
(On Monta Ellis)
He is explosive. He kept pushing the ball, and along with Corey Maggette, they kept us backing up. We didn’t stop him before he got the ball, and he was able to get the ball early enough in the offense to make plays.”
Coach Don Nelson:
“It was a fun game to win. Some games you just don’t know how you do it but some how we came back. Like I said we need support from our fans and boy did they give it to us when it wasn’t looking good for the Warriors through three quarters. The force was with us and it was one of Monta Ellis best performances. It just wasn’t his scoring but he willed and helped our team win. He just kept focused and trucking like the energizer bunny.”
“The biggest play of the game was the three by (Anthony) Morrow set up by Monta (Ellis) called by my coaching staff. It’s not a play we run often. (Morrow)He couldn’t pass that up. We have a rule when a shot is set up by your teammate it must be taken. It was one of those situations.”
Monta Eliis:
On the Home Crowd:
“I think when we were down 18 and they were still into the game. They were still telling us ‘Defense’ still into the game, still rooting every time. We just thought about it and got to the sideline and we were like ‘We can still win this, we’re at home’ and we started on the defensive in, got some stops and got back to running, getting to the free throw line and made some jump shots.”
On The Warrior Defense:
“We got stops, forced them to shoot a lot of jump shots…they didn’t make them like they did in the first half, they made some. But the biggest things for us was to get some stops, rebound and get back out there and start running and that’s what we did”
Anthony Morrow:
On the Comeback:
“We just battled. I was saying the whole game ‘let’s just keep fighting, let’s keep playing, keep grinding’ and everybody did that. Monta (Ellis) had a great game as usual, Corey (Maggette) did as well and everybody else kind of had to get in where they fit in, and everybody did their job.”
On Hitting the Three:
“Well first of all I had to get the guys off my back after that Boston game, that shot I didn’t take. That was a good way to get them off the back. It was just shot I knew I could make, I knew when Monta (Ellis) went right my man was probably going to leave and help because he’s been scoring all night so he kicked it out and I just lined it up and knocked it down.”
On Monta Ellis:
“It’s unbelievable. They say he’s 6’3 but he’s not 6’3 he’s a little guy but he can play hard. He’s got a lot of heart and says a lot about his character.”
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