Via our guy @C. Level and the DoubleT973 broadcast.
Opening Statement: "There's so much that goes into this. Practice habits, approch, how you start games, how you execute, how you defend and rebound and how you get to end of games and find ways when it doesn't feel like it's your night. It's a will to win that these guys are developing, you can see it. Hawkins has really led us lately. I thought his ball pressure, his activity on the ball and his ability to make threes. He's just opened up what we're trying to do on another level. What a tremendous game on the glass, they're a really good offensive rebounding team. To outrebound them at their place and have one more offensive rebound than them said a lot about our team's grit."
Best that Elijah is playing right now?: "His work habits have been tremendous. He does it every day. He's coming to the gym early on days like this. He goes 6-9, his composure. To have five assists and no turnovers against that many changes in defenses. I think a lot of people love him in transition, and he and Chance broke the game open. It's his composure in the half-court that is separating our team right now. He and D5. Darrion just decided he wasn't getting beat tonight. His effort on the glass, his defensive intensity late and his ability to just maestro the game. When we needed a tough basket, he got one."
Do you take the defensive changes as a compliment to your offense?: "Honestly, it did cause us problems early in the game. It took us a bit to get into the flow of it. I did think the group that was on the floor at the end of the game started to solve it, they solved it together. D5 hit Chance on a couple backdoors, KO drove to the basket on a couple of them. Fede was in the right place offensive rebounding on a couple of them. And then we did what's hard to do on the road, which is get fouled enough to put them on their heels. We missed quite a few free throws which we don't do very often. But for the most part, just getting to the free throw line and maintaining the tempo of the game in the way we wanted it. I thought that was the case, we never lost control when they made that run to take a four point lead. I loved our composure to find a way to have the pace be what we wanted to be to get the right shots even though they're changing defenses and they're really difficult to defend."
Break down D5 putting the team on his back...: "I thought our game plan was right. His ability to make that happen, that's the hard part. An underrated part of this game and what he did for us defensively, he had a few huge plays for rebounding purposes. When we look at our team, Chance had 8, D5 had 7 and Fede had 7. Just that guard group of Darrion and Chance's grit to do things like that. The other part that I thought was tremendous was we kept them 5-23 from three. You have to do that in this building because they're such a good three pointing team, it's what you have to do to win on the road is make them make hard shots. Every time I looked down there, Darrion Williams had a look on his face, like we're going to win. Defensively, he's kind of tried to find his way and that was the area that I had the most confidence in. He was like, we're winning this thing defensively, he started willing us on both ends even when the obvious part is the offense."
Opening Statement: "There's so much that goes into this. Practice habits, approch, how you start games, how you execute, how you defend and rebound and how you get to end of games and find ways when it doesn't feel like it's your night. It's a will to win that these guys are developing, you can see it. Hawkins has really led us lately. I thought his ball pressure, his activity on the ball and his ability to make threes. He's just opened up what we're trying to do on another level. What a tremendous game on the glass, they're a really good offensive rebounding team. To outrebound them at their place and have one more offensive rebound than them said a lot about our team's grit."
Best that Elijah is playing right now?: "His work habits have been tremendous. He does it every day. He's coming to the gym early on days like this. He goes 6-9, his composure. To have five assists and no turnovers against that many changes in defenses. I think a lot of people love him in transition, and he and Chance broke the game open. It's his composure in the half-court that is separating our team right now. He and D5. Darrion just decided he wasn't getting beat tonight. His effort on the glass, his defensive intensity late and his ability to just maestro the game. When we needed a tough basket, he got one."
Do you take the defensive changes as a compliment to your offense?: "Honestly, it did cause us problems early in the game. It took us a bit to get into the flow of it. I did think the group that was on the floor at the end of the game started to solve it, they solved it together. D5 hit Chance on a couple backdoors, KO drove to the basket on a couple of them. Fede was in the right place offensive rebounding on a couple of them. And then we did what's hard to do on the road, which is get fouled enough to put them on their heels. We missed quite a few free throws which we don't do very often. But for the most part, just getting to the free throw line and maintaining the tempo of the game in the way we wanted it. I thought that was the case, we never lost control when they made that run to take a four point lead. I loved our composure to find a way to have the pace be what we wanted to be to get the right shots even though they're changing defenses and they're really difficult to defend."
Break down D5 putting the team on his back...: "I thought our game plan was right. His ability to make that happen, that's the hard part. An underrated part of this game and what he did for us defensively, he had a few huge plays for rebounding purposes. When we look at our team, Chance had 8, D5 had 7 and Fede had 7. Just that guard group of Darrion and Chance's grit to do things like that. The other part that I thought was tremendous was we kept them 5-23 from three. You have to do that in this building because they're such a good three pointing team, it's what you have to do to win on the road is make them make hard shots. Every time I looked down there, Darrion Williams had a look on his face, like we're going to win. Defensively, he's kind of tried to find his way and that was the area that I had the most confidence in. He was like, we're winning this thing defensively, he started willing us on both ends even when the obvious part is the offense."
