Official postgame quotes and notes — Suns 110, Jazz 94
Published on Oct 29, 2010 12:12PM 0 Comments
Official postgame quotes and notes following the Jazz's 110-94 defeat to Phoenix on Thursday at Energy Solutions Arena.
The Jazz are now 71-82 all-time against the Suns, and 49-28 at home…Utah finished the
2009-10 season at home with a loss against Phoenix (100-86), and tonight’s loss marks the third in a row against the Suns…Al Jefferson scored a game-high 20 points, his highest scoring game with Utah…Paul Millsap had the team’s first double-double of the season, with 19 points and 13 rebounds…The Jazz never led during the game and shot 14.3% from the three point line in the first half.
Jerry Sloan
On the game
“Well, one of the things that I thought, they came out again and defended us really well, and then they pushed the ball up the floor, they got some fast breaks, and they got off to a great start…we’ve won one out of the last eight quarters we played. I was glad to see us show some life in the third quarter, because I didn’t know if we’d fight back or not, but I thought we fought back. But our energy level wasn’t good enough to keep us going.”
On the team’s ability to defend the perimeter
“Well, that’s what they’re about, that’s what they’ve always done. They’re good at pushing the ball up the floor, those things were difficult for us to handle—they’ve always been kind of difficult for us to handle. That’s the way their team’s designed. And if you don’t take good shots against them, and you end up taking jump shots out on the perimeter and you don’t make them, then they’re off and running. We made a few shots, and it looked like we were going to be in the ballgame.”
Paul Millsap – Forward (19 points, 13 rebounds)
On the game
“Things are not going our way. We’ve got to continue to stay with it. I mean we’ve got to continue to get better man. That’s all I can say. We go to practice tomorrow and try to get better.”
On being concerned about being down two games in a row
“A loss is a loss. I mean I don’t care how much you lose by. A loss is a loss, and you know we lost the game tonight. Got punched in the mouth twice.
On going 8-0 in the preseason and then losing the first two games
“I don’t know. Can you explain it? I can’t. I mean it blows my mind.”
Raja Bell – Guard (7 points, 4 Rebounds)
On the team’s frustration level
“We’re a little disappointed. None of us expected to come out and play as poorly as we did the last couple of nights. We have to figure out for us what intensity level is going to be successful and we need to come into games ready to play and not come out flat. Tonight, I can only speak for myself, but I was just trying to do too much; passing up a shot trying to make the perfect pass. Sometimes, when you do that, it’s worse than if you had just put it up on the rim.”
On shots not going down
“We pressed a bit. We’ll make shots. Defensively we need to figure out how to get stops, have to figure out how to clean up the glass, and how to have a better energy level. The shots will come.”
Gordon Hayward – Forward (6 points, 6 Rebounds)
On the game
“I think we’re (just) not competing as well as we should, but we’ll be fine. We’re going to come back tomorrow and improve and it will be a new game on Sunday.”
Notes: For the eighth straight time, the Suns improved to 1-1 after losing their season opener…The Suns have won two straight in Salt Lake City after having lost the previous four…In the first half, the Suns made as many three-point field goals as they did free throws (seven)…The Suns held the Jazz to 34.8% shooting and forced nine turnovers in the first half… Jason Richardson scored 11 points in the second quarter…All 10 Suns players that entered the game in the first half scored…Hakim Warrick had his first double-double as a member of the Suns…Grant Hill missed a double-double by one point…The Suns had six
players score in double figures.
Alvin Gentry Head Coach (1-1)
On the game
“We played well, extremely well defensively in the first half. We did a really good job of keeping Deron out of the paint which always seems to hurt us. We played well but we are an undersized team and we will have issues rebounding. We don’t have the big strong guys like Al [Jefferson] and [Paul] Millsap. I thought we fought hard and our perimeter guys did a good job coming back and rebounding the basketball. I just thought offensively we did a good job keeping the pace of the game that we wanted to have. The big thing for me was when things seemed to being going bad for us, we came back. We were able to withstand that
and make shots to keep the lead.”
On the Jazz this season
“We have 80 games left. I saw the articles in the paper. It was like their season was over. It’s not. They [Jazz] have 80 games left. I think they [Jazz] will be fine. They are a lot like we are. They are trying to figure out things and they are a work in progress just like we are. They will be fine. They are missing Mehmet Okur too, that’s a big part of it.”
Steve Nash – Guard (18 Points, 5 Assists)
On the importance of winning this game
“Well, it was undoubtedly an important game for us. We played pretty well in Portland and just fell apart at the end. Tonight I thought we learned a little bit of a lesson from Portland, we held our composure for longer stretches, and in particular, at the end of the game.”
On Hakim Warrick’s play
“Hakim was great on the glass, he hustled, he finished, I mean, he got to the line. He did a lot of little things, but also scored and rebounded.”
Grant Hill – Forward (9 Points, 12 Rebounds)
On what this win means
“It’s very early. We didn’t play so well in the preseason. Utah beat us twice, and we just couldn’t get a rhythm, couldn’t get into a comfort zone. I thought the game we played two nights ago in Portland, we played well, we started to feel better, even though we lost, it was a good feeling in the locker room afterwards.”
On building team chemistry with so many new players
“It was a little hard this past preseason, we’ve got some new faces, guys that are called upon to really help us and play well for us. Last year in preseason, we had pretty much everybody back except for Channing, so there was a little bit of familiarity, comfort zone, but we’re starting to get it.”
— Brian T. Smith
