Post-Game Summary: Grizzlies at Blazers

Iavaroni

MEMPHIS GRIZZLIES HEAD COACH MARC IAVARONI

On the game...
I thought we played well in the first half. We shot the ball 53 percent. We had 12 assists on 20 field goals. We were playing with a lot of confidence which is good to see. Unfortunately we came out in the second half and couldn’t hit shots. That took a lot of win out of our sales. They did a good job with their defense, they stepped it up. They took Rudy out of it a little bit. He shot 2 for 9 in the second half. He’s a big key for us, especially when we’re outmanned. The last four minutes, that wasn’t Grizzlies basketball. We have to make sure that doesn’t happen again. We were physical, we weren’t getting calls, but it’s tough on the road with the situation we’re in. We played through that. I liked the way out guys responded to it.

Conley

MEMPHIS GRIZZLIES GUARD MIKE CONLEY

On the game...
They knocked down a lot of shots. They really took advantage of our defensive schemes. They took advantage of our mismatches. They came out with intensity and as you can tell they had energy and they had momentum from that. They went on a run and we just couldn’t b ounce back from that. We got real good looks, we just couldn’t knock down outside shots consistently. That really hurt us because that’s a big part of our game. A lot of other things didn’t go our way but we kept battling and tried to fight through it. We just let it slip away.

Warrick

MEMPHIS GRIZZLIES FORWARD HAKIM WARRICK

On the Grizzlies' play...
We didn’t execute and we didn’t play the way we did the first few minutes of the game. We went away from it for some reason. I think we struggled offensively and I think that hurt defensively as well. You definitely have to knock down your free throws. We couldn’t knock down our three-point shot either. We still have a game to play. We have to go out there and play a full 48 minutes. At the end of the second quarter, beginning of third and end of the fourth, we didn’t have the same energy.

McMillan

PORTLAND TRAILBLAZERS HEAD COACH NATE MCMILLAN

On the game...
It’s a classy group of guys. They’ve been professionals, they’ve been pros the whole season long. That was the message tonight to be professional and take a professional approach about this, send a message not only to ourselves but to our fans that we have improved, we’ve gotten better and the next step for us is to get to the playoffs next year. We’ve been taking small steps the last three years, showing improvement and right to the end in our building. If you were to try to write that script, I don’t think it could have ended any better than that where you have control of the game, get your guys minutes and playing in front of a sellout. The last thing our fans see is a good performance.

We never want to embarrass anybody, but that was part of it (having players come off the floor at the end to applause), to have control of the game and give everybody the opportunity to play in the last home game.

On the turnaround in his four years in Portland...
It is special because that is the reason I came and I wanted to be a part of something like this. The staff, we knew it was going to be tough. The organization has been patient and the fans have been patient. We started building this team. We have pieces in place and now we need to continue to improve and get better. The next step for us is to get into the playoffs and go from there. You want to see improvement each year and we’ve been able to do that.

One of our goals this year was to become a better homecourt team and make the Rose Garden a place people feared coming to and a place where the fans knew they would see exciting basketball and we could get people in the building. We had to create that atmosphere but we wanted to win games at home.

Jack

PORTLAND TRAILBLAZERS GUARD JARRETT JACK

On Blazers' fans and the game...
The fans have supported us all season long. They are the best I’ve seen in my entire life. I’m not going to lie; I was able to get the ball to where I was able to score (tonight). I was able to take advantage of the pick-and-roll and get into a rhythm early. With this game, regardless, we’ll have a .500 season.