That's What He Said - Magic @ Celtics

That's What He Said


Celtics 95 vs. Magic 88
TD Garden - March 13, 2015







Brad Stevens
RE: Phil Pressey's performance off the bench:

I thought one of our best defenders on the floor, and the guy who spearheaded the whole night, was Phil Pressey. Evan (Turner) carried us in with his scoring; Phil Pressey’s defense was huge and Phil Pressey getting out on the break was huge. And then his ability to get to the foul line, break people down at the dribble, get to the rim a couple times when we’d got nothing going was huge. And I just credited him in our locker room; he didn’t play for a month. But he was a pro, and we’ve talked about that with him all the time, but usually he’s gotten a chance to play. But him responding and just being ready is a real testament to Phil.

RE: How Pressey stayed focused after not playing much recently:

I don’t think it’s hard for these guys to stay focused; I think it’s hard not to get down. And correlated with that is, your confidence can drop. So I had a talk with Phil about three weeks ago and just said, you know, right after Isaiah (Thomas) came it’s pretty obvious he’s not going to play as much, right? When Isaiah’s healthy? But Phil – and I told him this – he’s a really valued member of our team. Like, in our organization. He works the right way, if he doesn’t play he’s the loudest guy on the bench, and if he does play he’s an energizer. And he’s not going to play perfect, but nobody is, and if you can sustain that and not get down and be confident there’s always a role for him. And that’s a great compliment.

RE: His third-quarter lineups:

I thought Gigi (Datome) played pretty well in the first half and I just didn’t get back to him and go with him. I thought maybe I was going to try James (Young) and see if James could go on one of those runs that he can go on. But hey, I just couldn’t take Phil out and we were just trying to figure it out around him. The bigs, we had to react a little bit to them, because they went small and we struggled with attacking their smaller lineup all the entire last couple of days. They’re really athletic.

RE: Late-game execution:

I think this is one of the best wins we’ve had, and the reason is we didn’t have it... We didn’t have it and we had to figure it out and we had to find a way and that’s not easy. But it’s a long game and if you stay the course you get enough opportunities; you have to take advantage of them especially late, and your margin for error goes down the further you’re down. But we were very efficient scoring late, in large part because Evan thought he was throwing the ball in the ocean.

RE: Intentionally fouling Elfrid Payton:

At the end of the third quarter we were trying to foul. I think he’s really good. But we were, end of the third quarter – and he got us on the three-point shot; I mean, it was a good play by him.


Evan Turner
RE: If he heard that Brad Stevens said he was in a shooting slump:

No I didn’t hear anything. I’ve been in a slump, I’ve been trying to do other things, sometimes the things I do on the court are underrated to a certain extent. A lot of people in the league are one trick ponies and I try to distribute or do the best I can on the defensive boards. I think my defensive game has come a long way. Obviously I’ve been missing layups and missing shots that I usually always make in my sleep, but it happens. I think the biggest thing where I made certain mistakes, if I miss a few shots, I didn’t really keep shooting, I tried to distribute and not look at the rim. Tonight I changed my mentality and it worked. At the same time I’m still going to play an all-around game.

RE: Why he changed his mentality:

Brad (Stevens) tells us to be aggressive so I know last game he got pretty upset I wasn’t as aggressive. Biggest thing is shrugging off the last shot and obviously keep attacking and take what the defense gives you.

RE: If he likes the high-pressure situations best:

I get more comfortable down the stretch when it comes to big time moments, big time plays. It's always been that way. I think it's easier for me to lock in to a certain extent and obviously I already had it going a little bit and once the fourth quarter hit I took my shots.


Phil Pressey
RE: How he stays ready without steady minutes:

Conditioning with our strength and conditioning coach. They help me out every single game; they give me things to do when I’m not playing. When we have a day off I’m coming in, I’m doing extra sprints, treadmill work. It's tough to continue to do it every single day, but Coach has been telling me, 'You never know when your time is going to come, so just stay ready.'

RE: How it feels to log a performance like tonight's:

It feels good because I know I’ve been putting in the work. It kind of stings sometimes when you don’t play and you’ve been putting in the work as hard as you are. Coach has been telling me to stay ready. Any time during the season your name is going to be called and when your name is called you have to be ready to go.


Kelly Olynyk
RE: How the Celtics turned the game around:

Just sticking together, sticking to the plan... Eventually stuff is going to fall. We relied on our defense a lot this last stretch so we just have to stick with the plan and eventually it panned out.

RE: Phil Pressey's performance off the bench:

Phil was unbelievable, and he’s been there ready game in and game out but hasn’t really gotten an opportunity, but hasn’t bowed his head at all or been upset. He’s just been an ultimate team guy and when his number is called he delivered. It's unbelievable the work he puts in on a daily basis.


James Borrego
RE: How the lead slipped away:

Free throws were a factor tonight. We’ll keep shooting them, we’ve got to get better at the free throws.

RE: What changed in the third quarter:

Their aggressiveness picked up, they made a few shots. We turned it over, we didn’t get the looks we wanted. We each settled down offensively. I give them credit, they played well in the third and the fourth.

RE: Playing well for 44 minutes and folding in the last four:

It’s encouraging and it’s disappointing. I’m encouraged because I think we’re growing, we’re getting better. I do believe in this group and what I’m seeing for 44-45 minutes is tremendous progress and I feel good about that.

RE: His team:

Standing there with this group for most of that game, I felt like we belonged and now the challenge is in those moments where pressure picks up, like we talked about before the game, we’ve got to respond. We’ve got to make a play, we’ve got to make a shot, we’ve got to step up, make a free throw, we’ve got to get a defensive stop, we’ve got to get a hand on the ball. We’ve got to do something to impact the game down the stretch to win the game, and we didn’t do that... But we’re putting ourselves in position every single night against some very good teams in the playoffs right now. I’m encouraged by that and we’re going to build on that. We’re not going anywhere.


Nikola Vucevic

RE: Losing the game in the fourth:

It’s frustrating. We played well for the most part. We competed out there, but they made some big plays at the end of the game. Evan Turner came up big for them and we couldn’t score at the end so that kind of affected us.

RE: What decided the game:

It’s tough, we missed a lot of free throws and those are easy ones that we need to make. For us to be a good team and win in this league, you’ve got to make free throws. It happens sometimes, you miss a lot of free throws and the turnovers cost us as well, but even with that we were right there the whole game and we didn’t play a really pretty game but we were right there, we competed really good defensively. Just at the end they made some good plays we didn’t.


Aaron Gordon

RE: Blowing a late-game lead:

You have to play 48 minutes. You can say that all you want but at the end of the day it comes down to actually doing it. It’s just something that we need to grow on, we have to mature as a team and eventually we’ll get there.

RE: Losing after being up by eight points with seven minutes left:

The most deflating part is the loss in general. We were up seven... We just kind of gave it to them. We’ve been doing that, kind of, all year long. Just been handing the game over. There’s a couple of games that we wish we could get back. This is one of them. We've just got to build on it, try to not do it next game.

bob



.