That's What He Said - Pacers @ Celtics

That's What He Said


Brad Stevens
RE: If Kelly Olynyk should play Shavlik Randolph one-on-one before every game:

Well the question isn’t should he play one-on-one…because he plays one-on-one before every game. I think we have to find a way where he can play well without having to get elbowed in the eye before every game. But obviously…I think he felt okay. It was more of a vision thing; how well could he see? And he was saying he could see pretty well and the doctors felt good about him playing. They stitched him up. I think it looked a little worse than maybe it felt, which is good. I think that’s an obvious statement; it doesn’t look real good. But I thought he played great. I thought he played really well. You know, hey, we have to take when we play that way we’re going to be a little bit smaller on the interior, but we can play really skilled at the end of games like that. And I just felt like if we were giving up twos but we had the ability to get twos or maybe threes, we were going to be able to hold on.

RE: Evan Turner's third triple-double in the span of a month:

It’s not anything to do with me. I think the one thing is he plays in a line-up where he has the ball a lot, and he’s probably never had the ball that much before, as far as playing the point. You know, Marcus (Smart) can play the point when they’re in together as starters, but even today, Isaiah (Thomas) was in with both Evan and/or Marcus and we put Isaiah off the ball a little bit because that stretches your defense. You know, they have to honor Isaiah at the wing, which sometimes opens up rollers or give him a drive-and-kick off a live dribble. So Evan is playing well, but it’s not like he’s forcing anything. He’s just playing good basketball. He’s got the ball in his hands a lot.

RE: Tyler Zeller being in the right spots:

We run a lot of things that are around him; it’s just a matter of he’s the guy open or if somebody else is pulling in and helping and somebody else is open. So his roles are really important, the way he runs the floor is really important, he’s got great hands, he’s got that little flip shot that he’s very good with. And today we were fortunate because I felt like Tyler gave us one kind of effectiveness against them, and then Kelly gave us a whole different kind of effectiveness against them. And both were very effective.

RE: Roy Hibbert not being a dominant player:

No, he dominated us the first two games of the year, scoring-wise; I think he might’ve had 50 combined in the first two games. But we’ve trapped him a lot more, we’ve brought traps from different places. We’ve gotten better at our traps. And we’ve also picked our spots where we were just going to play him, straight up. I thought everybody played him well, with the exception of a couple fouls here and there.

RE: Boston's effort:

The effort was really good. We talked about it before the Charlotte game; we have to play with a defensive DNA. And the last two games we have. But you know, it’s one of those things like, you don’t now - all of a sudden - it’s not part of who we are. We have to make it part of who we are every day and that’s got to continue to be the emphasis. And I think that’s a good emphasis to have, because you’re focused only on what you can control and nothing else.


Kelly Olynyk
RE: The effect of his swollen eye:

It didn’t affect me a lot except I could see that well from that eye. I felt good, we played well as a team, moved the ball, got open looks from the start and just got rolling.

RE: His confidence in shooting the long-ball:

Last night I went in the gym and got a lot of shots up, just kind of repped it out and just felt really good. Today I was feeling good, before the game I was feeling good even after I got hit, I came back out and tried it out so I knew I was going to have a good one tonight.

RE: Having four stitches in his eye:

It’s kind of like if you’re wearing sunglasses, I can see out of the bottom third maybe. There’s a lot of things that if you put your mind to, you can do, that you don’t think you can.

RE: If he considered not playing:

Yeah, but I remember two days ago I was texting Dougie Hamilton and he told me he broke his ribs and he’s trying to come back before the playoffs and I was like, man I can’t sit out, he’s gonna rip me…all those hockey guys would have killed me so I had to do it.

RE: Evan Turner notching his third triple-double in the last 20 games:

Points, rebounds and assists. He’s been huge, he’s been really leading us and getting us going offensively and defensively. He’s been here a while in this league now and he’s leading our team right now so it’s really huge to have him out here doing that.


Evan Turner
RE: If it's sweeter to win against the Pacers after playing for them last year:

No, it’s just great to win in general. We’re in a playoff race and that’s pretty much it. I don’t have any ill-heart toward anybody. At the end of the day I’m fine, I’m happy. Once again, we were able to win this game and get one step closer to our goal.

RE: Feeling comfortable with the ball in his hands:

I think I’m getting used to, obviously the system, the personnel’s pretty good, we’re making shots and I think when we execute we’re really tough to beat. It’s not me having the rock in my hand that’s just a team thing, a unit thing.

RE: Being able to hold off Indiana's run:

That’s the biggest thing, showing growth and everything like that. Once again, we have to keep doing it and I think the biggest thing is our mindset and our executing. When we execute, stick together and show our poise, we can do great things.

RE: Kelly Olynyk's swollen eye:

It’s crazy, and it was wild and random too. It happened prior to the game, not during the game and credit to him for coming back. Not only that, I don’t know if you saw his outfit, he had on a royal blue hat, a light blue eye, baby blue shoes, midnight blue pants, a navy blue vest, so obviously he kind of had it planned a little bit.


Frank Vogel
RE: The second half:

We scrapped and clawed and tried our best to make it a game, but they made more shots, they made more plays, they were quicker to the ball throughout the whole game not just in the second half, beat us in transition too many times, and their style of play won out.

RE: If Boston's small lineups gave Indiana trouble:

That’s accurate. Their style of play won out.

RE: How it was managing Roy Hibbert's minutes after picking up quick fouls:

Not bad. We have plenty of bigs that can get the job done so we put the other guys in.

RE: Losing the last two games:

Certainly disappointing. They are big games, but we've just got to focus on the seven we have left and try to make a run at it.

RE: Kelly Olynyk's ability to stretch the defense:

Yeah, that’s what the league is going to now; five 3-point shooters out there or all big guys. We saw it last year in the playoffs with Atlanta and Miami. It causes big problems for a team like us and this team is doing it well.


Roy Hibbert
RE: His game:

I think I was getting into position in the paint where I wanted, but shots weren’t falling and guarding their spread lineup was real tough.

RE: The Celtics' small lineups:

We knew they were coming in and they did a job of spreading the floor and they are very efficient.

RE: Losing the last two games:

Been tough, we want to win these games. We know they are head-to-head matchups.

RE: His plan for Friday's game against Charlotte:

Try to go out there and play hard and get the win.


George Hill
RE: Losing the last two games:

It's very frustrating. Everything is on the line and we are just blowing it away and giving it away. We've got to figure out a way to get it done; Still a possible way for us to get in, but not by our fate, by everyone else’s fate now. We've got to stay the course. Hopefully the basketball gods help us out and some other teams lose that we need to lose and we get a couple more wins, but it's very frustrating.

RE: Boston's small lineups:

We’ve been the same team all year long; we don’t shy away from going big. We try to do the best we can and normally we’re the other team that kills teams that go small because we come inside. We just haven’t been able to get it going the past couple games, but we’re going to continue to do us. There is no time to change right now, got to stay the course.



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