Kings gamer, By Sam Amick
Kings notesm By Ailene Voisin
Box score
There's obviously a legitimate buzz in the Arco Arena air with the Kings winning their fourth straight, but I'm opting for zzzs with the old postgame blog post. Read the above game story and notes to relive the experience, and then move on to see what everyone had to say afterward. The heavy lifting on this one comes from the Kings PR department folks who transcribed portions of these interviews. The team is being given a day off tomorrow, but I'll be back at work dissecting this one and assessing what it all means.
Head Coach Paul Westphal
"It's starting to get kind of loud in that building - I really like that. That was a very good team, a very tough veteran team. I thought we did so many good things defensively and on the boards particularly. We had way too many turnovers in the first half and kind of wasted some great shooting, but in the second half we cut our turnovers down and played the way you need to play to win NBA basketball games. So we put ourselves in a position to win. Then in the fourth quarter we only had two turnovers, outscored them and really showed some good togetherness out there. I was really pleased with the way we played."
On his team's ability to own the boards tonight:
"You have to give so much credit to Jason Thompson - he's the one getting all those boards and he's a hard man to keep off the boards. You can't expect to outrebound a team like that every night but it really is nice to have those kinds of stats in your team's favor. The way we've been doing it this year, we're turning into a pretty decent rebounding team."
When asked how they react when there are a lot of turnovers:
"We told them before the game to watch out for (Trevor) Ariza - he's got panther-like reflexes, he gets in the passing lanes and if you dribble near him he takes it from you. After he had five steals I think they believed us and they started watching out a little bit more for him. Yes, absolutely we try to fix things if we see that they aren't working and the players, to their credit, reacted - but it's not always easy."
Tyreke Evans
On their plan coming into game
"We just came out there and had to run, we knew that they were a physical team. They have a couple of guys who have been on their team for a while now. The game plan was to just go in there, rebound and run our offense. We had to try to get as many stops as we could."
On his play
"I'm just playing; in the first couple of games I was thinking too much. Since I was the number four pick, I was under a lot of pressure, and I was not getting out there and playing. I went out there and did that tonight and now I feel comfortable."
On having the game in his hand when it's on the line
"It is my dream, growing up and being a kid, you see the clock winding down and you want to be the one to take the shot and make the crowd go crazy. I had my chance tonight and let it fly and it went in."
Jason Thompson
"It is exciting and we know that our guys are young. We have to make progress sometime and I think that it is better now than to have it later."
On their streak
"I don't think that we are surprised, we have to set goals to play well. The media is telling us that we are going to be at the bottom of the (Western Conference), maybe the bottom of the league. It is just more motivation for us. Maybe it is tougher for the teams who were predicted to play really well and don't. We didn't have any pressure coming in and we still don't."
On his goals for himself
"I set goals for last year and I set goals for this year. I am just going to keep with it. The stuff that I am doing and the stuff the team is doing is working. We just have to stick to it."
On staying out of foul trouble
"I am just watching film and getting advice from the coaches. They try to tell you the terminology of playing through fouls, but you can't play through fouls if you are in foul trouble. Why not make it easier and just not get stupid fouls. If I happen to get one early, I know to not be as aggressive. I just have to adjust to what they give me."
Rockets Head Coach Rick Adelman
On a disappointing first half
"They got it going and we gave up 63 (in the first half). You're not going to win in this league doing that on the road."
On trying to close the deficit
"Offensively, you have to be sure you get good plays. You can't rush things. You have to play together as five people. You get down the way we get down and then we can't make mistakes. Every possession is crucial."
On the Kings' strategy defensively
"It wasn't our offense. Put it all on defensive end because we didn't have any of it in the first half. You can't give up that kind of production from the other team and expect to win."
On the lackluster defense
"We were getting beat on penetration time after time. The concentration and the effort was not where it needed to be. The second half, we shored it up some. We are not going to win unless we come out with effort every night. We are not that good. Our guys have to understand that. I didn't like our effort the whole first half in a lot of areas."
On the Rockets having a similar make-up to the Kings
"They have some young talent and they played well tonight. They won three in a row and this gives them four straight wins. We knew ... we should have known it was going to be a tough game here."
Rockets Center Chuck Hayes
On how they fell behind in the second quarter
"The energy definitely wasn't there. We were blindsided by our own success on the offensive end, since we were able to score. The energy is not there and we are not playing any defense. Sooner or later, things are going to come back and backfire on us, and they did.
No, it was effort. Just the effort. The effort was there in the third quarter, you saw it. It just shows that if you dig yourself in a hole in the second quarter, it doesn't matter how hard you work in the third quarter, you still have to get out of that hole. Our effort for the rest of the game wasn't good enough."
