Pelicans Coach Alvin Gentry:
“I thought we played with good effort. I thought defensively we were really good. I thought offensively we were really poor. Most of the problems that we had defensively were because of our poor shot selection and the turnovers that we had. They turned the ball over 18 times and we got two points. That’s the first time in 28 years in the NBA that I have ever seen that. Where a team can turn the ball over 18 times and you have two points (to show for it). The reason that it happened is because once we had possession of the ball we just made bad decisions offensively all night long. I thought we played well enough defensively to win the game. After the first quarter I thought we took care of the rebounding (problem), the offensive rebounding. I think they had 12 second chance points in the first half. I’m not sure they got any in the second half. We played well, but to win on the road in this league you have to put together offense and defense. We didn’t do that.”
On the overtime period:
“Well number one we can’t leave the huddle and not understand where we are supposed to be on the floor. That’s the biggest thing to me. We had to burn two timeouts because guys didn’t know where they were supposed to be on the floor and that’s inexcusable. In any situation that’s inexcusable because if you don’t know then you should ask. Then we just had some bad offensive possessions. We didn’t get ourselves open to run a play, we weren’t in the right spots when we tried to run a play. We got a five second count. As I said, I didn’t see anything wrong with the way we played defensively. We held a team under 40 percent shooting and (forced) 18 turnovers. (They shot) 25 percent from three, that should be enough to have an opportunity to win the game.”
On Jrue Holiday’s minute restriction playing a factor:
“Without a doubt (he would’ve been in late in the game). That’s where we are right now, in a week or so that will go away (minutes restriction). That being said, there should be other guys stepping up and do the job that needs to be done. Its tough not having him out there as a coach knowing you have an opportunity to win the game. We still had an opportunity to win that game. We have to find a way to not shoot ourselves in the foot. We have been doing that a lot lately.”
On Chris Bosh and Anthony Davis’ play:
“You know I’m a Chris Bosh fan. I told you guys that at the start of the game. I think he’s a very underrated player. Even though he’s an All-Star, I still don’t think he gets the notoriety (that he deserves). He’s a tremendous player that can make perimeter shots, take it to the basket. I thought it was a good duel and I thought they did a good job. Neither of them shot the ball exceptionally well. .”
On Pelican players leaving huddle without knowing what’s going on:
“I’ll be honest with you, I don’t know. Because we draw everything up and then we duplicate it again. Then the last thing that we say is does everyone understand where they are (on the play)? If everyone says yes then I expect you to get to the correct spot. If you say no, then that’s a different story. That’s something that we will get cleared up, those people will not be in the game.”
“First, we got to do a better job of executing. That wasn’t the play. I had a good shot. It kind of slipped out of my hand. I kind of put it on the floor. It had a chance to go in there. The shot was to get up to the rim, but we got to execute better.”
On confusion during timeouts:
“(We had) three of them. We wasted timeouts because we didn’t execute out of timeouts. Especially (in) a game like this, late in the game, you got to execute. When you don’t know the plays and you mess up, then you come back and they take you out of it. They know what set you’re in. We had to burn another one. We can’t afford to come out of timeouts not knowing where to go or what we got to do.”
On carrying the team:
“That’s what I get paid the big bucks for, to try to win games for us down the stretch. Some guys (were) making shots and had it going. I had a nice put-back and I was actually missing shots in the fourth (quarter), so the team did a good job of carrying me. It is a team effort. None of that matters because we still lost.”
On if the HEAT did anything differently defensively in the second half:
“No, they didn’t really change anything. The other guys just had great shots. (Gerald) Green and Chris Bosh were just staying with me instead of helping a lot. Besides that, it was really the same. It opened it up for everyone else, Eric (Gordon), Tyreke (Evans), all (those) guys that drive to the basket.”
On the atmosphere of his first Christmas Day game:
“It was cool. Kind of just ruins Christmas that we lost. Miami always has a great fan base. It was a good experience, but now we just want to win.”
Eric Gordon on the game:
“We just got to be a little more solid. Toward the end of the game, you want to make tough shots. You just want to have a chance to get a shot. We got to be more solid. (We) turned over the ball a bit. We just missed plays. We just got to try to find ways to try to get a good, clean shot there in the fourth.”
On the HEAT in overtime:
“Seemed like they want you to drive to the basket more. They didn’t want you to get good, clean looks on threes. They did a pretty decent job. We gave ourselves a chance. We played hard and we really played really well defensively in the second half, we just got to give ourselves a chance offensively to make a run to try and win the game.”
On overtime:
“It was a good game. We didn’t make the shots that we wanted. We played good defense. They just hit a couple tough shots. That’s what it is at the end of games, who can make the tough shots and have a chance of getting a good shot.”
