|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
NBA PLAYOFFS ROUND ONE: JAZZ vs CLIPPERSApril 30, 2017Derrick FavorsGordon HaywardGeorge HillLos Angeles, California: Game Seven Jazz - 104, Clippers - 91. Q. What did you guys do differently on Chris Paul? You held him to a series low 13 points tonight? GEORGE HILL: I don't know. You know, we talked about our bigs, just getting up a little bit more, being active, making him hit DeAndre and other guys on the short roll and making them make plays. I think from Fav to Rudy, when he was in there, to Boris and Joe Johnson, Jeff Withey coming in, did a great job of really being aggressive in the pick-and-rolls and not letting him get to his cutbacks and things like that, so it was just a great team effort. Q. Derrick, can you talk about just your performance today after some of the struggles that you've had this season? How good does it feel to have a performance like that at the biggest time? DERRICK FAVORS: You know, it feels real good. I was struggling a lot this season with injuries, and my teammates had to hold it down for me while I was out. But I felt like I owed them, especially in this game. I just wanted to come out, be aggressive, make sure I had their backs. When Rudy got in foul trouble, I had to make sure I was ready mentally and physically and I just wanted to pay them back for holding me down all season. Q. George, your coach said before the series your team was pretty green as far as collectively, and even today he said even going into the second round you guys have never been there, but he did single out you and Joe and Boris as veterans. Can you talk about your impact on this team or what you've been able to bring as somebody who's been through the Playoffs, and you've got such young guys who haven't been there, what you try to do to help make that happen? GEORGE HILL: I don't think I bring anything different. I'm a pretty humble person. I just have the experience of going to the Eastern Conference Finals a couple times and some long playoff experiences, but like I tell every guy, we've just got to keep pounding away. Anything is possible. Every series is a seven-game series. You're going to have your ups and your downs, but we've got to come together collectively. It's going to take all 15 guys, and it showed tonight. Guys that may not got in all series, Coach called on them for a three-minute stretch, and they did whatever it took to make a play, and that's what you need. You need a collective group and everyone on the same page, and they did pretty good tonight. Q. Gordon, what did you guys do as a team, especially in the second and third quarters that limited them so much defensively? GORDON HAYWARD: Kind of what G already talked about. Our bigs were up on pick-and-rolls. We made it difficult for Chris Paul to get in the lane, get his little pull-up jump shot, too, and guys on the weak side were rotated, making them make the extra pass and make some other guys try to create for them. So it really was just execution defensively from our whole team, guys coming in, trying to get rebounds, our bigs battling DeAndre so other guys could swoop in and get the rebound, but really execution. Q. Gordon, is the quick turnaround a challenge because you don't have a lot of time to prepare for the next opponent, or is it a benefit because you have a little momentum going now and you can roll right into the next series? GORDON HAYWARD: I mean, I think it's a little bit of both. Obviously they've been resting, have had a lot of time. But like you said, we come off a Game 7 win, you feel good, you have some momentum. You can kind of keep it rolling a little bit. For me, I think it's a little bit of both. GEORGE HILL: Like he said, yeah, it's a plus and minus. Like he said, they've been resting. We've been going through it, and I think with our play tonight, all 15 guys making an effort to pull out this win just shows that we're a deep team, and the way the ball was moving on the offensive end and the way we're defending, I think we can take that and try to carry it on to the next series. It's a plus-minus. Hopefully we can keep things rolling and move on to the next series and have the same outcome that we did this one. Q. Gordon, it's obviously been a while since the organization won a series. What's it mean for you personally to help end that streak? GORDON HAYWARD: It means a lot. It definitely means a lot. I think it's just me and Fav from that rookie season. So we've been through some pretty hard downs. The community has stuck with us, and so it definitely feels really good to go from 25 wins to where we were this year making the Playoffs, winning a series. I know Salt Lake has been blessed with just the tradition of playoff success, so for them to stick with me and stick with Fav and ride it out, it means a lot. I know they're going to be excited to have us come back and play again in front of them, and it means a lot for me to play in front of them. Q. Gordon, this is your first Game 7; can you kind of describe that feeling out there? GORDON HAYWARD: Yeah, I mean, it was a fun atmosphere out there. I think it was -- tried to treat it as just another game. You know, it's the seventh time you've played the same team. At this point in time, they know what we're going to run, we know what they're going to run. It's just about competing, battling out there. A lot of fouling going on both ways. You know, you just want to make sure you leave it all out there because you never know when you'll get that chance again. For me, it was just -- once you get out there, the nervousness goes away, you just have adrenaline. Your competitiveness just takes over. Q. Derrick, can you talk a little bit about how much of an influence the coach had on the game and how much the coaching staff did to get you ready for this game? DERRICK FAVORS: They did a good job. You know, they made sure we was well-prepared. We watched a lot of film, talked about different coverages, talked about different adjustments. They did a good job getting all the players prepared, and the players, we just did a good job just going out there, executing plays, playing together defensively and just getting the job done, so I think we was well-prepared. Q. Gordon, you guys have had the label all season as a young team; do you feel like with this win that you've kind of shed that label? GORDON HAYWARD: I mean, I think I've talked about it all year about experiences and how the past couple years we've experienced so much stuff, and I think -- I said I thought it would help us further down the road. I think we used a lot of those in this series. I think we're going to use the experiences we got from this series moving forward. You know, for us, we're still probably going to be labeled that, and a lot of us haven't made it to the second round. I'm sure people are still going to talk about that. But we're moving forward as a team, and we'll use these experiences to help us. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
About ASAP Sports •
FastScripts Archive •
Recent Interviews •
Captioning •
Upcoming Events •
Contact Us
FastScripts | Events Covered | Our Clients | Other Services | ASAP in the News | Site Map | Job Opportunities | Links |
|
ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297
|