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MAUI INVITATIONAL TOURNAMENTNovember 23, 2010Justin HolidayLorenzo RomarIsaiah ThomasLAHAINA, HAWAII THE MODERATOR: We have Coach Romar and Justin Holiday and Isaiah Thomas for the press conference. Coach Romar, opening remarks. COACH ROMAR: We've got to give Kentucky a lot of credit. I thought they were really disciplined offensively, and they did what was necessary to get the ball to those that they wanted to get the ball to. Brandon Knight, obviously, had a very good offensive game for them. Terrence Jones did a good job on the backboards. Harrellson did a really nice job for them with 14 rebounds, seven of those on offensive glass. So you've got to give them a lot of credit. They outrebounded us, and they were more disciplined than we were. And I think in those two areas that made the difference in the outcome. THE MODERATOR: Questions? Q. Lorenzo, I think both Alaska, and probably even the Kansas City tournament, you felt sort of as learning or turning points that changed your team the rest of the season and into the postseason. What might this one do for you guys? COACH ROMAR: I think, again, my biggest fear was that we had played three ball games where we scored averaging 105 points or whatever it was, and rarely did we go deep into the shot clock to guard or offensively keep the basketball. My biggest fear was when that finally happened we wouldn't be able to adjust quick enough. And something that even before we got here, we were working on trying to get everyone to understand one day this is going to happen. And we're going to have to be able to go deep into the shot clock. And I think that got us tonight. I think we'll do a better job as a result of it, though. Against a team like Kentucky, a team we're going to play tomorrow in this tournament, you're going to find all your weaknesses. You're going to see where they are, all your warts. And I think our guys understand that. I think our guys understand that. As far as the effort on the backboards, I mean, that's all; we've just got to do a better job on it. Q. Lorenzo, what factors played into that, do you think, where you didn't have that up and down 107 points a game kind of game? COACH ROMAR: They only had 15 turnovers so we weren't able to just impose our will on them defensively. Then when we did get them to miss they were able to get an offensive rebound sometimes and put it back in there. They shot 17 percent from the 3 in under 40 percent from the floor. So we did okay defensively. But without us getting them to turn the basketball over, we didn't get as many run-outs. And there were times we did get run-outs where we didn't convert. We either turned it over ourselves or missed the layup. So we just missed out on some opportunities that we had over there that we didn't convert. Q. Coach, it was with about six and a half minutes to play, there was a 4.7 earthquake off of South Maui, did you notice it at all? COACH ROMAR: No. Q. The coach or the players? JUSTIN HOLIDAY: ISAIAH THOMAS: I did. I felt the ground shaking and the rim moving, I didn't know if it was an earthquake. COACH ROMAR: I did. ISAIAH THOMAS: The rim was moving like the hoop was moving. Q. Harrellson falling. COACH ROMAR: Seemed like sometimes the rim was moving anyway, we couldn't make shots. ISAIAH THOMAS: I felt it. Q. Isaiah, could you talk about Brandon Knight and the way he played against you and what kind of player he is? ISAIAH THOMAS: He's a solid player. I mean, he got it going for him early, even though he was in foul trouble. But he's a good player. I've played against him before in high school, so...he played a good game. Q. Lorenzo, can you explain what was going on on the technical against Venoy and technical on the guy from Kentucky, what was going on? COACH ROMAR: They said it was dead ball technical. There was a little contact right as we were calling timeout, that happened, and that's why they awarded them the free throws. I don't remember which one you're talking about. Yeah, I don't want to go into the explanation. I was given an explanation, but never mind. Q. Justin, could you talk a little bit about -- just the feel? It sounded like a loud gym. Did it feel like sort of more like an NCAA Tournament than a holiday tournament? And was there anything on the court about the whole Terrence Jones that we talked about so much about in advance? JUSTIN HOLIDAY: It's what we look to play for, to have a big crowd like that. It's the type of NCAA Tournament feel. But as far as anything going on between Terrence, no. It was to win a game; it didn't matter who was in front of us, all we wanted to do was win. Q. Lorenzo, you guys obviously shot the lights out yesterday and then struggle from 3 tonight. What, were the looks up? Law of averages or something else there? COACH ROMAR: Well, we didn't get nearly as many 3s up as we had done previously. And I hadn't totally bought into where we were going to be a team that shoots 33 pointers every game. And that was a school record. So obviously that's not going to happen every game. I think we talked more to our team about what happens when those 3s don't go down. Like tonight. That's where we have to improve as a team. But they did a good job of trying to take the 3 away also. I mean, there weren't a whole lot of looks. Couldn't have been, but we just didn't want to force up a 3. Q. Coach, can you talk a little bit about starting Justin on Terrence Jones and kind of your philosophy on what you wanted to do with Terrence tonight? COACH ROMAR: Terrence really exploits the mismatches he has in a lot of games because the way they're playing with them being able to dribble the ball outside with him, he'll have a bigger guy on him, and it's been difficult for teams to contain him on the drive. And we felt if Justin started on him he'd do a better job of keeping him from just driving. And I thought Justin did a really good job of that. I thought as a team we did a pretty good job of that. Terrence is a good basketball player, and he got 17 rebounds. Just he found a way to contribute to his team. Q. Lorenzo, I just wonder, I don't mean this derogatory, but was Harrellson something of a surprise, a guy that you really hadn't done as much as he did tonight? COACH ROMAR: Harrellson took advantage of the opportunities of not being boxed out. Some don't. Some don't get boxed out and they don't know how to go get the ball. Well, he took advantage of it. And he hit a big 3 for them, I thought. But aside from that, they got in the paint with dribble penetration. We come over and help. That left him free because we didn't rotate well enough to box him out. That left him free on the backboards a lot of times, but he did, he played a good game. It wasn't a situation where they were throwing the ball to him on the block and we couldn't stop him, you know? He just put himself in the right place at the right time and took advantage, again, of some of our defensive miscues. THE MODERATOR: Thank you very much. End of FastScripts |
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