New York hosted the Bucks on Friday, beat them nicely, punched their tickets for the quarters of the tourney.
Here’s what a few of yesterday’s protagonists had to say before and after the final group-stage NBA Cup game.
On the pressure of playing a must-win NBA Cup game:
“One of the things I told the guys, pressure is a privilege in life. Everybody is human, so if you’re feeling some sort of pressure, that means you’re doing something that is pretty important — not just to you but to a lot of other people. So you embrace it. In order to win and win at the highest level and experience that as much as you can, you try to go get the Cup and get Cup games and put that pressure on yourself, so hopefully it can simulate what the playoffs are going to be to a certain degree. Mentioning it to our guys, talking about it with our guys, that’s probably about the biggest difference than another game.”
On the Bucks before tipoff:
“They’re starting to find their way a little bit. Record-wise they may not be sitting where they want to at all, but their last game out against Miami, they played hard. They could have easily won that game. So they’re young guys are starting to really step up and understand how they can have some success in the league. A guy like Rollins caught you off guard initially. And not anymore. He busted out behind up in Milwaukee and he’s gotten a couple other teams too. He’s got their number too. All their guys play extremely hard and they’re very talented and they come to play.”
On Jalen Brunson’s MVP case:
“He should be talked about right now, and it’s early, but as you know, [as a] potential MVP. There’s not enough chatter, which it’s early, so I’m not throwing a fit, but the guy had 37 tonight on 12-of-21, and he gets blitzed often, and he makes the right basketball play. So he basically did what he’s supposed to do, and that’s why I don’t talk about a lot, because that’s what he’s capable of doing, and that’s what he’s supposed to do, being of that stature. Hopefully, you guys and your peers will start really talking the right way about this young man in terms of him, having some MVP talk, because that’s what he is.”
On Brunson as the Knicks’ engine:
“We’re not playing the best basketball right now but we’re trending in the right direction and he’s the engine behind it. So to me, he just did what he’s supposed to do, which equates to him being the MVP of the league.”
On Mitchell Robinson’s off-the-pine impact:
“I’ve liked what I’ve seen so far. Mitch has given us a great punch off the bench, and his ability to offensive rebound against starters or backups is huge for us, so he has to keep bringing that to the table.”
On Tyler Kolek’s performance:
“I didn’t play him as much as I wanted to tonight but the last two games when he’s gotten minutes, he’s been really good defensively. He’s been really physical without fouling. He’s been really good pushing the basketball and distributing the basketball while getting us into our offense. I expect nothing but that from him and again I wished I’d played him a little longer because again, (he’s) on a pretty good run.”
On Josh Hart’s starting role and the energy he brings to the team:
“Josh, he’s a baller. It doesn’t matter what you throw in front of him, he just goes and balls out. That’s what you love about him. He just gets it done in any role that you give him. He’s shown he can help you coming off the bench, he’s definitely shown he can help you as a starter. He’s playing high-level basketball.”
On the NBA Cup tournament:
“There’s a little added juice to it knowing what’s at stake. Win and move on and try and win something. We have a lot of guys and coaches who don’t make as much as some of the guys on this team and it’s an added bonus for them as well. You’re not just playing for yourself, you’re playing for this entire team.”
“I’ve thought more about winning vs. winning the MVP. It’s not something I’m thinking about. Honestly, when you win, everyone eats, so just focused on winning as a team.”
“He played well on both sides of the ball, and he’s in a good rhythm right now…. We just need him to stick with that. He’s the x-factor of what we do.”
“I’m just happy we won. No matter what the situation is, who’s out there, who we have on the court, it doesn’t mean anything to me. I’m just happy we were able to win against a team obviously is really good and put us on the brink.”
On defending Giannis without OG Anunoby:
“I knew I was going to get beat up there. For me, obviously we don’t have OG who is an extremely physical defender and we always put him those matchups, so with him out I knew I kind of had to step it up a little bit. We talked about being more physical on the ball — that’s something I’ve been trying to do the past few games and I’ve got to continue to do that and try to set the tone, at least while I’m starting and in those types of positions.”
“I had to switch the routine that I had pregame so far [this season]. I’m just trying to find my little pregame routine. But obviously getting out there to start is fun.”
On playmaking when Brunson is double-teamed:
“I love it. That’s a position I’m extremely comfortable in. Normally, we get good looks when that happens.”
On Giannis’s minutes restriction:
“With Giannis back, obviously he was on a minutes restriction tonight, which is really difficult in a game like this. We lost the leads when we took him off the floor.”
On losing the numbers game:
“The bottom line is they had 13 more shots than us, they had eight more free throws. We’re outshooting teams (in accuracy). Shooting 52 percent, but it’s the turnovers, it’s the offensive rebounds, it’s the fouls. It’s a numbers game, and we have to win that game. Especially with Giannis, if we win that game, we’re going to win the game.”
On returning from injury:
“Obviously, you want to win games, you want to win tournaments. We had the opportunity to go to Vegas twice in a row. Not going to Vegas and not being able to gamble on ‘34-Red’ one more time, I think it’s going to be very tough for me. At the end of the day, I want to win. We’ve lost seven in a row, and I don’t remember the last time I lost seven in a row. We gotta lock in … and be able to get that win tomorrow [in Brooklyn]. But I felt good. … For the first game back, I felt powerful. I hoped that I could help the team win the game, but we have another one tomorrow and we have to get back on track.”
On the team’s recent losing skid:
“Does it matter what I’ve seen (when I was sidelined with the injury)? It doesn’t matter — it happened. We’ve lost the games. We’ve lost, what, six in a row? Seven in a row?”
On doing the little things:
“You gotta come in, do your job, do what you’re paid to do, defend, rebound the ball, do the little things. And sometimes when you worry about doing the little things, all the other things add up. If you’re so concerned with scoring the ball and getting yourself going offensively, and that doesn’t work for you, now you feel like you cannot do nothing. You cannot worry about one shot or two shots that you miss, which took four seconds out of the game to dictate 47 minutes, 56 seconds of the game.”
On the team’s mentality:
“We’ve gotta get into the mindset that we’ve gotta compete. We gotta get to the mindset that this is not a one-man show, that we have to do together. We’ve gotta move the ball. We’ve gotta find open threes; we’ve gotta run, we gotta create spacing. Overall, we gotta get our competitive spirit back to where it’s supposed to be. Nobody should have a personal agenda, nobody should worry about what they want from themselves, worry only about winning mentality. Winning mindset. The more we can win games, the more everything can take care of itself.”