History was made yesterday, and it was made in the most bizarre of ways.
Didn’t involve the Knicks, but it surely did involve a bunch of shaddy fouling, freebies… and #HeatCulture, amirite?
New York is playing the Jazz tonight. Who says Landry Shamet cannot hit 130 on the dot? Anyway, here’s the latest from our lads.
On what championship-level teams have in common:
“Everybody says what is the difference between the (‘07 Cavs, champion Warriors) teams… But the things I think are common amongst all of them are what we formulated as our standard, and all those teams, they sacrificed for one another. All those teams, they’re connected. All those teams have a competitive spirit. All those teams have a belief in the process and each other. . . Throughout the course of the team we’ve grown a lot in those areas. Everybody needs to go through adversity. We went through some adversity and we were able to try to lean on our standards while we did do that. That’s something that’ll carry us a long way come playoff time.”
On arriving in New York without expectations:
“I ain’t coming in expecting anything, honestly. A lot of people made expectations on my arrival and what I can do and what I’ve done my whole career. But not knowing anything, I came here with an open canvas. I just knew one goal and what we wanted to do, and that’s to win. Talking to Josh and Jalen before this, we never talked about anything but winning. We’re trying to get the goal done. Seeing those dudes last year make it to the Eastern Conference finals, and just want to help them and help this team get the end goal.”
On returning to Utah on Wednesday:
“That’s a home for me. I loved the organization. I love the coaching staff. Yeah, I love the city. All I had was love there. So going back, I don’t know what my emotions are going to be. I’m going to try to keep my cool in terms of not feeling emotional, just all the gratitude and everything that the city is giving me. But yeah, I don’t know how I’m going to feel yet.”
On valuing winning in New York:
“You definitely value winning and being a part of this team and being part of this process in terms of what we want to do in terms of accomplishing winning. But it’s been great. Everything has been purposeful and meaningful. I’m just trying to stay locked in for any moment and opportunity I get here. But it’s been fun.”
On using every moment on the court as an opportunity to grow:
“Any time you have games like that you can kind of look at that as a positive and just build on those things. You don’t want those things to be the be-all, end-all. My career is about growth and getting better. So I need to learn from those experiences and learn from every one — good or bad. Those were good experiences. But me, personally, I’ve had some bad experiences on the floor. From my play. So learn from both of those things and just continue to grow, continue to get better.”
On learning to follow the game plan as a backup guard:
“Sometimes you’re out there you get in the flow of the game, and as a backup point guard or another guard on the team, when Jalen comes out you have to be really direct and accurate with how you’re playing and how coaches want you to play out there on the floor. So just following our game plan.”
On not being satisfied late in the season:
“It goes back to not being satisfied when we do the things that we’re supposed to do.”