Mavericks Head Coach Don Nelson
We weren’t at our best tonight, but we got the win. They made me work extra hard to get it. It sure would be nice to have an easy game at home against a team that hasn’t won much. It just wasn’t meant to be tonight.
It’s too bad that on a sore knee Dirk has to get 28 points and 11 rebounds for us to win. That’s sad as far as I’m concerned. I don’t think I had a lot of guys play very well tonight. Some of them played terrible. Dirk wasn’t driving to the basket very much because of his knee. All he had was his jumpshot. We tried to get him free, but it’s hard when they have a good defender on him in P.J. Brown. It wasn’t easy for us, but we were able to execute down the stretch and get some stops.
This team lacks playing “spurt ball”. Over the last five year’s we’ve been great at having spurts in games where we blow teams out. This team hardly ever does that and sometimes it’s like pulling teeth. The push of the ball isn’t strong enough and that is where D.A. (Armstrong) has come in and saved our butts so many times. I don’t think we win this game with D.A. tonight. He gets us in a different tempo, a faster, penetrating tempo. He’s really been playing well.
I took the rookie out. I told him at shoot around ‘If you get beat pushing away from the screen and roll, I’ll take you out of the game and not play you.’ The first minute he was in the guys takes him away from the screen and roll and fouls him on a three-point play. That was the end of him. Maybe that will be a learning process for him. It gave me the opportunity to play D.A. and I think he won the game for us.
Mavericks Forward Josh Howard
On Dallas starting the game slowly:
They came out ready to play. We won, but we didn’t come out ready to play like I think we should. I think we could have come out with more energy. They can come out any given night and beat anybody. It was a difficult game to get ready for and they almost beat us, but we pulled it out at the end.
on the play of Darrell Armstrong:
He’s been real big coming off the bench and giving us a lot of energy. That’s what we need. When guys are down in games like this, he came in there and did his thing. He pushes the ball hard and tries to find the open man on the fast break. He runs the offense well; he does it all.
Mavericks Guard Marquis Daniels
On the spark Darrell Armstrong provided off the bench:
He is out there running so fast, you have to run with him. He forces the tempo. We came out slow; he got in and forced the tempo and speeded things up for us a lot. And that helped out a lot.
On getting outrebounded 43-31 playing without Erick Dampier and Alan Henderson:
They were key rebounders for us. They [Hornets] were attacking the glass hard, but it left us with some run outs. It’s a learning thing. Hopefully we can learn from it and move on.
Opposition Quotes
Hornets Head Coach Byron Scott
On New Orleans’ many turnovers tonight:
It’s growing pains. We’ve got so many young guys and new players on our team and I think in our last two games, we’re averaging 23 turnovers. We’re not taking care of the ball and we’ve been giving the other team a lot of opportunities. We lost by four points to a playoff-bound team in Dallas and the difference was just little mistakes here and there. You have to be very involved on both ends of the court.
On his players’ continued effort:
I think they love what we’re trying to do as an organization. They like playing for us, as coaches, and we like having them. I’m going to stay on them to try to get wins, whether it’s the first game or the 82nd game of the season. I think a lot of them want to make a living in this league and they want to stay around for a while.
On his team’s play in general:
I’ve been encouraged by our effort. Guys have given it everything they have. We’re still making a lot of mistakes that we can’t afford to make, and a lot of that is due to the youth on our team. They’re getting better and every day, we’re just working on our game to improve. Since January, we’ve shot the ball well from a field goal standpoint. It’s just taking care of the ball and defending on the other side of the court.
Hornets Forward Lee Nailon
On falling just short in their comeback tonight:
That’s been the story of our year. We’re in games up until the last minute, but we can’t win them. We didn’t win, but we did some great things out there. We have a lot of new guys and we put in a good effort tonight. Hopefully we can get the next one.
On the free throw disparity between the teams:
It’s been two games in a row where our opponents have way more free throws than us. We’ve got to make a concerted effort to play defense, move our feet and help each other. That way, we can prevent easy baskets or plays that lead to free throws.
Hornets Guard Dan Dickau
On his individual play:
This was a winnable game for us down the stretch. I feel like I played alright. I had a pretty good floor game, but I had three or four looks that felt really good, but didn’t go in. Whether it’s the second night of a back-to-back or not… when the ball doesn’t go in, it doesn’t go in.
On the free throw disparity between the teams:
That’s the double-edge sword, because better teams usually get more of the calls. Usually, the more aggressive gets more calls and they were a little more aggressive than we were tonight. They got into the paint, attacked the rim and got fouled. Their zone threw us off a little bit, we knew they were going to play a zone, but we didn’t attack it and get good looks until late in the shot clock. We didn’t get the looks we wanted.
On New Orleans’ defensive effort tonight:
One of our emphasis was to get back on defense. We felt we lost last night’s game to Denver because they got quite a few transition baskets. That was a point of emphasis and I think we did a pretty good job in that regard.
Dallas Mavericks vs New Orleans Hornets (28th February)
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