Mark Daigneault | Denver Nuggets | Mar. 26, 2022
Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
00:00All right.
00:02Here is Coach, who will have questions in the room,
00:04and we will open it up to questions in the room.
00:07First, everyone.
00:08No update on Bazley.
00:09We'll check in tomorrow morning.
00:12Mark, you all shot 59%, had 18 assists in the second half.
00:17Did they help you guys?
00:18How did you all get into that rebounding moment,
00:21just play within your flow?
00:23I think we really moved it, obviously,
00:25played with great pace, togetherness.
00:29I thought even the plays where we had empty possessions,
00:33they were like well-intentioned turnovers.
00:36But otherwise, we were moving it, we were guarding.
00:38I thought we really competed,
00:40especially in the second half of the game,
00:41brought great physicality to the game,
00:43and obviously came up short,
00:45but was really impressed with how the team competed tonight.
00:48Speaking of that, you had verticality plays from Pete,
00:53who's still kind of getting his legs under in windy waters,
00:55like bricks of steel in the one-on-one transition play.
00:59What did you think of some of the moments of truth?
01:01Yeah, I thought, you know, there's a difference
01:03between strength and physicality.
01:05You know, we're playing the stronger team.
01:07And in the first half, I thought there were a lot of plays
01:09where they were stronger and more physical.
01:11And I thought in the second half,
01:12we stood up a little bit more.
01:14And when you do that, you give yourselves a chance.
01:15And that was a fun game,
01:18but you got to earn the right to play in fun games.
01:20And the way you do it is by competing
01:22and by doing it together.
01:23And I thought we did that well enough in the second half
01:25to give ourselves a chance in the game.
01:27You did six players in double figures tonight.
01:29Just how encouraging is it to see
01:30all of those guys get involved?
01:33Yeah, I thought, you know, with the way the ball moved,
01:35you know, the guys did a great job of balancing moving it
01:38and also being aggressive, you know, when they caught it.
01:42Sometimes you can get ball movement happy,
01:44and nobody's aggressive, no one attacks.
01:47But I thought tonight we just had a really nice balance
01:49of moving the ball, playing with pace,
01:52and then attacking when we had our spots.
01:53And it was a really, really good offensive performance,
01:56especially in the second half.
01:57Tonight was a really fast-paced game throughout the game,
02:00especially with Denver in that first half.
02:02Just how were you guys able to kind of either mitigate that
02:05or kind of do things with that in that second half?
02:07Yeah, I thought early they were running,
02:09and they just had more will to score in transition
02:13than we had will to get back.
02:15And then we got the game under control
02:16and settled into a half-court game.
02:18We played a lot of zone tonight.
02:19I thought that was highly effective.
02:21Our guys did a great job of communicating that
02:23and adjusting it on the fly,
02:25which is a key in the zone.
02:27And then in the second half, to what you said,
02:30our pace was much better,
02:32and the pace came from us running and getting up the floor
02:34but also moving it from side to side
02:36and letting our teammate play out of advantage.
02:39Yeah.
02:41Joker got his numbers in the field
02:44and Cole and the other guys.
02:45Is that a plan?
02:47Does he have a limit with other guys
02:49or does he defend with other guys?
02:52I mean, it's hard.
02:54The plan with him is, you know,
02:57take away the easy ones that he generates with his passing
03:00because we think that really energizes their team.
03:04The zone kind of made him a scorer tonight, you know,
03:07and I thought they had to play a different way,
03:09to be honest with you, to beat us.
03:10And, you know, they're the better team, clearly.
03:14And when you're trying to play against a better team,
03:16you got to try to make them go to plan B,
03:18and I thought we did that.
03:19I thought they beat us with plan B, and most of it was him,
03:21and that's why he's a great player.
03:25I think I've seen this after the last game here.
03:27When you guys won,
03:29you just played this team tough all season.
03:32Is that, do you think that is the way you're going after them
03:35and defending them and defending the open
03:38and sort of mucking things up?
03:40Do you think you guys got a bit set up against them?
03:42I don't know.
03:44A little bit, and I think offensively
03:46we've had good attacks against them
03:48with the way that they guard.
03:50The way they guard is different,
03:52and I think we've attacked them well throughout the year.
03:56But, I mean, the real reason in most of the game,
03:58even the games we've lost, the one at home that we lost,
04:00where we took a late lead and lost it,
04:02and then again tonight, just the competitive level.
04:05You know, I think our players have,
04:08you know, throughout the season, but, you know,
04:09certainly tonight played up
04:11to a really high competitive standard
04:12and have done so together, and I think a game like tonight
04:15shows the power of that.
04:17How do you fit the way that you,
04:19you know, and Darius went out?
04:22The thing that's happened with eight guys,
04:24a lot of rookies, a lot of guys
04:25who have played heavy dueling mats,
04:27and they took the net, they draped the wires.
04:30How does that make you feel?
04:32I think it just shows the power of that standard.
04:36You know, if everybody competes together,
04:39that can take you a long way because the whole then
04:42becomes better than the sum of the parts,
04:43and, you know, we certainly haven't existed there all year,
04:46but it's certainly the standard that we try to communicate,
04:49and we've got guys that are committed to trying to reach it,
04:51and when we do, it can take you really far,
04:53and I think, you know, tonight's game
04:55and for much of the season is an example of that.
04:57Let me follow up on Pete's contest
05:00that did Michael Green there early.
05:02You challenged it.
05:03Like, obviously, you're trying to take away
05:06the free throws there, but in a way,
05:08is that sort of recognizing the effort
05:10that he put into that play
05:11and, like, almost paying it off by challenging it?
05:14Yeah, and we thought we could win the challenge, obviously,
05:18but, I mean, when those guys tell us to look at it,
05:20we take them seriously, and, you know,
05:23it's early for a challenge, but it is points.
05:25It's a winnable challenge. Obviously, we won it,
05:28and there's no guarantee.
05:30You're on the road against Denver, you know,
05:32and so there's no guarantee that the game's
05:33going to go down to the wire like that.
05:34There wasn't a play down the stretch
05:36that we would have been able to challenge even if we had one,
05:38so, you know, as we've been all year,
05:40we're going to be aggressive with those,
05:41and, you know, certainly when guys put their body in plays,
05:44you know, that's an extra.
05:46That's what we did with Isaiah in the Boston game.
05:47His was a verticality as well.
05:50Can you speak to the composure of your team?
05:52You know, wild crowd tonight, almost a sell-out with Mike,
05:54but you guys didn't get rattled.
05:56They haven't gotten rattled in the last couple of weeks.
05:58Yeah, I thought we were really present in the game,
06:01and I think when you compete together,
06:04you know, first of all, competing is a very present act,
06:08and it allows you to get kind of lost in the flow of the game
06:10rather than to get distracted by anything else,
06:12and I think when you do it together,
06:14it gives you confidence because you know you got four guys
06:16out there that have your back,
06:17and I thought that's what was on display tonight.
06:19I thought we had a very present, competitive team
06:21that was willing to march out there together,
06:23and again, it shows the power that that has.
06:28Anyone else in the room?
06:30Coach, we have one on the Zoom.
06:31Christos Saltas, go ahead with your question, Christos.
06:34Hey, Coach. Hope you're doing well.
06:36At this stage of the season, your team has some really,
06:39some close games against the Spurs tonight's game.
06:43What part of the learning process
06:45were those types of games?
06:49I mean, they're possession games
06:50where it comes down to execution.
06:53Give Denver credit, they made a couple more plays
06:55than we did down the stretch, but I didn't think
06:57it was for lack of execution on our part.
06:58I thought we put ourselves in a position to win on the road
07:01against a high-quality team, which is all you can ask for,
07:05and then down the stretch, like I said,
07:06I didn't think that we melted down or anything like that.
07:10I thought we got quality shots and quality plays.
07:12We were organized defensively.
07:14We forced them to earn it, and they did,
07:16and that's what good teams do, and credit them.
07:18That's why they're really good, but a great test for us
07:21and great experience for our players.
07:23It was a fun game and one that we developed,
07:26and that's what we're about right now,
07:28especially at this stage of the season.
07:32Thanks. Yep.
07:33Players next. Players next.