Isaiah Roby | Orlando Magic | Mar. 23, 2022
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00:00 Nick Gallo, KC Thunder dot com. Isaiah, most of the season you all been able to
00:05 kind of maintain that defensive identity. That's what you've really
00:09 leaned on as a group over the recent weeks. You all kind of talked about
00:13 wanting to really recapture that be more consistent. Why do you think you
00:16 were able to to be consistent defensively tonight? I think we did a
00:20 good job of just scrambling, you know, Orlando, they came out hot and they're
00:26 knocking down a lot of shots. But you know, the coaches just told us to keep
00:29 trusting our defense, keep trusting our principles. And you know, sometimes
00:32 you gotta just, you know, you play good defense and make the shot and you got
00:35 to just go back down and come back down to the same thing, do the same thing
00:38 over and over again. So I think that's what we did tonight. You've played 100
00:43 NBA games now. Um, you all held them without a field goal for nearly eight
00:47 minutes in that second quarter. Just in your experience, what does it take
00:51 defensively to be able to do that to an NBA team for that long of a stretch?
00:56 Yeah, I mean, number one is, uh, get them out of plan plan a, you know, make
01:02 them make them not
01:03 make it harder to get to their first option. You know, if the team is really
01:07 good at pick and roll, you know, being really good as a team and being
01:11 together, you know, tonight, I think I think we just did a good job of, like I
01:15 said earlier, just flying around. And, um, you know, we had some lineups that
01:18 you know, I was playing before alongside Olivier. Um, and, you know,
01:23 we had some guys doing different things than they're used to. But I think, you
01:26 know, everybody stepped up tonight and, uh, you know, he's out there just
01:29 playing hard.
01:29 Paris, awesome. No, Casey Thunder dot com. Um, wanted to ask you about the
01:34 second unit. You mentioned the lineups who were, you know, in with them and
01:38 sometimes not. But, you know, they racked up 52 points tonight. Just what
01:42 does that say about this group that, you know, a lot of those guys are tail
01:45 specifically, you've played at the second unit tail has been with the
01:48 starting unit just and they're still able to contribute and step in with
01:52 that sort of readiness. Yeah, I think that's just a part of those, you know,
01:55 hard work and, you know, the just stand ready, staying ready all year. I
02:00 think those guys, you know, obviously myself, I've been back and forth with
02:04 the blue. You know, at one point, I actually talked to days. I was like,
02:07 this is the blue lineup right now. It was just like I saw those guys play in
02:11 the G League. That's long ago. So, you know, it's good to see them out there
02:13 having having some success and just I know for them there, um, you know, it's
02:18 good to know that, you know, the hard work is paying off and, you know, you
02:21 can see the results every, um, you know, every every time you play a game
02:24 like this is kind of like a small victory in the innocence.
02:27 Um, also wanted to ask you specifically, you got to the free throw line a lot.
02:30 I think you had free 10 free throw attempts in this one. Just what did you
02:33 feel like you were trying to get to offensively? What? Where do you feel
02:37 like your advantage was in this one? Um, definitely, you know, um, playing
02:41 against bigger guy like Bomba being able to run in transition, um, and
02:46 also stretch him out to three point line and get him away from the rim.
02:48 That was big for us. And then, uh, when I was playing alongside, uh, you
02:52 know, Olivia, the second second unit, um, you know, same thing, just getting
02:56 out of transition. Um, you know, my guards found me a couple of times on
03:01 cuts for profiles or layups. So, you know, it's just a product of just a
03:05 good ball movement.
03:05 Joe Masada, the Oklahoman Isaiah. Um, you mentioned, like, having almost like
03:12 a blue lineup out there. Guys are in different spots, stepping up, playing
03:15 different roles. Like, does that make a win like tonight when you're down so
03:19 many guys, like even more special for you in a sense? Yeah, I mean, for sure.
03:23 It's definitely, um, uh, I would say it's definitely, uh, it's encouraging.
03:29 Um, and it's definitely is a confidence builder for everybody. You know, to
03:35 know that we have so much talent out and we're still going to go out there
03:38 and compete against, you know, NBA squad. And, um, you know, I think that
03:42 that just just raises the expectations from from the coaching staff as well.
03:46 You know, they they not to say that they have different expectations for
03:49 for any of our any of our players. But, um, you know, I think that it's just
03:53 it's a confidence builder to know that, you know, these guys, no matter who's
03:57 out there, we're gonna play hard and compete. You went three or four from
04:01 three hit a big one with about 3.5 minutes left forced to time out. Like,
04:05 how did that shot feel? And just how did you feel in general shooting the ball
04:09 tonight? About good. Um, you know, I've had some, uh,
04:14 not some good shooting games the past few games. But, you know, it's just
04:17 part of part of being a shooter. You know, um, there's some there's some
04:21 days where you shoot and every every shot goes out for this and it goes in
04:24 and other days you can't seem to hit anything. So, um, you know, just
04:28 sticking with that and just continue to build my confidence on that.
04:30 Thank you, guys.
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