FrankVogel

We don’t have any level of complacency. We know what they’re capable of. We know they’ve lost Game 1s before and won series’ before. It’s well documented. They’re the champs. I don’t think there’s anything but we need to get Game 2. That’s all we’re thinking about.

We played a pretty good basketball game. I think we can play better. I think we’re going to need to play better because I think Miami is going to come back and play a more complete basketball game so we have to elevate our level.

Not everybody will play. We’ll pick our spots over the final four games to get the guys that need rest some rest. I think getting them some rest will make them fresher going into the playoffs. It’s not the answer, but I think it’s part of it.

We’re not playing well as a basketball team right now and the starters aren’t playing well. Our bench is not playing well. We want to try to get the starters on track by getting their legs back under them and getting them healed up. If you sit one or two guys for the game, nobody ever finds a rhythm.

I don't know if Roy will return to the starting lineup Wednesday at Milwaukee. We've got to figure out what our plan is. Our whole starting five looks worn down to me. So we've gotta figure out rest versus rhythm

I considered resting Roy before tonight's game because he looks worn down; he's a 7-2 player that's played every game this year, which is very rare, He looks to me to be worn down. He's giving good effort, but he looks to me to be worn down.

I believe in the team’s character. I believe in our ability. We just have to get back to work. We have to play better than we’re playing. It’s that simple.

Clearly, an extremely poor performance by our team. I don’t think it’s acceptable for any of us in our organization to play the way we played tonight.

This is not basketball. This is garbage.

Lance Stephenson really changed the game. We came out playing hard but still a little bit unconfident and missing some shots and trying to grind through the rhythm and the timing. That burst in the second quarter was a big part of the win.

We took a step in the right direction. We know it’s not going to just snap back into place when you’re out of rhythm the way we’ve been the last couple of weeks. It was definitely a positive step on the offensive end with how we shared the basketball and took care of the basketball.

I think some guys are struggling to find a little bit of a rhythm. Part of that may be confidence but team is going in and out of being in a good rhythm. It happens to every team every year. You just have to work everyday and find it.

I think we're playing against ourselves right now. We're not close to where we need to be.

It all runs through John Wall for the most part. He’s the creator, he’s the head of the snake. But they have multiple guys that can hurt you because of their passing ability.

I just think we got to try to play our best every game and try to improve our habits every single game. Whether you’re playing the Miami Heat or the Washington Wizards or the Cleveland Cavs, it doesn’t matter. You got to try to be at your best. Now is when your playoff habits are developed and established.

Greg Oden is a heck of a player. He gives you good rim protection and a finisher inside. It’s part of their sort of shift in philosophy this year of playing with more big lineups than they did last year. He’s doing a great job for them.

We’re attacking a different type of defense tonight. They want to do a lot more trapping in the pick-and-roll game and in the post, and we just got to adjust our approach, in terms of understanding the scheme we’re attacking, and then just get back to our fundamentals offensively.

You could just see the look in David West’s eyes all night. He just put the whole team on his back. His will just carried us to the victory.

George Hill is a special player, probably our most underrated player. David West could probably argue that, as well. He knew with Lance out he was going to have to be more assertive and the way Lillard was going, he had to go back at him. That's his competitive spirit.

We held a pretty explosive offensive team, held them down. Eighty-five points is a pretty strong effort.

I'm very proud of our guys to come in here, a tough place to win. Atlanta is a particularly tough place for us to win.

We didn't have a great shooting night, but I thought the ball movement and the player movement was back to where we want it to be. And we got a good effort from our bench. When we play for each other and we share the basketball and don't try to do it all yourself, the game becomes easy,

I challenged our second unit guys before the fourth quarter to not make me put the starters back in and bust the game open.They were able to do that.

It’s tough to beat any team four times in one season. I’m proud of our guys grinding it out and, despite playing not a great game, finding a way to win. David West is one of our go-to guys. When we’re struggling we try to get the ball in his hands.

He knows this is the right place for him. We believe we're the right place for him, also. He expressed that he wants to fit in, which is the word we like to hear around here with our team-first mentality.

He knows this is the right place for him. We believe we're the right place for him, also. He expressed that he wants to fit in, which is the word we like to hear around here with our team-first mentality.

It was a good way to complete a difficult and successful road trip by getting the last game and finishing 3-2. I was happy to see our defense return to form a little bit against a team that is really scoring the ball at a high level. If we limit our fouls and turnovers, we’re tough to beat. Four turnovers offensively and only 16 fouls, showing good discipline limits areas where we think we beat ourselves.

When you have the defense we have, you never feel like you’re out of the game. … I just couldn’t be more proud.

We knew they would be up. We knew they would be loose with their two top scorers out and they were. They came out, Isaiah Thomas and Marcus Thornton were just sensational with their shot making and all their guys were at a real high level but just really proud of our guys for weathering the storm, buckling down on the defensive end, getting them to 38 percent, keeping them off of the free throw line for the most part and finding a way to win.

I was proud of Danny Granger for coming in and playing extended minutes, and playing some at power forward, which he hasn’t played in a couple years. He really battled Blake Griffin and gave us some critical, critical minutes in a tough matchup.

We had to play a game that we’re not used to playing tonight because of those circumstances. The guys that were on the court just flat-out battled, and they found a win — and win convincingly.

Lance Stephenson is a positive influence on our culture and the fun that we have. His competitive spirit is as high as anyone we’ve ever coached.

It’s been a point of emphasis the last three of four games, since we had a little bit of an offensive lull right after the New Year. Just to play harder off the basketball, and cut harder, screen harder, run into screens, run out of screens, crash, run the floor — all those things. What you’re doing without the basketball matters.

You hear David West in the locker room all the time talking about hitting singles and doubles, and not swinging for the fences but making the simple plays. Our guys did that tonight, and it showed up with great offensive production.

My name is on the release, but this is recognition of our team’s success. It’s a team honor and I’m really excited about it.

The rest I think enabled us. To have a couple days to get our legs back under us and have one of our best running games of the year. We had 18 fast-break points in the first points and that was a big factor in taking over the game early so I definitely think the rest had an effect.

You look at David West’s numbers and it looks like he’s having an OK season. That son of a gun could average 20 & 10 if he wanted to, but he’s leading our team in sacrifice and team play.

That was just a sensational defensive effort by out team. I couldn’t be more proud of our guys’ work ethic on the defensive end. Our fans should be really proud. You want to see a team come out and play as hard as any team you’ve ever seen on the defensive end, come out and watch our basketball team.

I couldn’t be more proud of the effort and the execution, particularly on the defensive end. We really got after it on the defensive end and limited them, and then we were sharing the ball offensively. When we share it like that and create open looks, with the way we can shoot the ball we had that explosion there in the third quarter.

I don't think of Granger and George as both being small forwards. In our system, it's guard, wings and bigs. They're both wings. They certainly can play together. We've got a great culture for here. Everyone pulls for each other, whether it's within the game or someone like Danny that has worked really hard to get back on the basketball court. Everyone is just pulling for each other.

About Houston, I don’t look at their record. I look at them as a championship contender. I know they don’t have the record that Portland, San Antonio or Oklahoma City has, but they’re close and they’re very capable of putting it all together to beat a team that comes out of the West.

We weren't able to make enough plays down the stretch. I thought both teams played great, played extremely hard. I think that their ability to get run-outs late in the fourth quarter gave them easy buckets. It was the difference for them.

We're still ranked No. 1 in defense but we want to be dominant. And I don't think we have been dominant defensively over the last eight games, so I challenge our guys to step it up in that regard.

We’ll take all the backup wing minutes and give those to Danny and let him work his way in and we’ll take it from there. Just playing Danny Granger 10 minutes a game is probably not enough.

We're going to target next Friday. "Hopeful return. To see how this week of practices goes and hopefully have him back for that Friday game against the RocketsDanny was hopeful and Larry just said it's my call, but my response is that it's our call. We talked about it, we both kind of felt like he would benefit – we would benefit – by him getting another week's worth of practices under his belt, his conditioning, rhythm and timing back to where it should be.

Clearly, we didn’t keep them off the glass well enough in the first half.Some of them were just bad bounces, and that’s going to happen. Sometimes we weren’t hitting people. Sometimes we were trying to get out on the break.

That's a really good win against a really good team we have great respect for, a team that scored 115 points against Golden State last week and had Miami on the ropes in their building nine or 10 days ago. Miami had to have a 38-point fourth quarter to win by one. We understood this was going to be a battle of a game and it was. They came in and made tough shots, played us tough and our guys had to grind it out to get a W.