Tyler ButlerGRIZZLIES ACTING HEAD COACH DARKO RAJAKOVIC
On whether Steven Adams will play without limitations:
“He’s still in the process of getting on the mend, so he’s not going to be playing his normal minutes. But we want to be smart about it. We need him on the floor. He’s a very important piece of what we’re doing over here, but also we want to be smart about it to get him slowly back in a rhythm.”
On whether Steven Adams will be starting tonight:
“I think he’s not.”
On Taylor Jenkins:
“Taylor is doing great. He feels great. He’s in great spirits. He’s with us in all Zoom meetings and everything, so he feels great and we’re hopeful to have him very, very soon back.”
On the Mavericks defense:
“They do a really good job of taking away threes. They do a really good job of playing one-on-one. They have big active bodies, and I give them a lot of credit for the culture they’re developing with a new coaching staff, and you can see the results of that. Like you said, they’re the seventh best defense in the league. A lot of that is just their activity and how active they are. They’re getting in the passing lanes, using big bodies to change shots. They do a really good job.”
On preparing for the Mavericks without Kristaps Porzingis:
“(Kristaps) Porzingis is a heck of a player. He brings so much to that team and definitely they miss him, but at the same time this team found some groove lately. They just won six games in a row before losing in New York. It looks like they’re having fun out there, they’re playing together and they’re competing on a high level.”
On guarding Luka Dončić:
“We’ll need to definitely have multiple defenders on him. We’ll need physicality. We’ll need length. We need to give him different looks. He’s an amazing player, and we need to do everything possible to wear him down, to make it really, really hard on him.”
On Tim Hardaway Jr.:
“He’s a pure shooter. That’s what he does. He’s really good at what he does, and we’ve got to have special attention to him and find him on the floor, find him in transition, look at where he’s at and not allow him to get easy shots.”
On how COVID-19 has impacted the practice schedule around the NBA this season:
“More or less, all of the teams are in the same situation. We’re losing players to COVID, to injuries for different reasons, getting players on 10-day deals. There’s a lot going on right now. A lot of times we’re acting like everything is normal and living normal lives and seeing a room full of people with face masks. We’re in the middle of a pandemic, and that definitely influences everything that we’re doing on the basketball court as well. Our preparation, our practices, everything is towards trying to keep our guys safe and to have available bodies to play games.”
On how limited practice time impacts game preparation:
“Our guys do a really good job of preparing for the games on their own, watching a lot of film, watching a lot of film with their individual coaches, so that helps a lot in preparation for every game. But every time when you have the opportunity (to practice), we cannot forget it, we’re a young team, every time and we have real opportunity (to practice), we like to get on the floor and talk about different situations and what we can improve, offensively, defensively and just to allow this team to continue growing.”
On last night’s game against the Timberwolves:
“We kind of started a little bit sluggish last night defensively. We allowed the team to make a bunch of shots early in the game. So, definitely we’ve got to bring more physicality tonight. This team is very, very dangerous behind the 3-point line. They have multiple players that can knock down the shots, so we’ve got to be locked in from the start.”
Alise Robinson
