Hornets 124, Wizards 117
Q. From your perspective what went wrong down the stretch?
TYUS JONES: Too many second-chance points, just weren't playing with the same aggression on the defensive end, let them get comfortable. They hit a couple big shots, but second chance points we've got to do a better job just coming down, rebounding, eliminating their second chance points, honestly.
On offense, a couple sticky possessions where the ball wasn't getting back to the backside, second side, third side, things like that. We just settled for our first look.
We've got to grow. We've got to learn from that and grow and be better when that situation comes around again.
Q. From the position that you play, how can you help turn things around when it comes to the rebounding?
TYUS JONES: Yeah, just trying to get in there, mix it up. Try and get in there and mix it up, try to read where the ball is going off the rim, things like that, and just scrap. Just scrap, honestly.
Q. After leading for so much of the game, how disappointing is it for you guys in the locker room?
TYUS JONES: Yeah, it's disappointing. It's disappointing. We felt like we were playing well, sticking to our game plan through pretty much most of that first half. Second half it just got away from us. We've got to be able to figure out what's going wrong and adjust and do that better, and we haven't done that so far this year. Things have started to get away from us, and we haven't been able to kind of rein it back in.
That's going to come with time. That's going to come with the chemistry, figuring each other out, things like that, but we also don't want to cost ourselves games in doing so.
It's tough when you're playing well for a good majority of the game and things just start to go south and you can't right the ship.
Again, we'll watch the film. We'll learn from it and be better when that situation comes again.
Q. How much is both offensively and defensively, it's a work in progress for you and Jordan right now?
TYUS JONES: It is. You know, it's a new system, new chemistry, new team, trying to figure out our spots, trying to figure out rotations, calls, things like that. But at the same time, we've got to go. We've got to -- there's other teams with new players, with new faces, with new schemes, things like that. We've got to continue to work on it, continue to just improve each game, try to stay with film study, continue to communicate.
But it's also understanding it's a process, and it's going to continue to get better.
But yeah, we're just trying to stay patient just because we know it's different. There's a lot of new on both ends of the floor, and it's a process.
Q. Tyus, as the one, how do you decide to be aggressive or set up your teammates? What is that thought process for you?
TYUS JONES: Yeah, some games the game will tell you based on the defensive coverages and things like that. Again, that's part of the process for me, as well, here is figuring out my spots, figuring out when to be aggressive to shoot, when to be aggressive to score and when to look to set up my teammates and facilitate and try to set the tone as far as that goes.
So yeah, it's all just an ongoing thing, just continue to learn, continue to learn the system, learn what Wes wants, and finding that balance of being aggressive to score but also finding my teammates. I'm going to just stick with it.
Q. Do you feel like you're close?
TYUS JONES: I do. I do.
Q. The last few minutes of the fourth quarter, where do you think the offense kind of got stuck?
TYUS JONES: I mean, honestly, I feel like we got to some good looks. Were they easy looks? Some of them. Some of them maybe not. But there were also shots that we took that we could make and that we're confident in guys making, and they just didn't drop for us.
But I think honestly we've got to get to more second-side actions, just making the defense work a little bit more, and yeah, I think we just let them off the hook a little bit on that end and let kind of our defensive end of the floor, them starting to make shots and things like that kind of speed us up on offense.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports