Mavericks 130, Wizards 117
Q. Why do you think this game started to get away from you guys in the first quarter?
BILAL COULIBALY: Yeah, defensively we're not playing for each other, we're not in the rotations, we're not respecting what we're supposed to do, so that was it.
Q. You got a pretty big test guard in Luka Doncic tonight. What was it like going up against him?
BILAL COULIBALY: I always loved his game. Playing against a great player like that is always good, learning a lot of things, and yeah, hope I do better playing the next game.
Q. You were able to get a few stops against him. Does that build your confidence as a defensive player?
BILAL COULIBALY: Yeah, of course, of course. Every time I see superstar on me I try to get a stop, and it helps me a lot.
Q. Offensively how do you feel your game is coming along? It seems like every game we see you more off the dribble or creating for teammates, things like that. How are you feeling comfort-wise?
BILAL COULIBALY: Yeah, I'm trying. I know the players and everything. I'm just trying to just figure out what I can do to help the team to get some buckets or help myself to get some baskets.
Q. What do you think about your teammate Jordan Poole?
BILAL COULIBALY: He's a great player. He's a great guy. Not a lot I can say. He's going to get a big head if I say a lot.
Q. Bilal, I know that you are a rookie right now and you're probably the youngest person in the locker room, but what are some of the things that maybe you're saying to your teammates to bring that team right back together?
BILAL COULIBALY: Yeah, I'm just trying to say stuff that I see on the court. Whenever I see that somebody is shooting out of the rotation and he did not did it, I'm saying to him like we've got to be more focused, just stay with what we're supposed to do, and yeah, that's it.
Q. Jordan, how would you evaluate your fit in the offense, shot selection, et cetera, et cetera?
JORDAN POOLE: Shot selection has been good. Confident finding my shot selection. Still figuring out a lot of the rotations, chemistry, what plays you want to get into, how to get into our flow. Just a couple schematic things that we're trying to figure out with the guys out on the court.
In terms of shots, shots are fine. They're going to fall. It's a long season.
Q. Jordan, what would you say is the biggest adjustment of being the focal point of the scouting reports?
JORDAN POOLE: I mean, it's not anything new. I was getting the second best if not best defender the last two years previously. Just figuring out where guys on my team want the ball, how they can be effective. Just trying to figure out how to play the right way, figure out how to consistently over and over and over just make the right play, trying to just build a foundation. That's pretty much it.
Q. You obviously moved your locker room next to Bilal's. What kind of feedback are you trying to give him game in and game out?
JORDAN POOLE: Yeah, he's extremely talented. He's a hard worker and he's willing to learn and he's willing to work. So just trying to give him any insight, any advice that I can, if he has any questions, mentioning some things that he may not see. He's a rookie. It's really early.
There's a lot of stuff that's kind of being thrown at him. He's coming from playing professionally, then going right to the pre-draft process, from pre-draft right to Summer League, from Summer League right to the season, so it's moving really fast. I'm just here to slow it down a little bit for him, if he ever needs help, if he has any questions.
He's doing a tremendous job. Locked in, he's focused. He's guarding guys like Luka night in and night out, so I kind of look at that as delayed gratification. He's getting the challenges now, but later on down the line, it'll be extremely beneficial.
Q. Jordan, we've had conversations about that you've been a guy your whole career who's received attention, been victim of some memes and stuff. Does it feel different now that you're No. 1 on the team, that you're the leader in the locker room, the attention you've been getting, things like that?
JORDAN POOLE: In terms of who or in terms of off the court?
Q. Off the court, internet, online stuff. I know you don't watch it, but is it different?
JORDAN POOLE: No, it's not different, but it's 2023, so I mean --
Q. What do you mean?
JORDAN POOLE: Social media. There's not much we can do other than just go out there, play our game, be who we are. You can't get caught up in stuff like that. There will always be something, somebody will find something to come up with. Narratives can be misconstrued.
But as long as the people who are close to you, the people who know you, the people that you spend your time with know who you are as a person, coaches, players, essentially that's all that matters.
Q. Jordan, did you have a conversation with the coaches about being locked in in time-out huddles?
JORDAN POOLE: Yeah, yeah. What do you mean? Tell me more.
Q. There's a video of you not being within the time-out discussion until it was too late.
JORDAN POOLE: Yeah, I saw it, and I was looking like, how was somebody supposed to give that commentary from the middle of the stands? Obviously I can't do anything about it. Sometimes I sit down, sometimes I don't. Coaches go, they do their huddle earlier on, kind of figure out what they want to do. It's such a long time, also. It's a two-minute time-out. Coach is probably only talking for 35 seconds or so.
I mean, but I saw the payoff, went back, just asked the question just to make sure. Just continuing to be vocal, communicate with my teammates. It's a very normal time-out. Honestly, it wasn't anything that was different. I'm sure there will be a lot more time-outs just throughout the course of the season. Me personally, I'm not really worried about that.
Q. To that point, Wes said you're always in the gym, working on your shot. Clearly you are a serious player. When there's a discussion about you maybe not being locked in and you being serious, is that an affront to your character, your reputation?
JORDAN POOLE: See, that goes back to like who was saying it. Like the people who are close to me, the people who are in the gym -- if the head coach told you that, why are we listening to anybody else, is kind of how I look at it. Lock in, work on your game, ask questions.
Just like I said, this kinda goes back to being just the era that we're in, just the time in society that we're in right now. It's just something that you kind of deal with.
I grew up in it personally just having social media my entire life. I take it very seriously all the time, night in, night out, think about the game when you go home, ask questions, watch film.
Luckily those aren't the people that are important. The people that are important know how serious this is, how serious we take this, and that's why they're in the locker room. That's why they're making decisions. That's pretty much all it is.
Q. With where you guys are right now, what's the toughest thing for this team going forward? In other words, what's the biggest challenge for you guys?
JORDAN POOLE: I think we are seeing it for the first time. I think if you go back to a couple games ago, the Brooklyn game, the Raptor game, it showed what type of team we can be when we're playing the way we're supposed to play. But we got a lot of young guys. We got a lot of guys who are seeing late-game actions for the first time, seeing new roles, seeing new minutes. So just seeing it, right, just seeing it, learning from it, finding ways to go back to the drawing board, seeing what we can fix, what we can learn. It's very early, a very long season, 82-game season. We're 11 games in right now, so just continuing to learn. Delayed gratification, right? We're not working just for the next game or the game after that, we're working for games in January, games in February, just down the course.
It's a rhythm game. The league is all about rhythm, the league is all about patterns, so once we start to figure those out, once we start to find those, everything else will take care of itself.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports