Pistons 129, Wizards 117
Q. Landry, why do you feel like you guys have struggled so far this season to bring consistent effort or the same type of energy from game to game?
LANDRY SHAMET: I mean, you could point to a number of things. I think we have too many stretches where just our attention to detail kind of falls off. Attention to detail, physicality, and I think those are a couple things you can always point to and lean on where sometimes we kind of lose that a little bit.
As to your question to why, it could be a number of things. Every person, every player is different, has different triggers and ticks and things that make them go. I think that's a question where individually we all have to look at ourselves, how do I carry out and do my job, how do I pay attention to details and stay on that the whole game, how do I continue to play physical and play the right way. It's different from player to player. Everybody has a different way of getting to that. I think it's more of an individual question than a collective.
Q. You've obviously had to come out without much ramp-up time because of injuries and things like that. What have you been focusing on to have good stretches when you come on court and a little bit cold without much playing time?
LANDRY SHAMET: Just try and do my job. There's a lot of uncontrollables in this industry and in basketball. None of us on the team can control night-to-night minutes, shots going in or not. Some of that stuff, there's just a lot of things and variables that are out of our control, and I try to just hone in on the things that I can and be a good teammate, show up, communicate, be a voice, try to lead.
I think doing that, kind of taking the onus on yourself to take ownership of knowing what's going on and being a voice and a leader, it translates to better presence for myself on the court. I feel better stepping on the floor, staying engaged throughout the whole game. That's kind of it.
Q. Patrick Baldwin Jr. has been getting more and more minutes and it seems like he's taking advantage of them. He knocked down all three of his threes tonight. What have you seen from him and what do you like about his game?
LANDRY SHAMET: Yeah, he's a basketball junkie, man. He really loves this. You can feel that on him all the time at the facility. He's always watching highlights or familiar or whatever. That's just him.
He knows the game. He's young. He's still learning.
But I think what he can give to a team, it's valuable. You have a big guy, bigger guy like that who can stretch the floor and be versatile defensively for us where we can kind of start switching 1 through 5 or have him in coverage. Either way, he's able to offer that, and he's got obviously a tremendous amount of upside being so young.
I'm happy for him to kind of start finding a little bit of rhythm here and getting going.
Q. What was your reaction to the trade this week, and what do you think that Marvin Bagley and Isaiah Lewis can bring to Washington?
LANDRY SHAMET: Yeah, a couple young guys, and obviously Marvin filling that role of -- obviously we get rid of Gallo and Mike, Marvin coming in as another 5, a big body who, again, kind of talking about Pat, he does some similar things, versatile, plays along the perimeter a little bit, good ball mover, and he'll be able to bring some things to us along with Isaiah. Just a couple versatile young guys who are come to come in and work hard, from everything I'm hearing, and contribute to just trying to get better.
Q. About Patrick's night, it seemed like that second quarter, especially early in the quarter, was probably one of the best stretches of the game for you guys as a team. A lot of that was led by you and Pat. What went well for you guys during that six- or seven-minute stretch?
LANDRY SHAMET: I think we were defending. We were really connected. That's always where it starts.
I think where teams go wrong and where we've gone wrong in the past is getting caught up in thinking it's just shots going in. Your question was good offensively how we got it going, and I think that's a byproduct of what we were doing defensively. We were connected, flying around, didn't give up a ton of offensive rebounds in that stretch, taking care of those little things like that typically leads to good things on the other end.
So we were able to do that, and I think that's the biggest piece for sure.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports