Nuggets 113, Wizards 104
Q. What was it like having Daniel Gafford back out there?
TYUS JONES: It was good having Gaff back. Obviously his presence in the paint is huge for us. Just his fight, his grit, big for us.
Obviously you don't want to see anybody injured, so that was kind of a freak incident, him with the concussion. It was good to see him back. Didn't miss a beat and fought Jokic hard all night. Yeah, it was huge for us, and a good tandem to have him and Bag for sure.
Q. Four blocks for Bilal is a career high. What have you seen from him as a rim protector?
TYUS JONES: I mean, his length, his wingspan is crazy. He's got good timing, knows when to release and go meet it at the rim. So yeah, that's huge, and a lot of times he's guarding guards, so he kind of has the size and the height advantage on them, and it's big for us.
He has tremendous defensive instincts, and he'll only get better, which is kind of scary, because he's already a tremendous defender.
I didn't know how many blocks he had tonight, but it looked like he was blocking a shot every other possession. Yeah, it was big time, and that's a great skill and trait to have for sure.
Q. As a guard, how hard is it to defend against an offense like that where they run a lot of their plays through a center at the top of the key?
TYUS JONES: Yeah, it's different. It's super unique. I think it's difficult just because it's different. Like you said, it's unique. One of the best passers in the league, and being that he's a center, it's a complete different wrinkle that you don't see a whole lot.
It's tough, and everyone obviously knows the player he is, but he still manages ways to find different passes and different reads that you take away first, second option, he's still getting to his third option without hesitating, so it's tough, but they do a great job playing off of him. They've got shooting. They've got athletes. Him and Jamal, great one-two tandem. It provides a great challenge.
But yeah, to answer your question, it's super unique, and he's just extremely unselfish, and I think that's what really makes it so hard to stop.
Q. When the trade went down for Bagley, you talked about that you had a connection with him a little bit through the brotherhood, but that was before you got to play an actual game with him. Now that you have three games under your belt, how is that connection going? Seems like you've had a little bit of spark in the pick-and-roll.
TYUS JONES: It's going great. Yeah, we've got a connection for sure on the pick-and-roll game, and we're working every day, talking through a bunch of different stuff and just working to continue to build on that.
Yeah, that's something we're definitely going to use to our advantage. Glad he's here.
Q. We spoke briefly in New York about the difference between veteran teams and young teams, and tonight seemed pretty illustrative of that. I'm wondering as a point guard, what are you feeling happening out there in high pressure situations where you're trying to shrink a lead or shrink a deficit?
TYUS JONES: I mean, experience. That's a championship team. They've won on the highest level in this league. They've been in hundreds of those late-game situations where it's a couple-possession game, 10 points, and they kind of have the same core for the most part. They've been in those situations. Some of those things come just second nature to them. Like they know what to get to, they know what to look for, they know how to handle certain things, certain looks.
For us right now, we're trying -- the goal for everybody is to be where they're at, hanging a banner, championship team, everyone hunting them, being the hunted.
For us, we've just got to continue to learn, continue to grow in those areas, late-game situations, continue to build, pick apart the small things in the game that you can improve or, again, learn from that a team like Denver might do naturally without even thinking about it at this point.
It's all learning. It's all learning for us, learning experiences, and we've just got to stick with it.
Q. When one of your key offensive players like Jordan is having an off-night with fouls and not able to stay on the court with that stuff, how do you think about getting him back in the game when he's on the floor kick-starting the offense?
TYUS JONES: Yeah, you want to get him some easy looks. He's seeing usually the best defender on the other team night in and night out. They're giving him different looks. They're being physical with him. They're trying to make it tough for him to get easy catches, easy looks. It's just finding that balance.
You want to get him some open looks, and it was just one of those nights tonight. We'll bounce back. He'll be ready to go next game.
Q. How close do you feel like this team is to maximizing the talent in aggregate on the entire roster?
TYUS JONES: That's a good question. I still think we're a ways away. We've got young guys. We've got guys still figuring it out. We've got guys still figuring out their roles in this league. Again, in the big picture, as a group, now we've added a couple pieces obviously here in the last week, but as a group, we're still only 41 games into it. Like in the big picture, that's not a lot of time. So there's still room for improvement.
You look at a team like Denver with that same core group of guys that they have had for the last few years, like the number of games they've played together, something like that, or some of the other teams in the league who have kind of done like a flip of their roster and kind of rebuilt over the last few years, big picture, again, we're halfway through a season. We're continuing to try to get better, continuing to try to figure each other out, maximize things.
We added a couple pieces this week. They'll help us as a team.
I still think we've got a ways to go as far as maximizing what we've got here.
Q. In terms of continuity as it pertains to trust in terms of knowing where someone will be on the court, does that manifest itself more on the defensive end or the offensive end?
TYUS JONES: What do you mean does it manifest itself --
Q. The lack of continuity, where does that hurt the most?
TYUS JONES: Defense.
Q. For people who aren't attuned to the intricacies of the NBA game, why is that?
TYUS JONES: I think because naturally the majority of people, the majority of NBA players can score, do a pretty good job the scoring the ball, and so even on off nights offensively or if people are not quite on the same page offensively, you're probably still going to be able to score at a decent rate. Probably not the rate you want to be at, but on a decent rate. But if you're not on the same page defensively, people in this league can score the ball at a high clip. If you're not on the same page, you're going to give up open looks. Players are too talented in this league, especially now with how people can shoot the ball, things like that. That hurts you far more than not being on the same page offensively.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports