Utah Jazz 123, Washington Wizards 108
Q. What were your reactions to the news that Wes had been moved out of his position?
KYLE KUZMA: I mean, it was early in the morning when I found out. Obviously it was probably just a tough day overall for us, just physical, one, because we had a back-to-back, and then mentally, as well just with the change in staff that we had.
You know, going through 40 games, you know, our effort, our energy that we displayed as a team probably wasn't up to par, and you know, same on the other so I had as well. Naturally, I guess, something had to make a change, and that's just what the front office decided to do. Yeah.
TYUS JONES: Yeah, piggyback off what Ku said. Yeah, it was early in the morning. You know, it's a part of the business. It's an unfortunate situation. You know, somebody, he put his time and effort in and energy, but like Ku said, it was just time. Time for a new voice. And yeah, we're going with BK. Going to listen to him, follow his lead, and again, we are 40-something games in. We were not making the strides that were needed and that the front office wanted us to be making, and -- and so we're continuing to try to improve and to try to do so.
Q. Brian is your position coach?
TYUS JONES: Yeah.
Q. What is he like, for people who are unfamiliar with him, what is he like, and what are his strengths?
TYUS JONES: He's blunt. Straight to business. No-nonsense. He's going to tell you like it is. But he is very, you know, respectful. He wants to see you succeed. He wants the best from you and out of you, and he's somebody that, you know, everybody in the building respects. They respect his work ethic. They respect what he brings to the table.
But yeah, again, he's very no-nonsense. Straight to business. And yeah, we are going to follow his lead.
Q. For either of you guys, the thing people are talking about, as Ku mentioned, the competitiveness not being where it needs to be, defense, energy, effort, I think those are all things we associate with, like, being on the players. So I'm wondering what a new -- how a new voice affects that, having a new person at the head. Does that energize you guys or what effect does that have on the locker room?
KYLE KUZMA: I think the overall organizational approach right now. I think a lot of people are focused on something that's very micro, which is the coaching.
But I think as a whole right now, we are looking as an organizational mindset shift and that's defense and accountability.
I think those are the first two building blocks that's going to be an emphasis and something that we kind of lacked over the past 40-something games. That's something you're going to expect, and you know, when you're talking about competitiveness and effort, the No. 1 teacher of that is the bench.
So if you're not doing that, if you're not playing for your teammate, if you're not giving it your all, you know, you can come learn on the bench, and I think that that's going to resonate. Because that's everybody. That's me, too, if I'm BS'ing, I told B-Keefe, I told Kyle all the time, just call me out. That just trickles down to everybody, and that's just a shift we have for the next 39 games.
Q. For Will and Michael to make that kind of a shift, to a different front office, what does that say about how they operate and that they are willing to adjust even if it is in the middle of season?
KYLE KUZMA: Proactive, not reactive. I think that's the biggest thing right there. Making changes like this is very tough, very, very challenging, and especially when you get go of a coach halfway through the year, that puts a lot of stress on the team, a lot of emotions, a lot of change-up, a lot of turnover.
So it's a lot, but you know, no crying on a yacht.
Q. Winger and Dawkins both drew the distinct between a lot of guys having good individual years, and both of you guys obviously having good years, and the lack of success for the team overall. How can you guys bridge that gap?
KYLE KUZMA: Well, I mean, that's what's going to happen on young teams. I think that's what people don't realize. I can just go back to my time with the Lakers my first couple of years it was me, Lonzo, Josh Hart, Brandon Ingram, Julius Randle. We were all just trying to slug it out and fight each other for positioning on a team and positioning and establishment in the league.
I think a lot of what we have had the past months has been a little bit of that, just from a standpoint, not being selfish, but trying to improve and have great individual seasons.
But you know, having a year doesn't mean it's good for the team. You know, how can we, like you said, bridge that gap and how can we combine, okay, well, Danny is having a great year but what can he sacrifice just a little bit so the team can do; what can I sacrifice a little bit to help somebody else pick it up. And that's overall going to make everything better.
So I think that's what we have to look at and think about.
Q. Shifting focus a little bit to tonight's game, just for either one of you guy, what do you think the biggest difference was in the separation tonight?
KYLE KUZMA: We hit shots, that's all. Played with great effort. Probably one of our best effort nights. I shot 1-for-8 down the line.
Q. BK alluded to the same thing and said that he liked your guys' poise to make runs towards the end of the first quarter, second quarter, fourth quarter despite not hitting shots. What does that say about the mentality of the group today, after as you said coming off a tough 24, 48 hours?
TYUS JONES: We are going to keep going. We are going to keep going. We are going to be resilient. We are going to continue to fight. That's something we talked about today, just one of the things that we have to pick up on is competitiveness. You know, there can't be any lay down. There can't be any point in the game where our heads are down, we're sulking and we just kind of concede.
There's got to be fight for 48 minutes, and when you look up, when that final buzzer goes off, you can be -- you can live with the results just knowing that we gave it a 110 percent, and we fought on both ends of the floor, we stayed disciplined, stuck to the game plan, and so those are the areas that we are going to improve on is our effort. And we did a good job of that in the first one tonight.
Q. The time-out after 1:07, did that get your attention?
KYLE KUZMA: I think it did. I think we didn't learn from it, though, because why he called the time-out was our transition defense going in and part of why we are 7 and whatever we are is because of transition defense.
That's just something that wanted to just hold us accountable and need to happen, but we need to react and respond to that because we still had a lot of mishaps on that end.
But that's what we are talking about, he alluded to earlier would be his no-nonsense, straight to it; he's blunt. And we've got to be better.
Q. You mentioned Brian Kieff being a no-nonsense guy and Kyle, you mentioned him being accountable for everything. Curious when you study film after this game, wonder how a new head coach can change the dynamic of film study? Do you think he is going to be calling guys out by name? Is he going to be more to the point? How did you see that working itself out?
TYUS JONES: I think it's just team-wise. I don't think it's just him just yapping at us. You know, I think it's more so of like we now understand that, you know, if Jordan Clark is on the court, we keep letting him go right, that's the issue. Not that he scored, because it's a make-or-miss lead, but how can we affect that, and what are we seeing as a team out there. Okay, there's transition-d. Stop the film. Guys, talk it through so we understand and grasp what errors that we're making.
So I don't know, I can't tell you that just naturally because we haven't had a film session. Ty was out there calling plays the entire night because we had had a practice. We are just going to fine tune those things and just work at it.
Q. What is that this like, learning a new coach midseason? It's not like you're going to have a ton more times to practice in the season. Have you ever been through anything like that at this level before?
KYLE KUZMA: I have once prior and it's a lot. It's a lot to juggle and kind of balance. There's going to be change. It's going to be kind of fluid.
Obviously, you know, everything happening this morning, like we have a game right away tonight. So there wasn't a whole lot of change, you know, right away tonight but it's going to be fluid. There's going to be different things that we're doing, whether it's scheme-wise, play-wise, you know, just certain things throughout, you know, practice or kind of the routine that we do as a team.
Just because there's a different guy in charge now, so he's going to do stuff a little bit differently than Wes, and that's okay. It's just, again, when it's in the middle of the season, it's tough to have a complete flip of the script, but I would say it's just going to be gradual. Like slowly day-in and day-out, and going to kind of tweak stuff here and there and just kind of build.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports