Cavaliers 114, Wizards 105
Q. What allowed them to pull away there in the fourth quarter?
BRIAN KEEFE: They got a couple threes in a row there right -- when we were up six, I think they hit back-to-back threes, and then we had some tough shots that didn't go in, and they made some baskets down the stretch. But our resilience throughout the whole game was great. We obviously had multiple bodies go down, Deni not playing, Bilal go down five minutes into the game, and then Corey got sick during the warmups, wasn't feeling good.
Credit to our guys to keep battling and showing the resilience that we want to see out of them. I thought Jordan and Kyle really stepping up, pushing us, but then we had great contributions from Patrick Baldwin Jr., Johnny Davis, Jared Butler. Those guys came in and gave us great minutes. Richaun Holmes is new to our team.
The whole thing was a team effort to get us to the end, and I was proud of how the guys kept fighting.
Q. How are Corey and Bilal feeling now?
BRIAN KEEFE: Corey we'll see. We'll see how he feels tomorrow. Bilal, he got injured during the game, so we'll know more information as we go.
Q. What did you see from Jordan tonight and his performance, and what do you think he has to do to establish a baseline of consistency to kind of help him finish out his season strong?
BRIAN KEEFE: I think one of the things I said a couple days ago, Jordan has been one of the highest net ratings since I've coached. Jordan has played well for us.
Now we're seeing him in a different type of roll, the ball in his hands a little bit more, and we're seeing incremental gains in the last three games from this, and I think we're going to continue to see that, and that's what I expect from him.
Q. How limiting was the absence of size on the wing and maybe the lack of size defensively down the stretch?
BRIAN KEEFE: It probably played a factor. But our guys battled. Like they hit some tough contested threes over us. It wasn't like they manhandled us in the paint when it was offensive rebounds and stuff. I thought our defense was solid. We contested some of those threes, and they made them. That's sometimes how it goes.
I thought our guys battled, and we did a pretty good job on Garland and Mitchell. Those guys didn't shoot what they usually do and didn't score what they usually do.
Q. What specifically did you like about Jordan's performance?
BRIAN KEEFE: Like I told Jordan from when I started coaching, I want him to be aggressive, to be in attack mode, and did he that. He did that for himself, and he did that for others. Obviously he made his shots tonight, which was great, but like the process has been good. I've liked what the process has been lately for him.
Q. The defense on Mitchell and Garland was good from the perimeter guys, but Allen and Mobley each had over 20 points. How do you plan on correcting that defense?
BRIAN KEEFE: Some of that was basis a little bit of what we were doing trying to get the ball out of those hands, so a little bit is they were going to get receiving end passes, so they were going to probably have an uptick, but we would live with some of that.
We made mistakes. We're going to look at it tomorrow and get better at it, but we wanted to make Mitchell and Garland passers.
Q. You mentioned the defense against Mitchell and Garland. How do you think Johnny Davis did in that situation?
BRIAN KEEFE: I thought he was great. Got caught with the one foul, went for the pump fake. But other than that, Johnny has been great. The last three games, his defense has been great. His defensive rebounding has been great. He brings great energy. But that's kind of the role we envision for him. He's been positive on the defensive end.
Q. As a leader what type of message do you give to the team to keep their spirits up and try to get out of this rut that they're in?
BRIAN KEEFE: That you shouldn't be happy we lost. We're never happy about that. But we should be about the process. So that reminded us -- we didn't have two good games over the trip, coming out of the break, but that looked like the team that we have been building, and if we keep stacking those type of habits, repeatable actions that we showed tonight, that will lead to the wins.
We're focused on the process of how to get there, and I thought our guys made a great step in that direction tonight.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports