Wizards 109, Kings 102
Q. What did you like about the last five minutes or so of the game, other than the fact that you won?
KYLE KUZMA: We won. I like how we executed. It was pretty sharp, simple. Ran the same couple plays. Everybody knew their spots. Jordan did a great job with the attention that he drew tonight. A lot of the blitzes that they were sending at him. He was making just the right play, hitting into Chaun. Chaun, another guy, making big plays in the last five minutes, whether it was four on threes, he had one, hit Corey, Corey drove, float. Other one he drove, got fouled, whatever, didn't get fouled. But we did a great job down the stretch.
Q. What do you feel like was the commonality when you guys -- when they were coming back after having a 15-point lead?
KYLE KUZMA: We got stagnant for sure. We were rolling, and it was the second unit, we were rolling for a quick second and we made some stops, and just got really stagnant, and it bit us in the butt. We did a great job coming out the third quarter, which we haven't all year, and really got the game, I think it was, to about 12, 13 pretty consistently, and we closed out. They were probably a little tired coming from that back to back in Toronto, and we took advantage of it.
Team win. Team win tonight.
Q. How big was the rebounding advantage you guys had?
KYLE KUZMA: I mean, Richaun was huge. He was huge for us all night. I'm sure he really wanted this win, obviously playing in Sac, and we really just played off of his fierceness tonight, and he did a great job. Deni pitched in.
But a lot of it was we kept Sabonis off the glass. That's always the key when you play Sac because he's a workhorse down there and he makes an emphasis to throw his body and get down there and punk people. We did a good job tonight.
Q. It seemed like the momentum swings were kind of tied to turnovers at least at times. How did you guys kind of settle down when the turnovers were piling up --
KYLE KUZMA: Yeah, during that little stretch we just had turnovers, spacing issues, guys just trying to make moves and playing on top of each other. I mean, besides that, it's not really about offense because we had a 19-point lead and let it slip, and that's really a lot of defensive issues. Fox got hot. He was due to get hot because he started the game out probably 0 for 8 or something. He hit about three straight threes or something, something like that. That's what great players are going to do, and the game of basketball is a game of runs. We just combatted their runs and made more runs.
Q. Speaking of runs, I was asking Coach about the run to end the first half where Sacramento outscored you 21-4, and he talked about how it's easy for players to forget about how they got the lead. Can you talk about how he coaches you to withstand those runs and come back better?
KYLE KUZMA: He gives us a lot of confidence, gives me a lot of confidence to be myself and play my game, and throughout the group, I think he does that pretty well. He was pretty animated after that 21-4 run, rightfully so, and we responded. We responded well. Response is something we haven't really done. It was good to feel from the group.
Q. Unrelated to tonight, I was curious if you've been able to share the court with Tristan Vukcevic, if he's been spending time with you around the clubhouse?
KYLE KUZMA: Nope. He's been on the bench a little bit the past couple games. Been able to be around him a little bit. But I've kind of kept track of him chatting back and forth throughout the season when he was overseas. Look forward to playing with him at some point.
Q. How do you find a kernel or two or growth and development that can maybe carry over to next season? I know you've got games left this season, but are there things you're seeing that you go, okay, it's something we can start to build on?
KYLE KUZMA: Just togetherness and being there for each other, playing on a string defensively. I think if we can kind of figure out some type of defensive rotations, I think that would be a positive. Playing with pace and space every possession, that's a positive if we can get to it.
Then also just like continuing to learn our teammates because a lot of times basketball is not X's and O's, it's about mismatches and advantages. So knowing if JP likes to go right, set the screen so he can get over the top and get downhill. Same with me learning Deni, learning the spots that guys are successful at. If we can do that as a team, it really doesn't matter about the X's and O's part. Those are the little things that we can kind of carry over and hopefully can springboard us into next year.
Q. Now that Bilal's rookie season is over, what do you think of the year that he had?
KYLE KUZMA: Up and down, like a rookie. I think his greatest trait is he's very inquisitive. I think that's a very important trait to have if he wants to learn, understanding why things work a certain way, how things go about. For your first year in the league, it can be a whirlwind, and I'm sure it was for him a little bit, especially not really having that much time off coming from Metro straight to the Summer League straight to this. That's a lot.
I give him credit. He's a work horse. He loves the game of basketball. He wants to get better. His offense will catch up to his defense. It's just a matter of time. Confidence and reps and learning what you want to do on the court, that takes a while. That takes a while for all of us to figure out what we are strong at on the court, and he will eventually.
Q. Where do you think his defense can go?
KYLE KUZMA: I think he's more ahead defensively than offensively. I think he just has a knack for sliding his feet, using his hands, obviously, getting weak-side blocks. His next step is just coming like that savant, being that basketball head and understanding what these elite players are trying to do, what are offenses trying to do so he can disrupt and take out, and he'll get there. Learning tendencies. A lot of times I feel like you can shot fake him a little bit, he'll get up in the air. Just those little things that he'll learn that come with being an NBA player and that will make him extremely successful.
Q. How important are victories like this when you're trying to solidify a culture of playing hard, playing to win?
KYLE KUZMA: You just said it, playing to win, extremely important. Any win is a great win, and that's really the NBA because any team can be beat on any given night and you'll take a win always. It's all about playing together and playing hard, playing smart. I figure that was probably one of the smarter games we've played all year from start to finish. It's all about building habits. I've said it all year. Obviously we'd love to have a couple more wins, but in the grand scheme of things, it's all about that growth.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports