Cavaliers 135, Wizards 116
Q. Correct me if I'm wrong, it did seem like there were times tonight where you were a little more fired up, more demonstrative on the bench than you've been in the past. What did you see from the game that merited that kind of reaction?
BRIAN KEEFE: Because our guys were fighting in the first half and I wanted to be in the mix with them. I was super proud of how they came out and competed. We got down, I think there was a little bit -- I don't know the exact score, but I think we were down 12 or 13 in the second quarter, and we closed the quarter really well. The guys demanded I fight with them, and that's what we're going to do, we're going to do this together.
Q. Bilal had a career high 23 points tonight. What did you like about his performance?
BRIAN KEEFE: He took the shots when he was open. We talked about we want him to be aggressive, but great lessons for Bilal tonight. He's going against a top-flight guy, made some mistakes that he's going to grow from and learn, but we liked his offensive effort, so he's growing, and these are great experiences for all our guys, so really great stuff for him.
Q. Why did the Cavs pull away and do so as decisively as they did?
BRIAN KEEFE: Yeah, we missed some shots early in that third quarter that were decent shots, and then they made theirs. Our defense kind of dropped a little bit. I thought defensively we were pretty good at the half. We closed the quarter pretty well, and then they go 38 and 38 the last two quarters.
We've shown that we can be consistent against pretty high-level teams. The two first games, two high-level playoff-ready teams, but we need to do it for longer, and that's what we're here to work on. We're going to get better at that, and we're not happy with that, so we've got to get better the start of the third and play longer, more consistent minutes.
But the guys were pretty resilient, and even in the fourth we went on a 13-4 run in the fourth, so that number might be a little bit off, but we still kept fighting. Stuff to grow from.
Q. Is Kuz pressing?
BRIAN KEEFE: No, I loved his aggressiveness tonight. I think his free throws were great. He got 10. So he was attacking. This guy is a scorer. This guy is going to make shots. He was playing the right way. Sometimes they just don't go in. But his aggressiveness, his intent and how he played, that's how I want him playing.
Q. What did you think about the way Alex fared against obviously a pretty tough front line?
BRIAN KEEFE: I thought he was pretty good. Had some moments that he's going to learn, but then he had some moments, you're like, this is why we have him here, protecting the rim, guarding guys on the perimeter, his activity level. I think you saw some good moments from him, but definitely things we've got to improve on.
Q. What have you thought about Bub's adjustment going up against NBA defenses?
BRIAN KEEFE: I mean, this is great. The one thing Bub does well for us is he organizes us. He understands our system. He understands us to get us in good stuff. That's why he's out there starting, because he helps our team get organized. That's pretty impressive for a guy his age, but again, this is a learning process. He's seeing all these different things, coverages, teammates, new guys he's playing with, opponents. But I love his spirit. You can feel his spirit, his competitiveness. That's what we want from Bub.
Q. You talked about Bilal taking the open shots. Is that something you feel like he improved on from Game 1 to Game 2?
BRIAN KEEFE: I just think he read what the game gave him. I think the first game he got into the paint and was able to attack and play for his teammates. Today shots were open, he took them. We just want our guys to read the game and make the right proper play, and the game is going to tell you what that is, and that was a great thing from Bilal tonight. He read the game well.
Q. You talked about the lessons he learned. What were they?
BRIAN KEEFE: How hard it is to do it on both ends. This is something he's going to grow into, a ball handler, decision maker, plus guard the best player. These are great things.
You have to go through that. That's not something you just flip the switch on. You have to go through that and learn what that feels like, and he's learning every day. He'll grow and be better the next time from this. These are good things to learn from and grow, but we've got to keep challenging ourselves.
Q. Nine threes for Bilal. What can that do, just the fact that he's willing to take that many shots? What can that do and open up for him inside?
BRIAN KEEFE: They're going to have to close to him. Like I said, take the shots that are there, play the game the right way, and Bilal has always done that. The game told him to shoot those threes tonight because he was open. He let it fly. That's what we want from him, to be aggressive. We give all our guys that license; when you're open, let it rip.
Q. What have been your impressions of Jordan's play at the point guard position coming into this year and his commitment to being a willing passer and get his teammates involved?
BRIAN KEEFE: I think he's been great with that. He's helped organize us. He gets us into our sets really fast. He plays with pace. I often say this about Jordan: Him and Kyle are probably No. 1 on the scouting report, so there's a game plan versus him, and he understands that to get us into our stuff, he needs to play fast and get downhill against teams that are preparing to stop that from him, and he's able to execute and get us into good shots.
He's been great. His defense has gotten better. I've been really pleased with Jordan.
Q. Are there any conversations that you had with him where you try to tell him to keep that balance of making sure that he's attacking on the scoring end because on a night like tonight where he started out hot and then it just seems like the ball never really came back to him in the second half.
BRIAN KEEFE: Just be aggressive. The game is going to come in ebbs and flows, and that's one thing that everybody learns. It's not going to be your fastball the whole game. I think that's one thing that's good about him is he's generating offense for us, and that's what we want him to do.
Q. For the first two games, how would you evaluate you guys coming out of the locker room at halftime? It feels like the first two nights that's when the pull-away has happened.
BRIAN KEEFE: Yeah, for sure. That's the thing that's happened, so we've got to address that, and we did. We're going to address that as a group, but we've got to start better. Those third quarters have hurt us a little bit. Something to grow on.
Q. You guys went with Sarr and Jonas to start the second half. What was the reasoning for that? Why wasn't that the case from the get-go?
BRIAN KEEFE: Because that's what we finished the second with, and we went on a run to finish the quarter. They were going to start big.
We're going to play some different lineups. These are things we're going to do. We're not going to always go with traditional, start one half. We're going to read what the game tells us, so we wanted to go that way because we finished really well second quarter with that unit, good defensively.
Q. You got Jared in there earlier tonight than we saw him against Boston. What has he continued to bring and how big was it to get him locked up?
BRIAN KEEFE: Great. Great to have him here. Thrilled about that. He's one of the highest high-character guys here. Jared settles us down. Pure point guard, gets us in our stuff, calms us down. That's why I wanted him on the court tonight.
Q. You guys shot 44 percent in the paint. Was that just a matter of their rim protection, having great shot blockers, or was there something you guys could have done better?
BRIAN KEEFE: I'm sure there's something. You've always got to give the opponent credit. This is an elite defensive team. I'm sure that their bigs and their size affected some of that stuff, but I thought we actually got some decent looks. Some didn't go in.
Q. You talked a lot about the defensive intensity you wanted to see from your team. Through two games have you seen it as much as you would like?
BRIAN KEEFE: We've seen it for about half the game, to be honest. We just need to see it for longer. We've shown that we have the capabilities to do that, but we need to be more consistent, play for longer stretches.
That's I think what's happened a little bit in the second halves the two games is that our defense has dropped, sometimes when we have missed shots. Missed shots we can't always control. Process I thought was pretty good, but we've got to keep defending, and that's something we're going to keep working on.
Q. How do you get there, to move from defending well for half the game to the full game?
BRIAN KEEFE: You've got to keep focusing on it, keep working on it, being intentional about it. I promise you that's what we've been doing and we're going to continue to do.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports