Grizzlies - 140, Wizards - 112
Q. Jordan had just six field goal attempts tonight after shooting 26 last night. Do you think about that at all? Do you think that he maybe should have taken more shots or been a little more aggressive on offense or just taking what the game gives you?
BRIAN KEEFE: A little bit taking what the game gave him, but also credit to Memphis. They designed a whole plan to almost basically block someone like him. Deny him the ball, top block him, try to take him out of the game. Threw off the rhythm of our team for sure, so credit to them.
But I thought he got a little bit of flow in the third quarter when we played fast and got stops. The problem wasn't him scoring. The problem was our transition defense and our defensive rebounding tonight.
Q. Do you think the second end of the backs had anything to do with that?
BRIAN KEEFE: I do not, no.
Q. What was the common thread for the turnovers?
BRIAN KEEFE: Playing in the crowds. That's one of their strengths, they turn people over. They use their athleticism. I think we were a little out of rhythm, and we were trying to get too deep sometimes and make the home run pass instead of making the simple play like we did yesterday. That caused some turnovers for sure.
Q. What held you guys back from three-point range?
BRIAN KEEFE: They did a good job. They were funneling everything into their bigs, like we talked about with Jordan. They were top blocking him. When we got stops, we were able to get good shots. It was more our defense tonight.
Q. With Bilal to have a first half explosion like he did, what does it say for him, at least confidence-wise, to get out of that mini slump he was in?
BRIAN KEEFE: I've talked about this. I never thought anything had ever wavered for him. It was just the rhythm of the game was changing for him. Different teammates, new guys he was playing with. The defense has been super impressive lately.
He's going to keep getting better. This is an emerging player. You saw his capabilities getting into the paint, making plays for others, for himself. That's how he's going to keep growing with playing on both sides of the ball.
Q. There was a stretch in the second quarter where you guys exclusively played through him at some point. What does it say about his capabilities that he's able to carry the offense for possessions?
BRIAN KEEFE: For sure, we were able to generate good shots. A little bit, to be honest, Jordan doesn't get enough credit, they were completely ignoring everybody else. We got some easy rolls, some easy baskets, some easy kicks out to the corner because they were so focused on Jordan.
When you're the main guy on the team, you get a lot of attention. That helped us, but Bilal made the right decisions in that action we were running, and that kind of stabilized us for four minutes going into that.
Q. Can you talk about Champagnie's play the last two games?
BRIAN KEEFE: He's shown who he is. The guy is a good defender, open shot maker, cutter, defensive, elite, physical, active guy. And then his offensive rebounding. So I've been pleased with this is part of his development, getting these opportunities. I've been happy with the minutes that he's played for us.
Q. What did you think about the way JV played tonight?
BRIAN KEEFE: JV tried to give us everything he got. JV had a tough one last night and went the full toe-to-toe with Jokic, and I thought he came out here and helped set the tone tonight.
He's been doing that all year for us. He's a total professional. Again, our defense was the problem tonight, and we just didn't get back in transition. Some of that was turnovers.
They did what they did well. They got their transition game going off our turnovers and then the offensive rebounds. Those two things really hurt us tonight.
Q. Coach, got the win last night. Wasn't quite able to pull it off tonight. What do you think is the key to finding some consistency?
BRIAN KEEFE: I think it's in the day-to-day work. You've got to get lost in the work of these things for where our team is right now. That, I've been impressed with. We've got guys who are workers, who want to be in the gym.
We're learning that consistency, what that looks like. Tonight we didn't have as much as we did yesterday, but we've got a little bit of time here. We've got three games really in the next week and a half.
It's unusual in the NBA, for some of us who have been doing this for a long time, where you have this with the in-season tournament. We're going to take advantage of the practice days to really improve and be intentional about what we need to get better. So looking forward to that.
Q. Bub Carrington, he went 3 for 12 from the floor tonight. He got a lot of open looks. He shoots it with confidence. Do you guys tell him to keep shooting it even when he's slumping like that throughout the game?
BRIAN KEEFE: Of course, yeah. When our guys are open to shoot, we always tell them let it fly. That's our mentality. Always want our guys taking great shots, and he had some good ones tonight. Sometimes they're going to go in, sometimes they don't.
Q. With JV, how impressed have you been with his ability to play with pace despite being one of the bigger guys on the team?
BRIAN KEEFE: He's been great. Obviously, we want to play with good speed, we want to get into our offense quickly. We kind of play through him sometimes when he's coming in through trail -- his passing ability, the ability to find cutters.
He's a good stabilizer. He knows how to play. We run offense through him, so he's been quite helpful in that regard.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports