Pelicans 132, Wizards 120
Q. What do you think went wrong on offense?
BRIAN KEEFE: We turned the ball over too much and they had too many offensive rebounds. Didn't give ourselves a chance to get a shot up on the rim, and then they had some timely offensive rebounds that hurt us throughout the whole game. Hard to win when you don't get too many more possessions and they have so many more than you do.
Q. When you look at Alex and what he was able to do with the early kind of struggles but then figure it out, what does that say to you of his growth so far?
BRIAN KEEFE: Oh, we've talked about this a lot about him. He's growing and learning each moment, each game. He struggled a little bit early to start the game, but then he had some impact on the boards, pushing the ball on the break, finding guys. He's growing and learning. He helped us get back in the game for sure.
Q. Some of the processing plays he's had in transition, when you see some of that, does it make you excited for what he could be as he develops those parts of his game?
BRIAN KEEFE: Well, that's one thing we've wanted him to do from the get-go and we've seen it all year. When he does rebound it, he's got the license to push the ball up the court because we think he makes really good decisions, so I'm glad that he was on the boards and able to get us some easy baskets tonight.
Q. I know you mentioned the rebounding was an issue for you. Was there something with regards to the turnovers and the timing of them too tonight that also played into the limited possessions in that fourth quarter?
BRIAN KEEFE: For sure. Give them credit; they upped their pressure. We didn't handle it well, caused some turnovers, then like I said, timely offensive rebounding. Hard to overcome both those things.
Q. You never want to see a player go down with an injury of any kind, but it seemed like that stretch that JP did go out of the game, it seemed like the rhythm was kind of taken out of you guys. Did you notice that yourself?
BRIAN KEEFE: No, you never want to see a guy go out and you'll never hear me talk about using that as something for a reason why the game didn't go the right way. Nice that he was able to come back in, but we just didn't handle their pressure well, turned the ball over, and didn't get great shots.
Q. Without Bilal, how tough was it to guard CJ McCollum tonight?
BRIAN KEEFE: We've got to do it as a unit. Like I said, we're not going to replace Bilal by ourselves. We have to do it as a group. Give him credit; he made some tough shots. But we made some mistakes, too. We need to be better.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports