Timberwolves 120, Wizards 109
BRIAN KEEFE: Great response from our group tonight. Turnovers hurt us a little bit in the first half, but we showed in the second half, we cleaned that up, made some adjustments. The ball was moving. We were touching the paint, kicking out, but really it was our defense in the second half, held them down, terrific. Even with a huge free-throw disparity, we were still able to battle back in the game. We got guys who get to the rim, too. Just the calls were not there tonight.
Terrific response from our guys, resiliency, togetherness. That's something we can build on.
Q. Down by as many as 27 in that first half, you hold them in the second half, both the third and fourth quarter under 30. What was it about the defense that you were able to see it first, third and fourth but it went away in that second quarter?
BRIAN KEEFE: It was all turnovers. We just were turning the ball over on stops, in transition. That made them get on a little bit of a run, and then they got easy shots at the rim because of some of those things. The turnovers really hurt us there at the start of that second quarter.
Q. What did you like from the way Marvin and Tristan responded tonight without Alex stepping up dealing with the load that Rudy Gobert does bring?
BRIAN KEEFE: Those guys I thought did terrific. They haven't played that amount of minutes, and they were out there battling the whole game. Gave us different looks, different skill sets. Both offer different things offensively and defensively. I thought they gave everything they had tonight.
Q. You mentioned their free-throw disparity. As much as the guys wanted to attack the paint tonight, what does it say about them fighting through the frustration of not getting the whistle but still continuing to at least attack and put themselves in a position to make the official make the call?
BRIAN KEEFE: Our guys just kept putting their head down. They just played possession by possession. They didn't look at the score. They ignored all the stuff, the noise from the refs. They just played, and I thought that was a great growth by our group because that's what really happens.
You're going to have adversity hit in every game that you play in, and our guys handled all of those things together terrifically tonight.
Q. That fourth quarter you guys at multiple different points got it as close as six and then five a few times. What was preventing you from getting over that hump to get it within one possession and possibly tie or take the lead?
BRIAN KEEFE: Give them credit, they made some plays themselves. We missed a couple free throws. They got a couple offensive rebounds I thought that were timely for them. But the key was we got ourselves back in that game.
Q. Very balanced scoring from you all tonight as well, too, even with the big deficit in the first half. What did you like about the way the ball movement and body movement continued consistently, especially in the third and fourth quarters?
BRIAN KEEFE: We started off the game moving the ball really well. In that second half it was terrific. We cut the turnovers down. I think we only had five in the second half, 14 assists. So we were trying to make the right plays. The second quarter we got a little bit off, but you can see when we do that -- this is how we want to play. We want to have as many guys in double figures as possible. I don't know what the exact toll ended up being, but we were sharing it and moving it, and we're hard to guard when we do that.
Q. Lastly, how do you build on tonight? You mentioned it a couple times when you first spoke when you sat down. How do you build on tonight, especially with the response and resiliency you saw?
BRIAN KEEFE: Take a look at the film, look at the things we did well and grow from the things that we can learn from, keep preparing like we have and build on to the next game. That's how you just keep building things in this league.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports