Lakers 120, Wizards 101
Q. What shifted in that second half? Seemed like you guys were able to get to the pace that you wanted that you weren't necessarily able to really try to do in the first half.
BRIAN KEEFE: I thought we played a good first quarter. Got stagnant in the second. Give them some credit. They were starting out in zone and switching to man. Our ball movement, our pace, got a little bit bogged down. Led to some turnovers. Led so some transition.
I thought we came out at the start of the third playing with the pace that we wanted to and cut it to ten. They have then made a couple shots there late in the third to kind of extend it. Liked our resiliency in the third quarter.
Q. At halftime, talked about ball movement and body movement. How much of that was predicated in the success of the third quarter?
BRIAN KEEFE: Yeah, it was. Thought Bub did a terrific job getting us -- first of all we got stops, we turned them over a little bit, we upped out physicality.
But Bub played with great pace and our ball movement led after that. I thought that was a big difference for us.
Q. Brian, when you get whacked around in a couple games like this, what do you say to guys in these situations?
BRIAN KEEFE: You know, our guys are competitive just like anybody else. Our guys are going to be disappointed and frustrated. One thing that's great about our group is when we come back the next day, we're ready to work and get better. That's been our thing all year.
We still have I think seven games to go. Let's use this time to take advantage of it. Process is the most important thing for us, how we learn to get better, learn to train, prepare, all those things.
Our group has been doing that all year, so nothing will change. But we got competitors. Everybody wants to win. So we'll move on tomorrow, get ready for the next one.
Q. If you knew what you were getting into with this season kind of how it was probably going to go, has it been anymore or less difficult than you expected?
BRIAN KEEFE: No, I love our group. We got a fun group. Like I said, they come to work every day. They want to get better. We've had not the team success we wanted, but we've had a lot of growth from a lot of our guys that's going to really help us going forward.
But there is lessons to be learned still and I think we're going to take advantage of this next seven games.
Q. Curious in a game like this, the lessons that you can pull as it's going on to the guys for them to understand not only the process and the standards you guys have set since the beginning of the season.
BRIAN KEEFE: Yep.
Q. But how you can utilize, okay, this might have not worked but I understand what you were trying to do here in this pass. Here is what we could have maybe seen instead.
BRIAN KEEFE: Yeah, we're putting some guys in situations to learn and grow too. Playing Will Reilly at the point, and there is some great stuff he can learn from that. How it handle bigger and setups like that.
So there are things we are constantly talking about, and we're learning that stuff within the game, which is great. We are getting better at the next possession.
So always a chance to improve and that's what we're going to look forward to keep doing.
Q. How have you found the challenge of keeping bad habits from compounding? The guys are going through stuff like that, and keep trying to keep the habits as good as they can possibly be.
BRIAN KEEFE: I think for our group, like I said, I get the pleasure of being around them every day. The habits are good. They prepare right. They train right. We're learning because we're young. That's okay.
There is nothing -- we're not going to apologize for that and not going to use that as a excuse, but we are learning and getting better. So those are the things we stick on. The process has been right. Sometimes we don't always make the shots; sometimes we don't do it, but the process and what we're trying to do and the mindset has been correct so I've been happy with our guys.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports