76ers 153, Wizards 131
Q. AG, at halftime I asked James what -- even going back to the road trip and then in that first half, what you have meant to the team and just the benefit of what you've been able to do over the course of the last couple of months. He spoke about your leadership both on and off the floor. Where have you seen yourself grow the most in the last month?
ANTHONY GILLS: Where have I grown the most? I would say as a husband, as a father. I've been doing a great job leading my family in the right direction. I try to take a look at myself every morning and see where I am and try to recalibrate my brain to serve every single day.
So I've been doing a great job of reflecting and trying to be there for the guys on my team as well. That's like after my faith, family, the guys on my team are right up there. I care about each and -- one of these guys so just want to be there for them as much as I can.
Q. In LA, yep I'm going to bring it up, you eclipsed the 1000 career point mark. Will and Bub made it a point to ask you about it. You always give credit to your teammates. Tonight you were not only the scorer but the facilitator. How have you seen your passing evolve as your scoring?
ANTHONY GILLS: This year more than any I get to play the five, which is kind of the hub of our offense. So the point guard doesn't have the ball usually the five man does so you can make a lot of plays.
The guys on our team are doing a great job learning the game, when to cut and do certain things, so it's easy for me to make the right pass when they are doing those things. For me, I just want to see these guys succeed.
If I'm the five man in that position I'm going to distribute the ball as much as I can because I want these guys to do that are best on the there, score the points they want to score. So for me the five man has been playing great for me this year and my mindset.
Q. Congrats on a career high. Generally you're known as like the good personality guy, the helpful vet. Then when you have a good game like this, 6 assists, 21 points, I don't know, even though it's nice to be known do you ever bristle against that reputation, like to be known more for on-court basketball play?
ANTHONY GILLS: Yeah, I wouldn't be here if I wasn't good at basketball. That's never the question. It takes moments like this where we need a little bit of extra scoring from me to see that.
Ultimately, my job is to be here to serve these guys. I could care less about a career high, how many assists I have. That's not important to me. The important thing is that when we get in the locker room after the game everybody is connected and a unit. Continue to build what we have here.
Q. You mentioned they're playing you more at the five, through the five. Is that new for you or harken back to a previous time in your basketball career?
ANTHONY GILLS: Back when I was at UVA I played the five. I think I shot two three-pointers my entire career at UVA. Shoutout it Coach Bennett. Unbelievable coach who knew where to put me the right spots to put me to be successful, and we won a lot of games there.
I can go back to those days where I was trying to help out the team at the five and fighting, battling in the paint trying to get rebounds and stuff like that.
Q. And then this was kind of so you. I saw at the end the game there is what do they call it, a time out for infection or something. You grabbed the disinfectant spray and handed it to the guy. Were you in a rush? Just trying to help? How would you describe that?
ANTHONY GILLS: No, just trying to help as much as I can. I saw something happening and for me, I feel like we can -- I can do a lot of different things, including help out the team attendants get blood.
Q. So during the game there was a point where the Wizards had control, second quarter of the game. And what do you think was happening in terms of team dynamics and how do you think that can be maintained in future games? What do you think needs to be worked on in practice moving forward to kind of carry that on?
ANTHONY GILLS: Yeah, I think it comes down to our experience. Like we had the lead like you said. Then you look on the other side of the court and they have a lot of experience. They've been in the tough games and they fought through a lot of that stuff.
We don't have that. We have a lot of the young guys on this team who have never been in this position before. That's what this year is for. We're here trying to learn, trying to grow, trying to put people in positions they never been in before so that moving forward we'll be able to handle the game like the Sixers did tonight.
They spread the lead out, were able to control the game being more dominant, knowing exactly when to speed up, when to slow down, those kind of things of.
So I think with our maturity that will help us out a lot.
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FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports