Sixers vs. Thunder Postgame Quotes: “I was basically playing with one hand.”

Sixers

Brett Brown

On whether he was happy with the amount of three-point attempts the team had…

I stand by what I said. I felt like we could have shot more…I thought that we shot the shots that we should have shot, and I thought that we could have shot more. We made a decent percentage.

On Trey Burke settling into the rotation…

He sure came in and helped us a lot. When we get into early foul trouble [Ben Simmons and Tobias Harris]…my point is, all of a sudden, we needed to reorder the deck. We have Trey there. He can play the one and he can play the two. He really has emerged to be something a little bit different on our team. He has made a significant impact offensively during that spell that I’m talking about.

On what he saw from Joel Embiid…

I haven’t spoken to doctors and I haven’t spoken to Joel, but originally as the game is playing out, it looked like he hurt his hand…For him to go back in to then come back out and play, I was shocked that he was able to come back out and play. As far as what it means going forward, I don’t know that. What I do know is that that is a tough return to the court. That is a competitive statement and I appreciate him. I respect that and we needed to play well here at home. We haven’t been on the right side of the win-loss column lately and I respect his motives to come back.

On whether he was more impressed with Josh Richardson’s offense or his defense…

I like him coming out aggressive. We need him to find the rim. We need him to be amongst this notion, my desire to shoot more threes…I like Josh. He came out in attack mode and he looked to rise up. On the other side of the ball, I thought that he was really harassing. He was able to navigate stuff…I thought he played hard and was able to not whack them and send them to the line. He was really good tonight.

Joel Embiid

On the play where he injured his hand…

I think it happened a couple plays early. I felt my finger snapping and I thought I fractured it. I went into the locker room and they took some x-rays and said that it was nothing. I just came back and it just happened. It was just unfortunate.

On how much pain he was in…

It was pretty bad. I was basically playing with one hand. In the midst of the losing streak, I just wanted to make sure that I did everything possible to help get us the win. I’m glad that we were able to get the win.

On how important it was for him to come back into the game…

I really wanted to win this game. Consequences, we will see later, but as the leader, I wanted to go out and show my teammates that if you want to win, you have to go out there and do everything possible.

On what side of the ball the injury impacted most…

I would say that mostly offense and rebounding. I couldn’t go up with two hands…There was a couple of times that I could have gone up with both hands, but I just couldn’t, and I just kept on tapping it. Offensively, not being able to put a hand on the ball or dribble with the left hand, or anything with it, but I’m glad we got the win.

Ben Simmons

On playing at home after a losing streak…

I hate losing. In my head I’m coming home to play in front of my fans, so I’m going to give everything I got and do what I can to get that win.

On Joel Embiid…

I’m glad he came back out. We needed him. He’s a big part of this team. We were glad to have him back out there.

On playing competitive teams going forward…

We know we can play with the best teams, it’s just a matter of putting it all together at the right times. Losing games that we shouldn’t lose, things like that, obviously frustrates us, but at the same time we know we can compete with the best.

Josh Richardson

On how team played…

It took a lot of resilience on our part to come out here and give the effort that we gave. Proud of the guys for how we ended the first half and how we ended the game. I think they could’ve made it a little closer and we did a good job executing.

On playing aggressive…

I think it kind of gives us a different look when I’m aggressive like that. I have to take it upon myself to do it a little more often, like every day. I’m a very unselfish guy, so sometimes I get caught trying to get my teammates going the whole game and not looking for my own offense.

On playing with Ben Simmons…

Ben is a great guy and a very smart player. He makes good reads a lot of the time and he’s easy to play off of. He’s 6’ 10” and very athletic, so it’s easy to get to a spot and kind of throw it over to him and he’ll usually make something good happen.

Thunder

Billy Donovan

On what prevented them from fighting their way back into the game…

I think you have to go back to that second quarter, I thought we didn’t close the half great. We dug ourselves a little bit of a hole, and we’ve had that happen before where we’ve gotten down, but these guys always fight back. I thought we fought and played pretty hard and pretty well in the second half. I thought the things that hurt us in the second half was, one, I thought we gave up some timely offensive rebounds and we just didn’t shoot the ball great from the free-throw line … the things that we talked about were going to be important during the game was winning the free-throw line battle, which we did do, and at least being really competitive trying to win the rebounding battle and we did that. Steven [Adams] had a monster game, played really well…we had some opportunities, we just couldn’t put enough together to get over the hump.

On what freed up some of the easy baskets for the 76ers…

Some of it was probably more of our defensive schemes … they’re ducking in and posting up, and we have to protect the paint and protect the rim, and for some of those situations we’re closing to [Tobias] and we’re trying to get out there, but they’re so good at the rim, so big, so long and physical that if you just stay out on an island and try to press up on three-point shooters you’re letting them play with a lot of space in and around the basket… with their size we had a hard time stopping them, so some of it was trying to shrink the floor and trying to provide some help in the paint; it led to them making some shots. I thought [Josh] Richardson made some timely shots as well.

On Steven Adams’ performance…

He did a great job, you know [Joel] Embiid’s hard to guard, gets fouled a lot and is really crafty down there. He really played an unbelievable game; he scored the ball and rebounded the ball at a high level, so give him credit. He had a lot to do with us really having a [plus] rebounding margin against them this game.

Chris Paul

On what he thought the difference was in this game…

We didn’t get timely stops like we usually do in most of our other games…we’ve got to be better; if you play enough of these close games you’re going to lose a few of them, and unfortunately we lost this one.

On preparing for their back-to-back…

Good thing for us is there’s a short memory for this game. We’ll get to Brooklyn tonight for the game tomorrow and got to get this one tomorrow before we get back home.

Steven Adams

On what the difference was down the stretch…

Down the stretch, it was – I don’t know, I don’t know, down the stretch obviously we could have done things down the stretch, but I thought we could’ve done a much better job at the start of the game. It depends on how you want to cut it. We got some pretty good things going, but just didn’t make some of the shots. And then there’s a lot of things, like, pace with the ball that I think we didn’t do.

On how Oklahoma City won the rebounding battle…

Defensively, it was just box-outs. They have Ben Simmons, he’s a bit of a trouble-maker down there anyway, a really good rebounder, offensive rebounder – good size, strong. So it’s tough, and guys did a really good job – I haven’t seen the film – whether they were double-booking or just doing a good job of boxing out. Even if it’s just contesting the ball, that’s one major key part of rebounding is instead of “maybe he might get the ball,” like has a good chance, even contesting it might throw him off a little bit, which helps.

On his personal play…

I mean, I thought I did some things okay, but a lot of things I could’ve done a lot better. It depends on how you want to look at it, if you’re a stats guy you’ll be like, “Oh, cool, bro.” But if you’re a system guy, you’d understand it a bit more.