Philadelphia 76ers
Brett Brown
On Joel Embiid’s night…
Just what you all would say: he was dominant. He was dominant making his free throws. He was dominant as an interior presence. Scoring that volume of points at that efficient of a rate is impressive. I thought the thing that doesn’t show up on the stat sheet that he did as well as anything was that he handled the double teams. Whether he passed out of it because there was a crowd, whether he went quick because the double teams were coming and he didn’t get involved in that. I thought he handled the double teams really well.
On the team losing the lead…
I think that you start looking at the and-ones. I think they had five and-ones. I thought physically we weren’t there…You want to try to put teams down when you have a lead as best as you can. It is the NBA and there is a little bit of human nature…By and large, I hate the first three minutes of NBA third periods…it takes a while to get going. I think that that team is so young, and they don’t know what they don’t know. Then they have Trae Young and just look at their recent performances, Trae’s especially. I think that that 40-point period in the third was a result of that type of attitude and statistic on the and-ones, to me.
On why he brought Al Horford back into the starting lineup…
For a few reasons. When you don’t have Ben [Simmons], you start thinking about what you are going to do. I look at a start as the opportunity to grow a group that will be playing when Ben is sitting. Ben is not going to be playing 48 minutes. When you look at a group that could play when Ben’s not with us, can I have an opportunity to see who might be able to be the back-up point guard as another legitimate ball-handler? In that design, Al came in. Was a portion of can I help jump start him? For sure. I thought that some of his passes tonight were elite. He really made some adult plays, some sophisticated plays and I started him for those reasons.
On needing Joel more down low and at the free-throw line…
He knows it more than I can say it. With the news of Ben and him not being there, it’s clear to him that he’s gotta come out. He’s gotta play like he did tonight, for the most part. His mentality is what most impressed me. We saw the same thing against Brooklyn. We’re all going to point to the numbers. The bottom line is this: when he comes out with that activity, that energy, that mentality, he makes a statistician work and we will win a lot of games.
Joel Embiid
On his expectations and mindset tonight…
I just came in with the mindset of just being aggressive, just trying to get fouled. I was just being aggressive. Playing within the concept of the game, especially knowing that they were going to double-team it up the whole game, double, triple. I was just being patient, being the goalkeeper and just finding my teammates.
On his mindset going forward this season…
I said it right before All-Star break that I was going to have a different mindset and it wasn’t just about tonight. Since the Clippers game, I’ve had the mindset of just being aggressive just trying to dominate offensively and defensively. I said I was going to get back to having fun, but having fun comes in different forms. I don’t always have to be smiling or laughing all the time. I can have fun just dominating the game. Obviously, tonight was just one of those nights where I was having fun like the old days, just having fun with the crowd. Some nights, I just want to dominate and stay quiet, but it was cool. Most important thing is that we bounced back and we got the win.
On bouncing back from some lows this season…
It’s just bouncing back. We can’t get too high and we can’t get too low. Like I always say, you’re going to make shots some nights, you’re going to miss them some nights. Tonight, I did make some. The other night, bad night to go cold, but I missed some, so it was a bad game. Tonight, I had a better game, so I’m just going to keep being steady and just keep trying to gradually get better. We play again in two nights, so we move on. Everybody’s going to forget about tonight. The other night, we moved on and we’ve got to get another win.
Tobias Harris
On how they got the game going early…
I thought from the opening tip our energy was good. Just the way that we were pulling for one another, defensively. I thought we did a really good job of getting deflections and getting out in transition and running. It was kind of a good combination of making shots, at the same time having a good pop to our offense, and I think a lot of that was from our defensive intensity.
On what stood out from Joel’s performance…
Honestly, just his dominance out there. He could do that every single night out there if he wanted to. I think you saw him go out there tonight and impose his will…I just think he did a really good job of picking the game apart from the beginning. He saw the double-team and kicked it out really fast a couple of times and adjusted to how they were sending the double-teams. He went quick on a lot of his post-ups, and he kind of really picked the game apart from the low block and found a lot of different ways to get going tonight. He was dominant.
On battling through injury…
Obviously, I’m still battling through a bit, but I always say if I can give anything to help my team win, any percentage when I feel like I’m not putting myself in danger, then I’m going to go out there and play and be effective.
On having to play with different rotations when key players, like Ben Simmons, are out…
We kind of have been adapting to different lineups, different guys, but everybody stays ready and everybody has a respect for one another and in each other’s games. A guy like Shake [Milton] comes in and plays well and was very solid for us tonight. He’s been solid every time he’s gotten an opportunity. It’s a tribute to everybody really staying right, staying ready throughout this whole season because any time you could be called on, especially with the way the NBA is.
Atlanta Hawks
Lloyd Pierce
On what they changed after the 76ers’ 41-point first quarter…
Just tried to mix it up. We went zone sporadically, it wasn’t really a set defense, we were just trying to move and shift. Obviously, Joel [Embiid] is a handful… in the first half our rotations were poor… we tried to just throw different defenses at him in the second quarter and then a lot in the third quarter.
On Joel’s play and how he’s seen him improve…
He’s just a smarter player. He knows how to attack against a double team a little bit better. He’s low with the duck-ins, he’s using his size and his physicality a lot more, and tonight he was really tough on the offensive glass, just cleaning up a lot of missed shots, especially when we were scrambling and rotating.
On what they can take away from this game…
I think anytime we can prove to get back in a game, the real lesson is how do we avoid the slow starts? We don’t want to be in this predicament all the time, but we know we can climb back. The NBA’s 48 minutes and there’s a lot of time… like I said, in the third quarter we got it to six with five-and-a-half minutes to go, so there was a lot of basketball to play. We’re trying to figure out how do we manage the game from start to finish and not put ourselves in these tough situations where we’re always playing that way? But our guys are resilient, our guys are tough. They play with momentum, they feed off of each other’s energy, and I think if we can control and dictate that style of play right from the start, I think we’ll create more momentum as we’re going.
On Trae Young’s mentality and ability with the basketball…
He’s a fearless competitor. He thinks he’s got a mismatch in a cross match every time, and he’s always in position to find some form of a score… he’s definitely a fearless competitor and is always aggressive with the basketball.
On De’Andre Hunter’s play tonight…
I thought he was good… there’s never a flashy play with him… he’s trying to make the right plays, is always in the right spot, he’s a very solid offensive player, and we needed that. We missed him the other night, but it was good to get him back tonight.
John Collins
On playing against the 76ers at home…
They’re very good in this building. It’s always tough to come out strong on the road, so we just have to do a better job of coming out with some intensity. I feel like we turned it up later in the game, not too late. We took the lead, but we’ve got to do a better job of finishing.
On the team’s energy at the end of the game…
As a young team, we’re used to battling a lot, and having to face a lot of uphill battles, so for us, it’s always the mentality of attacking and trying to just get better.
On what caused the loss tonight…
I feel like it was on us tonight. I feel like we didn’t really do a solid job of team defense and it’s like you said, we just got to execute down the stretch and make better plays.