PELICANS HEAD COACH ALVIN GENTRY:

“We won the game – that’s the only thing that matters to me. Obviously, we have some things that we have to execute better, but [Nemanja] Bjelica made a great shot. It was the perfect storm for [the Kings]. We were backing up off the guy, bumped him. It was a foul and he made the shot, stepped to the line and made the free throw. JJ [Redick] made a great shot at the end. So at the end of the day, the only thing that matters is that we found a way to win a game on the road, which I think is very important.”

ON HAVING A STRONG START TO THE FOURTH QUARTER

“We did and then we had a couple of defensive breakdowns when we were up 14 to give up two straight 3s. The only thing that can hurt you in those situations when you’re playing against them and playing against the clock is to give up 3s and we gave up two of them, which hurts us. Then had a couple of shots that were makeable for us that just didn’t go in. But to me, the big thing was that our guys kept their poise and found a way to win a game on the road when everything that could go wrong had gone wrong.”

ON IF THE LAST PLAY WAS DESIGNED FOR JJ REDICK AND HIS REACTION TO THE GAME-WINNER

“Well, it was to either go to JJ or Jrue [Holiday] – Jrue was coming off a screen and JJ was coming off another screen. I knew that [Derrick] Fav[ors] would get him open. I thought he was going to shoot the shot from the top, but he said they ran at him so hard that he saw an open lane and drove it there and shot a floater. Which, we didn’t know if we were quite there with JJ’s floater yet. But he did a great job of getting it high on the board I thought and it went in. Like I said, to me the big thing is that we played the game on the road, which I think was against a very talented team. I know Fox is just getting back and trying to get his legs under him, but they got a lot of great young talent and we were able to find a way to win the game, so that’s the most important thing. All the other things we can correct and we can look at and we can talk about, but just the fact that we persevered and made a basket to win a game – a walk-off basket – was important.”

PELICANS GUARD LONZO BALL:

ON JJ REDICK’S GAME-WINNER

“The bigs stepped up on the 3-ball. [Derrick Favors] set a good screen for him. He got the step and threw it up with the left. He practices it all the time in the morning. We make fun of him, but it came in handy for us tonight.”

ON HOW CONFIDENT HE’S BEEN FEELING ON OFFENSE

“I know how to play the game of basketball. For me, it’s just making sure my body is good – it feels good right now.”

ON HOW PROUD THE TEAM FEELS WITH THEIR OFFENSE

“We were kind of down the whole game. We got off to an early start, but other than that Sacramento kind of had control of the game. I thought in the fourth we took it back and ended up closing it out.”

PELICANS GUARD JJ REDICK:

ON THE GAME WINNING SHOT

“I think Alvin drew up a great play regardless of whoever that second cutter was coming off [Derrick Favors]. There was going to be a lot of space. D Favs set a great screen because I turned and Richaun [Holmes] kind of reacted to me getting open. I don’t think the plan was to switch, but because D Favs screen was similar to our play in the first half I felt like he was coming at me too hard so I can get by him. Once I got by him, my mindset was to get the ball up high off the glass. It was one of those shots where I’ve practiced that shot. When I shot it I knew it was in – I knew I put the right amount of arc and it was going to go off the glass.”

ON HOW MEANINGFUL THIS WIN WAS TONIGHT

“I think any win is great for us. You look at the standings after that game and we’re three back from the eight seed. So we’re fighting for our lives. Hopefully with Zion [Williamson] coming back and the way we played over the last couple of weeks, I think we’re turning in the right direction.”

ON FEELING LIKE THERE IS A LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL WITH ZION

“He’s close – he’s close for sure. We’ve recently seen him ramp up his activity. We are all real excited to get him back for sure.”