HEAD COACH ALVIN GENTRY
On the game:
“Like I said, we are a work in progress. I loved the effort that we played with. I thought we did a good job and put ourselves in a position to win against a really good team. That’s all I can ask them to do. There are a lot of good things that we can take away, some things that we still have to improve on. I think our turnovers obviously hurt us a lot. I thought there were a couple of huge rebounds that we just didn’t come up with. We played with a lineup near the end that we hadn’t really played with. All of the stuff is new. I just think if we keep playing with this effort, and playing the way we’re playing, unselfishly, that it’s going to turn.”
On what you liked about Josh Hart’s play:
“He did a good job on (James) Harden. He (Harden) got 29 points off 29 shots—that’s the best you can hope for against him. I thought we did a good job of kind of keeping him away from his shot and doing a good job of challenging his shots. I thought we did a really good job on him. I thought our defense was good. We had a couple of let downs in transition, but for the most part we were solid for most of the game.”
GUARD LONZO BALL
On the Pelicans making progress:
“I think we’re getting better every game, but we need to close teams out. We put ourselves in position to win every game, but we haven’t won one yet. It comes down to little things, rebounding, loose balls, turnovers, fouling. Like I said we’ll keep watching film, keep practicing and hopefully translate them into wins.”
On the Pelicans defense:
“We have a chance to be great on defense. We have guys that can individually guard the ball. We can keep guys in front of us, it’s just about getting the schemes down and keep giving effort every night.”
GUARD JOSH HART
On his offensive/defensive performance:
“I just tried to help the team anyway I could. I said from the start of the season, I want to be an all-defensive player. I said I have to take the challenge, and I have to go out there and execute. I had conversations with our defensive coaches and any advice they can give me to guard this dude (James Harden), just talk to me—I’m all ears. They gave me a good scouting report and I tried to go out and execute that as best as I could.”
On what has impressed him most about the team’s playing:
“How hard we’ve been playing. It’s frustrating. We’re 0-3 and we could easily be 3-0. Houston is definitely going to be a playoff team, Toronto (Raptors) is definitely a playoff team and we hung with those guys all the way to the last second. We could have won either game.”
FORWARD BRANDON INGRAM
On the game:
“Every game I just try to come in and progress from the previous game and try to see what I can do better and just try to go out there and do it. I was just taking advantage of the rhythm that I had trying to make shots and trying to still create for my teammates. Just staying aggressive at all times, trying to be good on the offensive and defensive end.”
On what the Pelicans need to improve on:
“Everything that we’ve done, or we’ve done incorrectly, can be corrected. Today I had missed two layups and two missed free throws and we lost by three. That’s six points myself, everybody could have done something better—I could have done something better that would’ve put us over the hump.”
