	products recent interviews FastScripts archive about ASAP Sports

Our Clients:

Browse by Sport

Find us on

Subscribe to RSS

Click to go to
Asaptext.com

View our
e-Brochure

NBA PLAYOFFS ROUND ONE: JAZZ vs CLIPPERS

April 30, 2017

Quin Snyder

Los Angeles, California: Game Seven

Jazz - 104, Clippers - 91.

Q. How would you frame this win maybe in the context of a snapshot of your season?
QUIN SNYDER: Well, I think for us to have an opportunity to compete against a team that -- the professionalism, the toughness, the experience, all those things, was a growth opportunity for us. The fact that we were able to play well enough to win tonight, obviously you're pleased about that.

I think for us, this has been a year that's been -- you can either focus on the adversity or focus on the opportunity, and there's opportunities for us, and we've been -- opportunities is metaphor I can or indicative for guys like Derrick Favors, Joe Johnson, what he has done, either what happened to Rudy tonight, opportunities for Jeff Withey, playing 12 guys, I think. That old adage you've got to be ready, I thought it was true tonight and I thought we had a lot of guys that were ready, and that's basically what we've been this year is guys have had to be ready, and invariably they're needed.

Q. Before the series you said your team was green in this experience. Do you still consider that now that you got this, and then also, how much time do you have until you're just right back in the fire taking on the Warriors?
QUIN SNYDER: Well, I think your second question, whether it's when we leave here and get on the bus or tomorrow morning, however you want to kind of -- however you want to kind of conceptually move forward, I think that's something eventually we'll talk about, obviously not right now. We've got to kind of collect ourselves.

As far as being green goes, that's probably still the case until you go through a lot more than our team has been through. But I think that's probably green from the standpoint of results and what are easily identifiable experiences, Game 7s, first-round Playoffs. So we've never been in the second round, so now that's another first.

I think the seasoning of this group comes from our three veterans. I say that, George, Boris and Joe, all three of those guys were great tonight in their own ways. I thought especially when Rudy was out, they were just stabilizing. So there's nothing green about those guys. And from that standpoint, I think our team, as long as we just try to be who we are and not diverge from that. We don't have to prove that we're not young and inexperienced. We are. There's nothing wrong with that. Maybe that can be an advantage in some way.

Q. To win three road games in the Playoffs is almost historic, and to do it without one of your top players, can you speak to that achievement?
QUIN SNYDER: It's unusual. I don't know if there's been a series where the two teams have won collectively five road games. In some ways for us, we felt like this is -- if we were going to be able to advance, in some ways it was fitting that it would be kind of through a difficult set of circumstances. I don't think, that as much as our fans at home have been terrific, I thought tonight we understood wherever we were that it was going to have to be something that came from our group, more internally than anything external.

Q. Derrick Favors played really well tonight. What did you see from him coming in, and kind of short notice there with the Rudy Gobert foul trouble.
QUIN SNYDER: Well, he did that in Game 1, and it's been -- for Derrick, you have to respect who he's been as a professional this year because he hasn't been healthy throughout the course of the year. It's been something he's battled. He was out the last couple weeks of the season, as you know, and then coming back, I probably overplayed him in Game 2, he played too many minutes, and that impacts him a little bit. It's easy to kind of fade in and out when your minutes are so variable as they've been, and I've done that to our guys, and I know it's hard. But there's no real alternative.

Tonight I thought -- I think sometimes it's good to be needed, and I think there was part of him that understood that he was going to have to play at a high level for us to have a chance to win, and he did. He's different than Rudy. I think he's a different style of player, and I think some of who he was tonight was a good fit for what we needed, his length and his quickness and his ability to kind of get in the pocket and shot that little floater. I thought there was a lot of things that he did that contrast with Rudy but were really effective. I can't say enough about his effort and his focus.

Q. You had mentioned a couple of games ago that the moment didn't seem too big for Gordon. Aside from the food poisoning, what did you see from him this year?
QUIN SNYDER: From Gordon? Well, I don't know what the statistics say, if you take out the food poisoning game, but in some ways I might look at that as his best game in a backwards sort of way because he just was determined to be out there, and until basically he realized he was hurting our team, he was playing -- and I think that's the way that he's played the series. You know, he's played through missed shots, contact, hot streaks, you name it. I think he's handled that with poise, and he's a heck of an offensive player. He's so versatile that he's hard to guard, and we try to use him in a way that allows him to shine in those situations, and he's really embraced that, and you can see his confidence out there.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297