The Nets beat the rival Raptors 114-109 on Friday night at Barclays Center. Deron Williams led the way with 31 points and 11 assists. Brook Lopez had 30 points and 17 rebounds. Thaddeus Young had 29 points and 6 rebounds.
Lopez said of the win tonight, “It was gritty. They made a lot of tough shots. Lou (Williams) was big for them, but we held together as we have been the past couple of games.”
On his confidence, Lopez said, “It’s just team-wide. My answer is just because of how the team is playing. That’s the simplest way to put it, for my performance, for D-Will’s performance, for everyone’s performance. We’re all playing together, playing confidently. The way D-Will’s been, he’s been running the club and setting the pace for us.”
Lopez said of rebounding, “Yeah, well, I’ve missed a lot too. I get my own misses sometimes; that helps.”
On the game in Atlanta on Saturday night against the conference-leading Hawks, Lopez said, “It’s a great test for us. As long as we come out with energy we’ll be alright, that’s the most important thing. We have to get over there, get a rest and be prepared tomorrow.”
Young said of the feel of a game like this one, “It’s huge, definitely, for a team who hasn’t played well at home all year long. Anytime we can get a win and come back and play well, it’s great. We had a lot of guys that played well tonight, we had a lot of guys that stepped in to contribute and we all made big plays down the stretch.”
On being in the right position often, including the last play, Young said, “He kept turning his back on me and just running to the basket for the rebound, so I was like, ‘alright, okay.’ I was kind of just maneuvering around him and just basically playing off how he was playing and I think two of the rebounds I got he tried to turn around at the last second and I was already there, kind of snuck up on him a little bit. It was definitely two big possessions that we definitely needed at a crucial moment of the game, and guys stepped up.”
Young said of what allowed himself, Lopez, and Williams to be so good in this one, “Man, just, we were attacking. I think we were just aggressive and the execution of our offense was superb tonight. We continued to just run our stuff and stay in the flow of the game. Me, I just kind of played off guys, Brook and Deron had the pick-and-roll going. And I was just playing off, getting some of the misses or just back-door cuts, just playing without the ball. I think that’s the biggest thing, we have a lot of guys that know how to play and we just make plays.”
Williams said of getting a home win despite struggles at Barclays this season, “We’ve still got a couple more at home, so I mean, this was definitely a good win for us and a good win for our fans. We definitely have struggled here all season, and this was a quality win against a really good team.”
On the final minute when he hit a three and missed a shot that led to Young’s go-ahead basket, Williams said, “It just happened so fast. We were running the same play for a while down the stretch, kept getting a couple of options, swung to Joe (Johnson). I can’t remember what happened, but he swung it back to me and I hit the three and then it was the same play again on the pick-and-roll. They just refused it or weakened it, sending it down and I just took the shot. Luckily for the second game in a row Brook got his hands on it and then tapped it to Thad (Young).”