Devin Harris says Utah Jazz must go 'back to the drawing board'

Oklahoma City — Official postgame quotes following the Jazz's 111-85 loss to the Thunder on Tuesday.

UTAH JAZZ COACH TYRONE CORBIN:

On tonight's effort:"It is the third night of a back-to-back. Everybody is a little tired and we ran out of gas. They are a good ball club. We are okay and we will ready to go. We will get ourselves back together, get some rest and we will be fine."Did your team just ran out of gas tonight?"I think so. The first quarter was pretty close. We got it down to three early in the third and then with about eight minutes to go in the third, they took it up a notch and made a run. That is what good teams do. It is a third night of back-to-back, they are on their home floor, they are well-rested and they wanted to play an up-tempo game. We could not slow them down."On tonight's defense:"Tonight is not a good indicator of how well we can play defense. I was more disappointed in the way we played last night. We are used to playing back-to-back, but these players are not used to back-to-back-to-back. They all looked tired. We just need to figure out where we are, rest tomorrow, have a good practice on Thursday and be ready to go Friday."UTAH JAZZ GUARD DEVIN HARRIS:On tonight's effort:"We didn't really respond too well coming off last night's game. We missed some shots early on and I think that kind of deflated us early, and they (Thunder) did their job. They got some good looks and they kept us down even when we tried to fight back."On where the team is right now:"It's back to the drawing board. We have some home games coming up. Get our confidence back up and hopefully get our team back on track…We had some good looks tonight, inside and out. Against a team like this you definitely have to shoot a good percentage, especially on the road."On the back-to-back-to-back:"It wasn't too bad…We missed some shots but I don't think it was because our legs were tired. I just think we just missed them."UTAH JAZZ FORWARD GORDON HAYWARD:On the team's fatigue:"I'm not going to blame it on fatigue. That's just not acceptable; whatever the reason was (for the loss). We're professionals, so back-to-back to back that's our job. We've got to be prepared and we've got to be able to play."On the team's mindset:"We know how to win. We've shown that in games. I think it's just consistency, especially on my play. I just can't come out the way that I did. It's tough, it's a tough one to swallow. It's frustrating but it's one game. You can't dwell on it. A couple days off and you just have try and get better. We definitely need to come out against Washington ready to go because they'll take it to us just like New Orleans did."OKLAHOMA CITY HEAD COACH SCOTT BROOKS:Opening statement:"I thought we came in and set the tone defensively. We held them to 19 points in the first quarter and that's been an issue the last five or six gamesâ€-teams scoring in the thirty's or high twenty's in a quarter. In the second quarter we came back with another good defensive quarter. But we started the game and the first half defensive-minded. That's where we were at our best when we were playing defense and defending and making them take and miss tough shots. Serge (Ibaka) was all over the floor, rebounding the ball, blocking shots. He's getting better every game."On Kendrick Perkins and Serge Ibaka's defense tonight:"They are our anchors. They build the game defensively off of one another. They have good chemistry, and that's grown more every day. They've only played together 40 games, maybe. But you can see they understand where one another's going to be and they protect each other and help each other when one is helping each other the other always has the other guy's back. That's good defensive 'bigs' working hard and working together. That's what we're building our team on and they're a big part of what we do."OKLAHOMA CITY CENTER NAZR MOHAMMED:Coach Brooks said the team really set the tone defensively tonight in the first quarter:"Oh yes definitely, we wanted to keep their percentages down keep them under 40% and I think we did that. We wanted to come out there with a little bit more fight tonight." On Serge Ibaka's game tonight: "He's being really active and hitting offensive boards, he's blocking shots and I mean no one else in the league can do it quite like him. So we need him doing it every night." OKLAHOMA CITY GUARD JAMES HARDEN:On Reggie Jackson's performance tonight:"He did a great job of controlling the game. When he got in he played good job on defensive of end and then on offense he really found guys and got guys shots. He did a great job especially with his last assist when he could have dunked the ball but he passed it to Lazar to get him on the board. It was just a great effort for all of us tonight." On Oklahoma City's effort tonight:"Yeah, you know from the starters coming out and in the first six minutes they only had four points. They started the game off very good."

The Salt Lake Tribune

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