VIDEO:Head Coach Eddie Jordan | Antawn Jamison

QUOTES:

HEAD COACH EDDIE JORDAN
On the game:
I’d like to compliment my guys for working hard and doing things we wanted them to do. We just didn’t put the ball in the basket when we needed to and we couldn’t finish plays as often as we should have. But, our effort was great and intent was great, we just didn’t make the plays. ”

On the Cavaliers:
“They’re a good defensive team. I thought we missed some open shots, I thought we executed well enough to get some open shots. Antawn was really going well in the post and he did some things on the perimeter that helped us. It was a game. When it was time to make plays, I thought, we missed a layup. Their defense was good, but we’ve got to finish the plays. Whether it was good defense or great defense, we’ve got to find a way to make an open shot, finish a layup, that’s all.”

(On LeBron James finding his game with his teammates playing well today): “I don’t know, why is it that he struggles and their defense is good when we don’t make a basket. Why is it that he struggles and our defense wasn’t good enough? I mean, I thought we did pretty good defensively. He’s pretty tough to defend when he has the ball with speed dribble with one-on-two, one-on-one, he’s unstoppable.

On the Wizards defense:
“I thought our defensive gameplan was solid, I thought we executed, I thought we worked hard enough, we rebounded well enough against the best offensive rebounding team in the league, I think they are. Our defense was just as good, they shoot in the mid-40s after having a great start. So, I guess, we’ll just have to do better when it’s time to make stops. That’s all. It’s just a matter of just staying with it and we have to make plays coming down at the end.”

On how the Wizards are compensating for their missing All-Stars:
“Keep my composure. At the same time, run the clock, in a sense, get a good rhythm shot. We’re trying to play in the post to Antawn Jamison, Darius Songaila, Etan Thomas. That’s our scheme. Get the ball in the post. We’re trying to run pick-and-rolls to make the defense move with Antonio (Daniels) and DeShawn (Stevenson). Then, we’re looking for rhythm jump shots midway through the clock or at the end of the clock. We’re not looking for first-shot threes and quick shots in the possession. I thought we did a good in that. There were some questionable shots, but that’s the way basketball is.”

On Larry Hughes:
“Larry is out there setting their defense. He’s pretty good and he was pretty good for us, setting our defense. He’s pretty good setting the defense for them. He understands our play-calling, in a sense, he knows our entry passes, so we’re always aware of entering the ball when he’s on the floor, making play calls a little bit away from him in a sense.

More on the game:
“I thought the numbers were fairly even. You look at rebounding, you look at the quarters. They won the first quarter, they won the second quarter and we were pretty even in the second and third quarters. I thought there were some balls that bounced their way because they (Cavs) worked hard to help themselves. We just didn’t get a bounce.”

ANTAWN JAMISON
On the game:
“We did a great job as far as being disciplined and making it a half-court game. Eventually we took some bad shots and went away from being disciplined on the offensive end and that’s when they got a tone of fastbreak opportunities. This is the type of team, especially in the situation that we are in, we have to keep those opportunities from happening.”

On Larry Hughes:
“He did a great job being aggressive. I knew he was going to take this challenge personally because this is his former team he was going against, and I just know him in general. It’s playoff basketball, he is trying to set a tone offensively and defensively. He just did a great job as far as keeping us on our heels.

“We were worried about LeBron, we were worried about the big fella down low and trying to box out Drew Gooden and the rest of those big guys. He just did a great job offensively as far as getting in the teeth of the defense and knocking down jumpers. Defensively we can’t call any plays because he knows everything we are running, but he just did a great job on all aspects of the game.”

On Game Two:
“It is all about adjustments, I think especially right now the biggest adjustment will be preventing their fastbreak opportunities, also making sure that we don’t let Ilgauskas get it going offensively. Once he got it going offensively and we had to worry about him and double-teaming him, they got open opportunities as far as jumpers and thing like that.”

“You don’t want them to get into a rhythm like that and also we have to prevent them from getting fastbreak opportunities. We have to do a better job with Larry and continue to do the things that we did with LeBron as far as making it tough on him and not letting him get the three-point plays and get to the free throw line.”