Trail Blazers vs Bucks Saturday, 01/19/13 AT 07:00PM

Postgame Notes And Quotes: The Skid Continues

01/19/13

Written by: sarahhecht

Saturday, Jan. 19, 2013 Final Score: Milwaukee 110, Portland 104

POSTGAME QUOTES

HEAD COACH TERRY STOTTS
“Well the game got away from us at the end of the first quarter. That was a bad stretch for us, but the second quarter wasn’t much better. We can’t give up 30 and 32 in back to back quarters, 62 in the first half. It’s kind of a groundhog’s day. We get down, we battle back, put ourselves in a position to win, then we’ve lost the last few games. We’re going to have to remedy it collectively, players and coaches. We can’t put ourselves in that position and that’s on all of us.”

On turnovers early:
“Milwaukee does a great job with turnovers and blocked shots. You saw that tonight, that’s what they do well. We had 4 turnovers in the first 4 minutes but we were able to kind of withstand that stretch, but it caught up with us. We had 2 turnovers in the second quarter, but they still scored 32. You never want to turn the ball over and it was a key to the game going into the game, but like I said, we remedied that in the second quarter, and they still scored 32.”

Do you take any pride in .500 record after 40 games?
“If you had asked me at the beginning of the season, maybe. But not right now. Right now we’ve shown that we can compete with a lot of good teams in this league, we’ve beaten a lot of teams. That’s difficult to say yes to after losing five in a row.”

NICOLAS BATUM
On pattern of getting down big and trying to come back:
“It works sometimes but it can’t work every time. It worked in a couple games, it was fun yeah, but it can’t work every time. We can’t be down 20 after 1 quarter every time. That’s on us, the starters. Not the bench, that’s on us so us – LA, Damian, Wes, JJ and I, that’s our job.”

On getting down in first half:
“We have too many turnovers. That’s on us too. We have to take care of the ball and be more focused on offense and do our job on defense. We can’t let a team score 60 points in the first half at home.”

On losing 5 straight:
“We had a good start to January, played pretty good, played good basketball and now I don’t know why but we started relaxing a little bit and didn’t play like the way we played the previous two weeks. We’ve got to get back quickly to where we were before and it starts Monday.”

LAMARCUS ALDRIDGE
On falling behind and coming back:
“We definitely have had a trend of that lately. We have to figure out how to shake it. We always start a little slow and we always find a way to come back, but if we have better starts, then we won’t have to fight so hard to come back.”

On 5 losses in a row:
“We’ve just got to figure it out. We have the same team. We just have to find our rhythm, play with better confidence and just not have these lulls offensively of having turnovers and not scoring.”

On Illyasova’s performance:
“He played great. They ran a lot of misdirection plays for him. I thought he knocked down shots all night, crashed the boards really hard. I was surprised he didn’t play more tonight. He played great tonight.”

Does Milwaukee’s defense get credit for rough start?
“No it was just us. We came out sluggish. We came out lethargic and they came out with more energy.”

POSTGAME NOTES

- Series history … Milwaukee has now won three straight games over the Trail Blazers for the first time since winning three consecutive meetings between March 18, 2006 and Dec. 6, 2006.

- Franchise first … Portland has now played nine consecutive games decided by six points or fewer, the longest streak in team history (Elias).

- Leading the way … Damian Lillard finished with 26 points and 10 assists, his third game this season of at least 20 points and 10 assists … No other rookie has one game of 20 points and 10 assists this season.

- Double-double … JJ Hickson recorded his 23rd double-double of the season tonight, scoring 15 points and grabbing 12 rebounds … Hickson is tied for third in the NBA in double-doubles … LaMarcus Aldridge scored 20 points and had 14 rebounds, his 18th double-double of the season, which ranks tied for 12th in the league.

- Making your free throws … LaMarcus Aldridge finished 10-for-10 from the free throw line tonight, the third time in his career that Aldridge has made double-digit free throws in a game without missing.

- Among league leaders … LaMarcus Aldridge now has 11 games of at least 20 points and 10 rebounds, tied for the third most such games in the NBA this season.

- Off the bench … Luke Babbitt scored 11 points, his fifth double-digit scoring effort of the season.

- Can’t miss … The Trail Blazers made a season-high 28 free throws tonight (27, Nov. 30 at Boston).

- Season highs … Ersan Ilyasova finished with 27 points and 14 rebounds … The 27 points is a season high, and his 14 rebounds ties a season high … Ilyasova’s 27 points is the fourth-highest scoring game of his career.