Steve Clifford Discusses Preseason Loss to Boston

On the team’s fast start tonight:

“I think the first quarter, the most inside-out, our best pace down the floor. Our defensive numbers, I feel like, are misleading. …We had a lot of good, sustained segments of good defense. But we’re not disciplined. So we’re running around and overhelping, so there are things like that that, in this league, are going to kill you. But our defense, overall, this was by far our best defensive game. So we were definitely better.”

On balancing preseason results versus process:

“So much of it is, again, we have to evaluate but we’re playing lineups right now that we’ll never play during the season. Those guys got to play bigger minutes tonight, which is good. …This is almost like the halfway point of training camp. We’ve made good strides. Hopefully we’ll get (fully healthy) for Monday so then we can try to get to the playing groups that we’re hopeful to have at the start of the season.”

On tonight’s pace:

“We played faster. That’s what we’ve got to do. It’s as simple as this: we’ve got to run the floor. If (LaMelo) or Terry (Rozier) has the ball, and there’s options ahead of them, we’re going to be able to drive the ball into the paint over and over and over. Within our roster, that’s how we’re built. We have to get in the habit of running every possession.”

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