What James Borrego Had to Say About Friday's Matchup vs Orlando
On the challenges that they face against the Magic tonight:
“I think you said it, they play hard, they play together. They compete. We’ve been there before. They’re trying to play the right way. They’re in every ball game – every game I watch, it’s down to the last couple minutes – and they expect to win. They’re trying to win and they have capable veterans and some nice young pieces – there’s a nice blend brewing there right now. You can see it; it’s starting to form. They’ve got our full attention tonight. This is not a game to take lightly. It’s about us, it’s about our attention, our appropriate respect for this team.”
On seeing the team’s maturity grow in recent weeks:
“It’s two things – it’s consistency and it’s pride, that’s what it’s about for us. Putting in the effort and the preparation every single game, no matter the opponent, to me, that’s maturity. And then doing it over and over. Not just expecting it to happen the next game. Putting the same preparation, the same effort game-to-game. That’s maturity, that’s what good teams do. They don’t take a night off. The standard is the standard and no matter the opponent, it’s about your preparation, your effort. It’s that simple. We’re starting to get there. Tonight will be a great challenge for us to do it again. We’ll see how mature we are tonight. A game like tonight will tell us how far we’ve come.”
On what makes LaMelo Ball and Terry Rozier such a dynamic backcourt when playing together:
“Well, they both make very good basketball decisions. Both of them, they can handle the ball, they can score. In their hands, they can create for themselves, and they can create for others. That’s a dynamic backcourt. They both can do it off the bounce, they can do it off pin down, they can do it off the pick-and-roll. Two very dynamic guards that play off one another and I think what’s unique about our team is that they play on both sides. So, if we’re playing pick-and-roll on one side, once the ball swings, one of the others is probably on the other side ready to make a play. I think they’re just trusting each other more and more. I think that’s the biggest thing I can say is that I’m seeing more trust between the two of them. Whether they’re in action together or they’re off the ball, just seeing more trust between the two and I think that’s important. Any backcourt has to have trust. You look at the top backcourts in this league, they trust each other. Steph (Curry) and Klay (Thompson), they trust each other. You can see it. It’s taken years for them to get there, but they have found their way into that, and I think it’s on the other end as well. I think it’s buy-in and trust on the other side. For our defense to be at the level it needs to, those two guys have to take control of our defense. I’ve seen more buy-in, more trust, more commitment in those two guys defensively.”
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