What Steve Clifford Said Following the Loss to the Celtics

The Charlotte Hornets fell to the Boston Celtics Thursday night in the preseason finale, 127-99. After the game, Hornets head coach Steve Clifford met with the media to field a few questions.

Thoughts on the loss

“Obviously it’s the physicality on the glass and then turning the ball over. They had 66 at half and 29 of those were fastbreak or second chance. I don’t care who you play in this league, you’re not going to win or give yourself a chance to win like that. Those are key parts of the game at every level. If we’re going to be the team I think we can be, we have to dominate the glass. We rebounded well in Miami, we rebounded really well in Washington, we were really soft the other night against Oklahoma City and tonight, that’s just not an acceptable level of physicality if your team wants to play well. That’s just not going to do it.”

Injuries to the backcourt

"We can play Brandon [Miller] there. We can play Gordon [Hayward] there. We can play JT [Thor] more. Hopefully, Franks [injury] just isn't a big deal. We'd probably play bigger."

Any positives from this game

“No, other than it’s good to learn from. Our halfcourt defense, which is really where they’re terrific, our halfcourt defense was actually pretty good. They didn’t shoot a lot of uncontested 3s. We didn’t do a good job with our pick-and-roll coverages, particularly with our bigger guys, but our closeouts were pretty good, and like I said, they didn’t get a lot of wide-open shots which is, to be honest, what they get against everybody. So if there was a positive, without watching the film, that’s what I would say we were good at.”

Who the next man up would be at center behind Mark Williams and Nick Richards

"Well right now, that's it. Like, if something happened where one of them got hurt it would be P.J. [Washington] but then again we only have two four men also, so right now we can't go P.J. at five and JT at four. Those guys are more than capable of holding down that position and we don't really have the ability to downsize right now."

Thoughts on the four preseason games

“It was good. Tonight was disappointing, we need to learn from it, but it’s one night and things change quickly in this league. The key thing is what the response is. We have a week here to get ready. Things change quickly. We have to get a level of physicality with our guys, and our 5 men have got to own the glass at both ends of the floor. They’re both capable of doing it, and it starts with having the right intent with what you’re concentrating on and what you’re prioritizing. We need them to do it, and we need the other guys to help out in that area. …Our guys understand. We’ll watch it, we’ll learn from it and we’ll try to get better tomorrow.”

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