Quote Board: Dwight Powell and Christian Wood speak after defeating Houston

The Dallas Mavericks came to work Thursday night and pummeled the Houston Rockets at home, 129-114. It was a strong home win, with a Luka Doncic triple double, and great performances from a number of his teammates. After the game, head coach Jason Kidd, Dwight Powell, and Christian Wood spoke to the media.

Jason Kidd

(On the defense of McKinley Wright IV...)

“I think just his energy, his ability to play off the ball and ability to play with the ball – a lot of good things. He’s in that eight-, nine-man rotation right now. He’s one of the first ones off the bench for us. I think he also has a good set of nerves. It’s not easy to play with a star. I think he plays well with Luka [Dončić] and Luka enjoys him on the floor.”

(On balancing Luka Dončić’s second-half minutes...)

“We asked, ‘Do you want to go in the fourth?’ He thought he could give us three minutes there. Then we talked about it again to see where the score was, if we had to bring him back. He got a break ... that’s what we talked about during the game. I thought he did a great job using the full-court pass today. We might have set a record tonight for fast-break points – 25. We normally have zero or two. Tonight, we had an all-time high. It shows we can run if we want to… Season high. There you go, for the new year.”

(On full-court passing...)

“We didn’t talk about the full-court pass [before the game] but I did ask a couple of players to step up and not wait for Luka [Dončić]. They responded, they were good tonight – really good. For whatever reason, Dāvis [Bertāns] is one of his favorite tight ends, receivers. He tends to outrun the coverage and I think he set the tone for us in a fun way, a great way. But again, the full-court pass – DP [Dwight Powell] was great. He received a couple of those full-court passes. He was 8-for-8 coming off the bench. He’s been great all season. Again, just being able to get out, run and get easy baskets so we don’t have to struggle in the half court.”

Dwight Powell

(On the emphasis of running to get fast break points…)

“Yeah, that was definitely a big emphasis for us coming in tonight, was to get out and run, and put pressure on the rim and in transition, and obviously our guards, Luka [Dončić] especially, was looking ahead and trusting that we were going to run under some of those Hail Marys.”

(On Christian Wood’s defense…)

“His rim protection is huge for us, and I think he would have more than four. He’s doing a great job being the low man and being in position early. Those four blocks, really, is even more in terms of rim protection, took altering shots and being their early and preventing shots in the first place. That’s huge for us.”

(On the mentality of the five-game win streak…)

“Stay together. We’ve been trusting each other. There’s obviously been ups and downs. Clearly there have been some games that some people counted us out, during the game, but we stuck together. That’s one of the biggest things for us, is trusting one another and staying together regardless of the situation and having that next man up mentality.”

(On the defense becoming high level…)

“New year, new team, new situation. We don’t really look back on those sorts of things, per say. Defense has been a focus of ours from the beginning. Figuring out the best ways to execute our scheme, guys getting comfortable in their roles within our scheme, figuring out ways to better execute our game plan. It’s been a learning process for us, and we’ve been growing in that and I think we’re going to continue to grow in that. That’s always been our focus and will continue to be our focus on the defensive end.”

Christian Wood

(On getting four blocks in the game tonight against his former team…)

“It felt good.”

(On anything he is focusing on in particular on defense…)

“Just making an emphasis and trying to be that help-side guy, especially, trying to protect the rim. These guys are just trusting me to challenge shots. That’s what we’ve been working on in practice me being in that moment.”

(On if he can pinpoint any reason why the Mavericks are on a season-high winning streak right now…)

“We’re just playing together. If you look at the last game, we stayed together even though everybody probably thought we were gonna lose. Today, we stayed together and everybody was moving the ball. Even in the game before that, we were just piggybacking off of each other and playing off of each other. It’s really working out. Also, you know, Luka’s [Luka Dončić] playing like an MVP. But, in terms of the team, we’ve been doing great together.”

(On the offense opening up more for him…)

“Luka [Dončić] and the guys were just trying to get me involved more. They were seeing I wasn’t having the best game and I was in foul trouble. I didn’t really play a lot in the first half. So, they were just making the emphasis on trying to get me the ball. I just did the best I could to take advantage of the opportunity.”

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