Ah, the Blazers on a hell of a Siri's Congrats to Terry Stotts and that team.

Ah, lots of great players and, more important, a lot of good good people in their roster, so happy for their success.

Hope Rodney Hood is okay.

And, ah, you know, for us tonight is the end of the season.

But I'm not going to allow this Game seven loss to take away from a magical year and, uh, doesn't feel that way right now.

But when I reflect when players reflect on what we're able to accomplish, um, Healthy year couldn't ask for anything more from our guys.

The coach, uh, Jamal was able to string some really strong games together in the postseason, Obviously a tough one tonight.

What's just your messages to him, knowing that for you guys step to maybe get to next level, he's gotta be a little more consistent, but balancing with the fact that he's still only 22.

Yeah, I mean, the future is so bright.

I mean, you guys heard me say it all postseason.

Ah, I love the moment I love Weber at, but more importantly, I love where we're going and who were going there with on that.

Such a big point of what we're doing here.

Uh, you know, just spending time with Mr Kronke and and Josh on.

Mr.

Kay said it.

You know, we want 61 games this year that this It's been over 10 years.

I think they want since we won that many games Ah, and Jamal will be a huge part of that future.

You know, going into the offseason, having a game like he had, um, four of 18 from the field.

That's gonna be a great motivation tool for him, you know?

And that's the conversation we had quite often throughout the season.

And now 14 playoff games is great.

Players bring it every night and they produce every night.

And ah, you know, he didn't have a great night, but it wasn't for a lack of effort.

We would not be here without Jamal Murray's efforts all season long.

Um, and on the other hand, obviously, CJ McCollum, um showed why they have one of the best backcourts in the MBA put his team on his back and made big play after big play But, you know, Jamal is gonna be a better player because of this experience.

Michael, on your left here.

You spoken a lot this season about how this is a truly special group, both on the court and how they are together off the court.

What are you going to remember about this specific team when you look back on it?

Maybe years from now?

Ah, Good question.

Um, maybe I'll answer it in a couple of years from now.

Um, what I will remember, Harrison is truly how selfless will they were.

And, you know, that's a lot of people talk about being selfless, and it's it's a fancy rode up on a wall.

It looks cool.

But for us, it was something that we actually tried to live.

Oh, and I think there were countless examples off individuals being selfless throughout the season.

Uh, I look at Isaiah Thomas and want to go up the whole game.

Those guys are dying to play.

They're not playing, but they're supporting their teammates.

Um, S O that's what will stand out.

I got Nicole Yokich in there taking blame for the loss.

It's not his fault, you know.

This was a group effort.

I think the cumulative effect of 14 playoff games and us asking him to do as much as we asked him to do, finally took its toll on him tonight.

But this group really did play for each other, not just with each other.

They carried about each other on the court and off the court, and the best teams I've ever been a part of have had that kind of a chemistry and love for one another.

And, uh, that's a special group.

Your offense has been really good this year, obviously, tonight, only 15 assists.

In your estimation.

Is that just sort of where this game went wrong was on the offensive end?

Well, you have to make shots to get the assists, obviously oversimplified.

But, um, we were made two threes tonight.

I thought the game came down to 21 2nd chance points and us missing 11 free throws.

Those are two huge areas right there.

Um, we we talked about coming into tonight.

In our three losses to Portland, they were averaging 18 2nd chance points per game.

They get 21 tonight and then you leave 11 points at the foul line.

You know, those were two really big factors in my opinion and why we lost.

But the bigger question Yeah, we were really good offensive team this year and whether it's given them credit, which they deserve, and that's been missing a lot of open shots.

Um, we just couldn't get any any rhythm offensively.

This game really reminded me of Game seven against San Antonio.

First half ugly.

Half our defense was great, but we couldn't make any shots.

We created no separation.

Then they came out very aggressive manner tied things up.

And, ah, unlike Game seven against San Antonio, we couldn't hold on for the win.

Michael O me on is is being Well, what was Nicola's messaging?

Why did he Why did he think it was his fault?

No.

So how difficult is it to stop that little left pull up that CJ was C.

J had going well, C j with phenomenal tonight.

You know, um, and all summer long, I'm gonna be probably second guessing myself.

You know, out of a time out, they just go 14 flat.

And he had to really tough pull up.

That's the shot that he makes consistently and Tory played good.

Defense is good.

A defense.

You get asked somebody play one on one, you know.

But right after I'm saying we should have sent somebody at him.

Now he's having a great game and make somebody else have to make a play or make a shot.

But so he's really hard to guard.

A Sfar is Nicola, you know, that's why I love, I hope.

After 14 playoff games, America everybody around the world that watches the playoffs really came to appreciate Nicola's game playoff debut almost average a triple double in 14 games and was playing close to 40 minutes a night.

He's arguably the best big man in the MBA, Um, and for him to be as emotional and as upset as he was, um speaks to his, you know, just truly caring.

And he knows that we ask a lot of them and he's just upset because he didn't think he did enough for us to win the game tonight.

And and I love the fact that he's not afraid of the pressure to put this loss on him, even though we all know it's not on him right.

We win together we lose together.

But you know, I love Nicole was commitment to this group and ah, and I love him as a kid.

He's wonderful.

The coach and I look photo coaching for many years moving forward.

Michael over here.

Is it too early?

Toe?

Look at this as a whole.

Maybe after Game five and say, This is why the Siri's got away from us.

I don't know.

I mean, it's everything is still so raw, You know, we talked about this a few games ago, you know?

Do you like to wind?

You hate to lose.

I hate to lose.

You know, it's the right now.

Mother's Day sucks.

Um, but I don't know.

We played really well in Game four and five, obviously, Game six.

We weren't able to close it out and then coming home, you feel you have a great chance of one of your home crowd and you don't get the job done.

And as I alluded to earlier, you know, the offensive rebounding and the free throws are factors.

Ah, defense on C.

J.

McCollum is a factor, but, um, and we get a lot of really good things that syriza guys grew up, which is most important we have.

A lot of guys don't get Game seven experience.

We have a roster full of locker room full of young guys that cut two game sevens under their belt.

And, ah, how could we not be better off for that?

Mark Kessler, Denver Post.

Two things You've seen this game offensively before this season where you don't hit the open jump shot, do you?

Can you make an adjustment when that happens?

Or do you just have to trust that eventually they're going to make it?

And the second thing bigger question is to what extent can you grow out of the heart?

Break of a Game seven loss?

Yeah, I think.

Obviously, on one hand, you always ask yourself, kids, are you generating open shots?

And if if you're generating open looks and you're not making them okay, um, you hope that eventually keep on shooting them.

That's the only way you can get out of that slump.

The second part of that is when you're and I said this throughout the postseason because we had multiple examples of games like this.

Stop settling.

So now get to the free throw line you know?

Ah, you know, play in attack mode.

And the problem tonight was we missed 11 free throws, so that kind of compounds the issues of trying to score.

Um, and what can we take out of this?

You know, you have to understand why you win while you lose.

And tonight I thought we lost.

Think about all the possessions they got.

We played great defense tonight, great defense, but we just were never able to consistently gang rebound and give them one shot when you given opponent 21 2nd chance points.

Eso That's got to be something we learn from.

And that's probably one of them, or troubling things for me, because even in the first round, we were an elite rebounding team in the regular season and two playoff rounds.

14 games.

We did awful job of rebounding, a really, really poor job.

That was a constant, um, topic of discussion around one.

And obviously, in this series, I felt it was probably the deciding factor in losing Game seven today.

Often times it seems like if you're giving up points defensively, it affects your offense.

Did you get the sense in the fourth quarter?

that maybe it was the other way around that there was some frustration, maybe a little bit of over anxiety that set in on your offense and affected your defense, that your defense was actually better than the 29 point she gave up.

And it was the offense that had a lot to do with their scoring 29 points in the fourth quarter.

More show than the defense.

Yeah, that's interesting.

Point obviously agree.

Most of the times teams allow their offensive struggles to dictate their defense of intensity and attention to detail.

Um, you know, I thought in that fourth quarter our guys were all known that we were struggling to score.

The ball was struggling to make shots, shots that we've made all year long, high percentage looks by some of our best players.

But even with that, yes, 29 points, unless you're how many of those were from the foul line and how many came in second chance points.

So I thought the initial defense throughout the night was really good.

I thought, our ability to chase down long rebound or just to keep them off the glass with port.

Um, and again we left everything out there, but 21 2nd chance points.

I can't say it enough.

I thought that was our inability to end the rebound and the possession with a rebound was really deflating.

When you play good defense for 22 seconds, we get a rebound.

We outlet the ball.

Lillard gets the steal.

They hit a corner.

Three.

Those plays are demoralizing because you know that, man.

We're having a hard time scoring.

When we get stops, we can keep giving them second chance opportunities.

So, um, yeah, well, this will stay with us Last year, I'll ended with this game.

82.

Minnesota losing overtime.

Chance to go the playoffs.

That was a rallying cry.

That was a motivating loss all summer long.

Many camps.

Summer league training camp, preseason regular season, first round, second round was the motivating force.

Tonight's loss is going to motivate us.

It's gonna motivate not just Jamal Murray because he was four of 18 but we have now tasted what it's like to win in the playoffs.