Desmond Bane dissects the brutal 52-point defeat, detailing defensive lapses, turnovers, and a crumbling confidence after the Raptors' onslaught.
Desmond Bane:
On how to explain the 52-point loss tonight:
"Yeah, I mean it's hard to explain. Hard to swallow. I think anybody that watched the game knows exactly why we lost. We didn't guard anybody, turned the ball over 27 times. Talked about transition defense, but it's hard to get back and get matched up when you have that many live ball turnovers. And it just snowballed."
On Coach Mosley's comment that he didn't have the team prepared properly and that it was on him:
"I mean I think that we understood how big of a game it was. But yeah, I don't have nothing for that."
On the main reasons for all the turnovers:
"It just sped us up. They applied ball pressure all night long from multiple spots and sped us up and played in crowds."
On where the team's confidence level is right now:
"Yeah, I think that's the big thing. You got to walk into games understanding the challenge, but always expecting to win. And I think that there's like a certain swagger that you have to have about yourself over the course of an 82-game season. Have that belief that whether or not you're up 20, down 20, you wouldn't be able to tell by the swag and the joy that we play with. And I think we've had it in stretches. But we definitely don't have it right now."
On the conversations among the guys with the last eight games remaining:
"Trying to figure it out. I think that the effort's there on our end. Trying to get this thing right. And understand what's at stake and where we got to get to ultimately if we want to have a chance to continue to play meaningful basketball. So guys are trying to figure it out."
On what he tells his teammates as one of the leaders to keep their spirits up:
"Just got to get back to the drawing board. We got Phoenix coming up next at home. Another good team that we've had our battles with and we got to come correct and win a game at home."
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