Bucks vs. Jazz: Pregame Quoteboard

Jason Kidd

On Ersan Ilyasova starting...

"Ersan will go. He looks good. We're still trying to get him comfortable playing. This will be his third game back. There's no one who plays a lot of minutes on this team, everyone gets to play. Minutes-wise, he is fine."

On Ilyasova's fast recovery...

"Ersan is professional, and he takes care of his body. While he was taking the precautions and steps to recover form the concussion, I think he tried to keep himself ready to go. Before the concussion he was keeping himself in shape, even with the broken nose. He's young so it doesn't take long for him to get back in shape."

On the low-scoring offense (that has scored under 100 points in nine straight games)...

"It is not a concern. We play both ends and we are proud of that. We try to hold teams under 100 points, and we have been able to do that a couple of times this year. We aren't an offensive juggernaut of the team, and a lot of the games have been close. We average 98 or 99 points, so we aren't a team that is going to score over 100 points often."

On the success of the team this season...

"The guys in that locker room work extremely hard. The coaching staff tries to give them a game plan to be successful. We try to put them in a successful spot and those guys have responded. They enjoy playing with one another. We rely on a team, not one guy. We've been just like any other team with injuries. It's been next guy up and they have enjoyed that moment. The key is staying hungry. This is a young group that hasn't had success before. Understanding the marathon and knowing that it isn't what you do in the first half, but it is how you finish the season. Now we are going into the second half of the season, where teams start positioning themselves for their first round opponent. We have to learn all of that in under 40 games."

On the team's success defensively...

"We practice defense all the time, and it is one of the first things we do. We have a group of guys in that locker room that want to play defense. We all believe that it isn't just one guy, it's all five on the floor. If one guy gets beat, the other guy is there. He knows he has help behind him. The guys take pride in that."