Portland Trail Blazers Guard Dalano Banton notched his first career double-double as his team fell short of the Houston Rockets Monday evening.
Banton scored a game-high 28 points to go with 11 rebounds and five assists for the Blazers.
Here’s a look at the transcript of his postgame interview in Houston:
Dalano, it was your first career double-double. What do you think of your personal performance?
Everything was fine. I think we just had a good first half. Early in that third quarter, throughout the third quarter, I would have to say we got away from what gave us that lead in the first half, so I would just say try to stay together for 48 minutes. Doing the things that could help us win, playing with rhythm, getting to the paint. So if we stick to those things, we didn’t turn the ball over much in the first half, we started the second half, we turned it over that whole quarter, so we have to just sticking to what got us there and being able to play the whole game.
How impressed have you been with this starting lineup full of rookies but still competing every night?
Man, Coach Chauncey is preaching to us, “Let’s run, let’s play.” It will be difficult for teams to keep up with our pace and be able to maintain and make decisions in the open field, but being a young man certainly has mistakes. It definitely gives everyone the freedom to play all the way, to get down on defense, to get a stop and even if you make that turnover you can try again so I feel like that goes a long way for all of us and that builds trust. [for] all our young people.
What do you think you need to do to maybe end this losing streak when you get to Atlanta in two days?
Like I said, I feel like we want to lose on our terms. I feel like if we play the way we want to play, we’ll give a team a chance to get value for their money every night. I’m just trying to do it for 48 minutes, so I feel like if we keep doing that, I feel like we’re in good shape for this first half. In the second half, if we go down, if we get complacent like that, if we play lackadaisical, it’s going to be hard to win against any team in the NBA.
Especially here, these guys are hot, they’re running, they’re going at it right now. They know how to win, they figure out how to win night after night and what that looks like. And I feel like that’s something that we’re going to have to look forward to as we continue to build on that. Like I said before, when you lose, you lose the same way: rebounds, transition points, giving up on things, turnovers. And then if you win, it will be different every night offensively. There are so many talented guys that it could be anyone’s night, but I’m just trying to stick to the things that will help us win.
Banton and the Blazers are back in action against the Atlanta Falcons tomorrow evening. The alert is scheduled for 4:30 p.m. PT.
