J.B. Bickerstaff | Cavs at Bucks Post Game | 1.26.2024

J.B. Bickerstaff | Cavs at Bucks Post Game | 1.26.2024

Did you feel like he was aggressive throughout the whole game or he was continually getting more motivated motivated as the game is going on and honest getting frustrated yeah I think there was just you know there was more of a you know forceful mindset as the game progressed um you know again they

They play a game with you know their bigs dropping and deep in the paint that they want to make you settle for as many of those in between shots as you can uh and I thought early in the game we settled for them and uh took the shots

That they wanted us to take and then in that second half we made our mind up uh that we weren’t going to settle that we were going to go through them uh I thought we did that um and you know again we were able to be aggressive assertive uh and attack-minded

You talked about before the game uh how veral is he the fact that you can start him on Yannis and then put him on Dame for the rest of the game I mean he’s again we talked about it right he’s Isaac um and he’s a gy and you know if

You don’t love the game of basketball or study it or pay attention to it uh you can easily miss his value but if you know the game of basketball and you understand what it takes to make team uh and what it is to make a winning team

You know just how valuable he is especially in this league this league is obviously set up for Superstars to be Superstars and that means they’re going to score a ton of points uh so if you have a guy who can just make it difficult uh you’re not going to shut

These guys down you’re not going to stop them uh but if you can just wear on them for four quarters uh and make it hard on him uh you know you give your team a chance and Isaac gives us a boost everybody believes when he’s on the ball

It’s Advantage Isaac uh and I think again he just continues to show that jannis 24 field goal attempts the other night 13 tonight how are you guys able to keep uh it’s a team effort versus him uh we all know obviously how you know

How good he is uh and not one guy is going to slow him down but like I said I think Isaac did a great job taking challenge initially then Jarrett was there you know Dean was on him we threw D Jones on him but it was the support

Around him that made it uh made it a tough night for him and that’s what our team is about it’s never one-onone uh it’s always one on five and we’re protecting one another and then Malik Beasley comes in top three-point shooter in the East he didn’t even attempt a

Shot until under two minutes in the game you talked about the job Donovan did on yeah you know when you are as good offensively as Donovan is sometimes that can be great defense uh and you know not only that uh he’s chasing Donovan he’s trying to be

Physical with him and you know he had his mindset there but what Donovan did a great job was of just not losing him not allowing him to get any easy baskets uh and that’s not easy to do right we’re asking Donovan to carry a load offensively uh but then you know you got

A guy that’s shooting 45 plus percent from three um you know you can’t allow him to be an X Factor and I thought Donovan did a great job of being in his help spot understanding where Beasley gets his and limitting taking those away and just how’s he feeling did you talk

Yeah I talked to him afterwards um you know we’ll we’ll see how he’s doing moving forward just being able to play the buck like two times in three nights I think three times in about 10 nights getting that kind of back toback how’s it helpful for me a playoff type situation

I know that it’s not a same similar intensity necessary yeah but but we wanted to try to make it that uh and that was our conversation with our guys you know when you have that you know obviously the gamees the games before but this kind of a series you know you

Want to prepare for it as if it’s a playoff game and use it as practice uh you know we still have young guys who haven’t played a ton of playoff basketball we want to give them that experience so you know how we studied how we prepared what we did yesterday uh

What happened in shoot around you know we wanted to use it um you know as kind of a dry run for us so to speak uh for what a play playoff game would look like uh and we wanted to win this game uh you know we wanted to come out with a high

Level oft intensity um and that was our mindset and that was the message sent to our guys J what did you see Froman tonight uh I mean just a will to make you know to make it happen uh a will to carry his teammates um you know in a way any way

That we needed you know I thought he was great on both sides of the ball um you know he did a great job of eliminating Beasley from the game you know a guy who can be a dangerous threat who’s a mover relocator so got to chase him be

Physical with him and then he fought a ton of pressure they obviously you know picking him up full court putting a ton of bodies on him um but he continued to make the right play and he impacted the game you not only just his scoring obviously the big three down the stretch

But uh finding his teammates rebounding the basketball um I thought it was phenomenal tonight what specifically stands out to you about for defensive effort uh it was uh I mean it was impressive the the physicality um but what was you know I’m most proud of is how they did it

Together um you know you don’t stop a Giannis or a Lillard uh by yourself and you’re in a one-on-one situation uh they bought into whoever was guarding him I’m going to protect this guy uh and that’s what we’re all about you know Cleveland Cavaliers basketball uh is about being

Together being selfless uh and trusting one another and again we saw great signs of that tonight thank you’all

Cleveland Cavaliers Head Coach J.B. Bickerstaff spoke to the media following a 112-100 win over the Milwaukee Bucks at Fiserv Forum on January 26, 2024.