Postgame quotes from Staples

Sorry for the tardiness of these quotes from last night's game. A late arrival home and a busy day will do that.

Trail Blazers’ coach Nate McMillan on his team’s loss:

“We were a little nervous. I’ll take some of the blame for this. A lot of it was trying to keep guys healthy, be careful and cautious. The play went up tonight and we weren’t ready for that. Out execution wasn’t quite there.”

Nate McMillan on the Lakers’ aggressive performance:

“The Lakers came out and they were on a mission. They were the aggressors. We needed to be the aggressors. They jumped on us and kept the pressure on. We couldn’t run our offense and get in there defensively, we couldn’t run our schemes. It was just total domination.”

Nate McMillan on Rudy Fernandez’s performance:

“Rudy was the one player that was pretty aggressive out there tonight. He made some shots and went to the basket hard. He did some nice things and he seemed pretty comfortable.”

Nate McMillan on what to take away from Tuesday’s game:

“We have to work. Tonight we saw what it was like to play in the West against a team like the Lakers. We have to get back to practice, look at film tomorrow and keep in mind the intensity is only going to get higher.”

Channing Frye on the Trail Blazers’ effort:

“They did what they needed to do. They disrupted our whole offense and our whole system. They completely threw us off and they definitely proved a point tonight. We have a lot of work to do but we have to remember this game. They were on a roll.”

Brandon Roy on his performance:

“I felt like I was ready for the game, but once the game started I was too excited and everything fell off. I did a terrible job tonight especially for opening night when my teammates expect a lot out of me.”

Roy on Greg Oden’s status:

“I don’t know what the situation is; I just can’t wait until Friday. It doesn’t matter whose playing, we have to do a good job to bounce back because this is disappointing. I talked to him (Oden) and he said his foot was bothering him a little bit.”

LaMarcus Aldridge on the Trail Blazers’ performance:

“I think we now know what we have to improve on such as executing and communicating on the court. Tomorrow we need to have a good practice.”

Aldridge on Greg Oden’s performance:

“Unsure … scared … I don’t think was really scared but everyone was passive. I can say for myself I think my whole mentality was to play off of Greg which is a different mentality I possessed from last year, so I felt like I was playing passive as well.