What they said after the Hawks’ 97-92 victory over the Nuggets Saturday night:
“I think our group continues to be resilient. It’s tough when a team fights back on you and erases a big lead like that but to gather yourself and find a win to win speaks to the resiliency of the group. Defensively, we played well for a big portion of the game. Again, the third quarter defense just wasn’t where we need it to be. That’s when they were able to cut into the lead. We just need to continue to focus and play defense for 48 minutes. I think that will come.”
- Coach Mike Budenholzer’s opening statement
“He has a knack for making big plays. The tip-out on the (final seconds) rebound was big also. He just has a knack. He is not a young rookie. He has been in some big games, some big situations. Obviously, his teammates trust him. We all trust him. Sometimes you have to be a little bit lucky and make some shots.”
- Budenholzer on Pero Antic’s game-winning 3-pointer
“It’s probably always a combination (of Nuggets making shots and Hawks poor defense). I will have to go look at the film. They were hurting us in transition. I don’t think our offense was very good and that was putting a lot of pressure on our transition defense. And they made a lot of shots.”
- Budenholzer on third-quarter defense
“It was just one of those nights where he couldn’t quite get it in the hole. Jeff Teague deserves some credit for solid defense and our bigs. There is so much pick-and-roll in this league. Any time you are guarding a point guard like Lawson your bigs are put in a predicament almost every possession. I think our bigs, for the most part, did a good job on him also. I think it was probably a tough night for Ty. He still had 11 assists and nine rebounds and had a big impact on the game. I think we were fortunate. I don’t think he is going to go 0-for-12 many nights.”
- Budenholzer on holding Nuggets guard Ty Lawson to two points
“Two seconds on shot clock. You have to shoot it. Paul (Millsap) passed it to me. I tried to see if there was somebody open. It was two seconds until the end so I had to take it. Every basketball player (likes) to joke in practice trying different shots. I do that almost every day. So you see it works, two games.”
- Pero Antic on game-winning 3-pointer
“Before that I missed the rebound. The ball bounced over me. Instead of being two points up we were down one. I felt bad. (When he made the 3-pointer) it was like 300 pounds off my back.”
- Antic on how he felt after making 3-pointer
“I just fight. I got good position and just tipped it to somebody. That’s all I can do at that moment.”
- Antic on tipped rebound to help secure game
“We finally had some breaks go our way. Pero hits a huge shot. Jeff misses a free throw but we get the tip out. We got to the free-throw line. We finally caught a couple of breaks. I was talking to Paul (Millsap) about having things finally go our way at the end. He said ‘It’s about time.’ I said ‘You know what? You are right. It is about time.’ Jeff hit a huge 3 on the break. That was a monster play. Pero’s 3 in the corner was a monster play. A bunch of guys stepped. Paul was big all night.”
- Kyle Korver on pulling out victory
“I think this team believes in each other. We feel like we can play good basketball. It was tough for a while. We were just so injured. It felt like we were playing with more confidence at the end of the game.”
- Korver on learning to win at end of games
“I just wanted to make him make tough 2s. Once he makes his first jump shot he is tough to handle. We just wanted to continue to seduce him into taking tough jumpers. If we could do that we thought it would play into our favor. He is a handful.”
- Jeff Teague on defensive effort on Ty Lawson
“They weren’t back in transition. I just shot it with confidence. That is the shot I always work on. It’s one of the ways I prefer to shoot a 3-pointer.”
- Teague on his 3-pointer with four minutes left
“I’m laughing because he always shoots those shots in practice and we make fun of him. It’s the second time knocking one of those down.”
- Teague on Antic’s game-winning 3-pointer
“Everybody was calm. We knew once we settled down and executed shots were going to fall.”
- Paul Millsap on end of game
“We were due for it. We got a few balls, got a few calls, got a few things go our way tonight. In the past the other team would get the breaks. It feels good for us to get the breaks.”
- Millsap on getting late-game breaks
He did it again.”
- Millsap on Antic’s game-winning 3-pointer
“Our mindset was going back to being the aggressive team because whenever we are the aggressive team we always come out on top. Our biggest thing is we have to keep staying aggressive for 48 minutes instead of 36 minutes or 40 minutes.”
- DeMarre Carroll on victory
“You can’t let that one slip away. I think we were playing some great basketball, clicking on all cylinders. Then we got lackadaisical because this whole year we really haven’t been up like that. We just have to step on people when we have a chance.”
- Carroll on third-quarter trouble
“We lost everybody for a short period of time. We lost Kyle for about three games. Myself for about five. Pero and Paul. We can’t worry about that right now. We are just worrying about the playoffs. When we get into the playoffs a lot of teams should watch out.”
- Carroll on finally being healthy for stretch run
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