What they said after the Hawks’ 95-88 loss to the Pacers in Game 6 of their Eastern Conference playoff series Thursday night at Philips Arena:
“I think it’s a game where we didn’t play our best. Give Indiana credit. But I still think we put ourselves in a position to win a game when we didn’t play our best on either end. So that is the challenge going forward is we need to execute better defensively, we need to execute better offensively. Our group has done that time and time again. That is the challenge for us going into Game 7 is to execute on both ends of the court and have the activity, the competitiveness, the togetherness that it’s going to take. That is what playoff basketball is about.”
- Hawks coach Mike Budenholzer’s opening statement
“No, I haven’t (seen the film). We kind of checked our bench and our staff did a very good job of keeping our guys off the court. I can’t speak for what happened in front of their bench or on their side.”
- Budenholzer on second-quarter incident where it appeared Pacers left bench
“We always want to attack the basket first. We want to get to the rim and we want to get in the paint and then have great spacing and have great opportunities for our shooters. We’ll go back and look at the film. Right now, I don’t feel necessarily that the shots weren’t what we were looking for. I think our execution and a couple of turnovers weren’t where we wanted them to be.”
- Budenholzer on Hawks’ shot selection
“We need to get to the next game and get our focus and get prepared. I think that we’ve responded well all year when we’ve been in difficult situations. Part of our response is going to have to be better execution and I think we have a lot of positive reference points from all year. Our group has been very good and very resilient. We have a lot of confidence in our group and this is the next challenge for us.”
- Budenholzer on lost opportunity to clinch series at home
“They are a good defensive team. We’ve just got to make our shots. We missed a bunch early in that first quarter. We really could have had it rolling there if we made the shots we had.”
- Kyle Korver on Hawks’ shooting effort
“He put his finger in my face. He put his finger on me and I was defending myself.”
- Mike Scott on second-quarter incident between him and George Hill
“I think we got stagnant on the offensive end. They made some big plays and came down and scored some big baskets but we got stagnant and stopped playing with a lot of pace and movement. If we do that, it’s easy to guard.”
- Jeff Teague on Hawks’ fourth-quarter problems
“Keep our heads up, fill our cups up and get ready to compete. We are a confident bunch. We won on that floor before so we know we can do it. We’ve just got to go out there, do what we do, play our style of basketball and take care of it.”
- Teague on Budenholzer’s postgame message
“The effort was there. The execution wasn’t there on offense. They made plays. Our defense wasn’t that great down the stretch. We’ve just got to get better at it.”
- Paul Millsap on Hawks’ fourth-quarter problems
“We have to play our style of basketball, pushing the tempo. We’ve got to play with the pass a little more, especially on the road. I think we had 14 assists tonight. Definitely got to move the basketball and turn up the defense.”
- Millsap on winning Game 7
“The pressure is on both teams. Both teams are trying to advance. We had high hopes of coming out with this game. We felt that the pressure was definitely on us tonight. We just didn’t step up to the challenge. We still have another game and we have to try to get it.”
- Millsap on what team has the most pressure in Game 7
“We tried some different lineups tonight. Coach just rolled the dice. Down the stretch, I was talking to Paul saying it had to be him or me. We wanted to extend our seasons. We did a great job of closing the show. We got enough stops.”
- David West on Pacers’ win
“I haven’t seen it. Somebody told me about it. I’m not concerned about any suspensions until I hear something. I don’t imagine there would be.”
- Pacers coach Frank Vogel on second-quarter incident
