What they said after the Hawks’ 92-80 loss to the Pacers in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference playoff series Saturday:
“I think it goes without saying, it’s a tough loss. The way our group competed and the way they carried themselves in this series is something that all the coaches, all the players, our organization can be very proud of. When you don’t get to play basketball any more it’s very hard. We played a lot of good basketball on both ends of the court. Tonight, give Indiana a lot of credit. They were very good and we weren’t able to find a way to have the success that we all wanted. Again, I’m just very proud of our group, proud of our effort, proud of our competitiveness.”
- Hawks coach Mike Budenholzer’s opening statement
“The first quarter was, I don’t know if frustrating is the right word, it was encouraging and frustrating all at the same time because our defense and our activity and we created a lot of turnovers. We felt like we had a lot of opportunities at the basket and open looks and we just didn’t convert at a high enough rate off of those turnovers and off of our open looks where potentially we could have had a lead in that first quarter and been in a better position. But I think the activity and the defensive effort that we showed coming out of the gate was exactly what we were looking for and put us in a good position in the first quarter.”
- Budenholzer on turning seven first-quarter Pacers’ turnovers into only four points
“I think it’s always important to give the defense credit when we don’t shoot well. It was combination. We had some good looks at the rim, some good looks in transition. We had some good looks at 3’s. We weren’t able to convert the good looks and then their defense can make it hard on you in the paint. It’s a combination that you don’t want to have. You have to be converting some of your open looks, some of your open opportunities and then, hopefully, convert a few of those tough ones also. Tonight I don’t think we really had either of those.”
- Budenholzer on Hawks’ poor shooting
“This group has been very competitive, very resilient. As we’ve done all year, we’ll focus on how we got ourselves into position to be in Game 7. We got ourselves in position to win games on the road. We got ourselves in position to win games at home. I think it’s important to give our group credit and give our players credit for all that they did to put themselves in this position. I think it’s important that we look at ourselves honestly and critically and look to improve in those situations where we didn’t finish, we didn’t convert. We all need to improve starting with myself. The context for me was we did a lot of things to put ourselves to in this position to be here for Game 7.”
- Budenholzer when asked to reflect on season
“I don’t know if it was wear and tear or what. We just couldn’t knock down shots. We had open looks. A lot of guys had open looks. We just couldn’t knock down shots.”
- DeMarre Carroll on Hawks’ poor shooting
“That was big. We are a young team. We have to learn from that. We have to take it upon ourselves to learn that you have to close out halves, you have to close out series. We can learn a lot of this series. We’ll see them again.
- Carroll on Pacers’ run to end second quarter
“It’s tough. We let Game 6 slip. That is all we are really going to think about. It’s tough to come to somebody’s home with the crowd doing what they were doing and their team playing like that. I’m happy for our guys. We competed for the most part this series.”
- Jeff Teague on loss
“We just missed shots. If you look at the stat sheet we missed almost as many shots as they took. It’s crazy how many shots we missed. It happens in a game. We are just going to continue to get better and come back next year with a different attitude.”
- Teague on Hawks’ poor shooting
“He said it was tough because we know we had a chance to win this series. He was proud of us. He was proud of all of us for competing but we know we had a chance to win this series.”
- Teague on Budenholzer’s postgame message
“Come back next year even better. Come back hungry. I know everybody has a little sour taste in their mouth right now. We should have won this series. We’ll come back better.”
- Teague on next season
“We knew it was going to be difficult to win here. They are a good team. We knew their fans were going to be behind them and rally them. Our troubles came when we just couldn’t make shots.”
- Paul Millsap on loss
“Personally, I felt like I pressed a little bit. But they did a good job. Some of the driving lanes that I had earlier in the season weren’t there. I missed a fast-break layup. I missed some open 3’s. It’s not necessarily something that they did but something I did.”
- Millsap on his shooting problems
“Nobody expected us to be here. Nobody expected us to push this series to seven games. Dealing with the injuries we had this season, we feel like overall, as our team we feel like we underachieved. Everybody else thinks we overachieved. We feel like we underachieved. We know what we are capable of doing. Throughout this stretch we felt like we let some games go.”
- Millsap on season
“I thought especially in the second and third quarter we just couldn’t buy a bucket. You have to give them credit for that. But I thought we were taking shots some shots we could make. They also made us take some tough ones. We couldn’t score there for a good long stretch. I thought in the second half there was a mindset that if we were going to go out we were going to go out with guns blazing. I thought we got a little to 3 happy. I thought we shot too many. When you don’t make them it creates long rebounds and they were able to get out and run and we had some breakdowns.”
- Kyle Korver on loss
I think with all the new that we brought into the organization, in every phase, we are laying a foundation on how we are going to play in the future, who we are going to be, what we are going to be about, how we are going to practice and how we are going to play. I think some really good things happened this year. We had a tough injury stretch. We started off the season as a small team and we lost our starting center three, four times in a row. I just made it tough. But I thought we stayed positive. We worked hard. We built some good habits. When I look back on this series and where we have to grow, we are getting the system. We are building the culture. We are building those things. We have to learn how to execute better, especially down the stretch. You learn how to win. You learn how to play but you also learn how to win. I think that is the next step for us. We’ll look back at a couple of games on this series that we probably should have had. Those hurt but there are a lot of good things to pull from this season for sure.”
- Korver on season
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