What they said after the Hawks’ 91-88 loss to the Pacers in Game 4 Saturday afternoon:
“Our group competed tonight and put themselves in a position to win. Our execution wasn’t where we needed it to be. We’ll all work on that and look to improve as we execute down the stretch. Defensively, there are a lot of positives. Both teams hit some tough shots, made some big play. I think we need to get more efficient offensively, better execution offensively, but if we keep competing like we competed tonight that is what we are looking for.”
- Hawks coach Mike Budenholzer’s opening statement
Their defense was good. It was an area, like we talked about with our execution, that can improve. Give them credit. Their defense on the last possession was good and we didn’t get a good look.”
- Budenholzer on Hawks’ final play
“We have to screen better. We have to attack more. All the things that we have been stressing and hopefully that will reduce our turnovers and make us more efficient.”
- Budenholzer on Hawks’ 10 second-half turnovers
“The possessions where we got deep in the (shot) clock, we need to be better earlier. We need to attack earlier and move the ball. At times the ball movement wasn’t what we expect and what we’ve seen a lot from us this year.”
- Budenholzer on several late-in-clock possessions
“I didn’t sense a more physical game. I think when it slows down or we are not playing at the pace where we’d like to be, any time an NBA game slows down it can look and appear more physical. All four games have been physical. That is what you expect this time of year.”
- Budenholzer on whether game was more physical
“They hit some tough shots. We just couldn’t get there quick enough. Credit them, they hit some tough shots. David West hit a tough shot. Paul George hit a tough shot. We’ve just got to get better down the stretch of executing our plays and staying disciplined. That’s what we needed.”
- DeMarre Carroll on difference in game
“Still, I don’t think we should have been in that position. We were up by 10 at one point in the (third) quarter. We let them come all the way back. When we’ve got teams down, we’ve got to keep playing hard, keep doing what got us there. We got away from that. A good team like that you can’t get lackadaisical.”
- Carroll on late-game issues
“Home court don’t mean nothing in the NBA these days. Everybody is losing on their home court. We have to go back (to Indianapolis) and fight. We have to understand that we control our own destiny.”
- Carroll on losing home-court advantage
“Go win. We beat them there before. We’ll beat them again. We are confident.”
- Jeff Teague on losing home-court advantage
“They are a good team. They are going to make runs. We just didn’t play well offensively tonight at the end.”
- Teague on failure to hold 10-point lead
“Just a miscommunication, broken play. I thought a saw Pero (Antic) open and led him a little bit too much.”
- Paul Millsap on late turnover
“We are still a confident group. We let one slip away here. But we showed that we can go there and compete. That is what our mindset is now. We’ve got to let this one go and get ready for Monday.”
- Millsap on losing home-court advantage
“I definitely affected the momentum of the game. I picked up two fouls. My fault. Stupid. Crazy. I’ve got to be smarter in situations like that. I’m to blame for that. I tried to pressure the ball, picked up two quick ones and the momentum changed.”
- Millsap on two fouls early in third quarter
“The plan was to catch the ball, isolation, try to get a quick two and then foul. Obviously it didn’t work out that way. We still had an opportunity coming back down to tie the game up.”
- Millsap on two-point attempt with 10 seconds left and trailing by three points
“We would have loved to have won. Stuff happens in the playoffs. We had an opportunity tonight, for sure, but it didn’t happen. We don’t need to beat ourselves up to much. We have to get ready for Game 5.”
- Kyle Korver on losing home-court advantage
“I wasn’t open. That is all that I know. I tried to run a little play and George Hill stayed on my top side and I wasn’t able to come off the screen. Maybe I could have run the play a little better. I don’t know.”
- Korver on Hawks’ final shot
“We just didn’t shoot the ball very well. We shot 35 percent for the game. We’ve got to shoot a little better. I don’t think we converted on a lot of the fast breaks that we had.”
- Korver on Hawks’ shooting
“He missed a couple of 3’s in the second half and I thought about (taking Paul George out). But against this team with the speed they have out there, you have to play, at least on the defensive end. He’s guarding an elite point guard (Teague) all night and doing all of the intangible things on the defensive end.”
- Pacers coach Frank Vogel on playing Paul George 44 minutes
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