Here is what they said after the Hawks’ 93-82 win over the Pistons Monday afternoon:
Coach Mike Budenholzer
Opening statement: "I think I would like to start with what a great crowd today in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. To see that kind of support and the community come out and be together and support a group that plays together, does a lot of things on both ends of the court to give us a chance to be successful and continue to move this group forward. We just talked about our defense has got to be there every night. I think that is what put us in position. It was a bit of an ugly game. Maybe some shots, you want them all to go in, but some shots that we feel were good opportunities didn't go. But we feel like our defense put is in a position to pull out a win against a team that is very, very well coached and playing at a high, high level. It was good for our fans, good for our team."
On winning despite rebounding disparity: "I covered my eyes sometimes. It wasn't for lack of effort. It is something we continue to talk about, the disparity in the boards. For us, we are prioritizing transition defense and getting back. I don't know, we are probably 30th in offensive rebounding and they are probably first. It's one of those things where opposites collide. They killed us on the boards. It's not something we like."
On Pistons slowing pace: "I think they are an excellent defensive team. They really take it in on that end of the court. You look at their numbers of the last 12, 13, 14 games and defensively they are an elite team. Offensively they are an elite team. They have shot blocking in the paint. They are defending the perimeter. They are defending the shooters. They do a lot of solid, good fundamental defensive things. They bothered us. There was a reason we missed shots. It was good defense."
On Mike Scott: "It was great to see him have a game like that. He's been working so hard. His defense and his activity may have gone unnoticed. Every time he shoots it, he's like Kyle (Korver) and we think he's going to make it. He can get hot. For him to give it to us on both ends, give us that spark off the bench when you are struggling for points, it was great for us."
Mike Scott
On being a spark: "My job for this team is to come in and provide energy, play defense and make shots. Just really spark the team. Every night, that is my job."
On winning ugly: "We are a team when shots are not falling, we can just grind it out. We play unselfish on offense and defense and try to come out with a win."
On his defense: "I've been watching a lot of Kent Bazemore clips. Nah, it's something I've been trying to work on. Believe it or not, working on defense, rebounding, making plays for my teammates. The offense is going to be there. I'm just trying to get better."
DeMarre Carroll
On win: "It wasn't our best offensive game but our defense helped us out."
On sloppy game: "I think we just missed a lot of good shots. All of our shots were hitting the front of the rim. We had four games in five days. We have to keep playing Hawks basketball. It starts with the defense and the offense will take care of itself.
Kyle Korver
On winning despite rebounding disparity: "As long as they are not grabbing the offensive rebound and dunking it. We have to play defense again. It's not ideal. They still shot a percentage we like. It's not the way we want it to work. We don't want to give up offensive rebounds. Those two guys (Andre Drummond and Greg Monroe) and a load down there. They are big boys. They had to kick it out and we had to play defense again. Eventually we got the stop."
Al Horford
On winning despite rebounding disparity: "We held them to 35 percent (shooting). There were a lot of missed shots, a lot of long rebounds. You have to give them credit. Their bigs rebounded well too. We did our job as best we could. The best thing was we were able to hold them off."
On Pistons slowing the pace: "They played good but we were missing open shots that we've been making all year. It happens. Baskets going in and out. Kyle missing open 3s. It just happens. The one thing that didn't change for us was that we kept defending. We kept playing our game. It paid off in the end.
On winning Player of the Week: "It's a nice honor but again it goes to show our team went undefeated. I think that had a lot to do with it. It's exciting.
Paul Millsap
On playing on Martin Luther King Day: "It's great to come out here on this day. It's an honor, especially in Atlanta. I'm glad the fans came out to support us but today wasn't about us. I'm glad we got the win."
On whether players thought they could be here at start of season: "We don't want to shortchange ourselves. We felt that if we played our style of basketball, good things could happen. I'm not going to say we thought we would be first in the East but we knew would be up at the top with our style."
On current streak: "We don't want it to be a streak. We don't want to be streaky. We want this to be us. We want this to be our mentality. We want this to be our identity. It's a little bigger than 27 out of 29 (wins). It's a culture we are trying to build. It's something of who we want to become."
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