“I think our defense has slipped and is not where it needs to be. I don’t think it is one major thing. I think our defensive rebounding has slipped and isn’t where it needs to be. I think we’ve just hit a little bit of a rough patch. We really like our guys. We’ve had too many stretches where we weren’t good during this (losing streak).”
Hawks coach Mike Budenholzer
“We expect to make that a priority and expect to do well every night no matter who we are playing. It’s a credit to the Bulls and their interior players. It’s obviously a strength of theirs and we weren’t able to take care of the boards the way we wanted to.”
Budenholzer on Atlanta’s 57-28 rebounding deficit
“We’ve all been around this league for a long time. And sometimes for a three-minute stretch or a quarter or a whole half teams don’t play (well). I think more than anything they expect more of each other. They dug down. We have a very proud group. They were able to fight back. That’s important that we have that kind of group with that kind of pride. We just need to do that obviously for the whole game.”
Budenholzer on Atlanta’s second-half rally
“I thought we needed that. I thought we needed somebody to be aggressive and attack the basket to try and get us back in the basketball game. I think we did a good job offensively in the third quarter and then (in the fourth) we weren’t able to get stops.”
Hawks guard Lou Williams on scoring nine points in the third quarter
“I think maybe the hole we dug was too deep and we didn’t have the legs on our shots. I don’t know what it was. You have to give them credit. They are a great defensive team and they really put it to us in the first half.”
Hawks forward Kyle Korver on the rally coming up short
“We’ve just got to stay together. We’ve got to get back to our style of basketball. I feel like we haven’t played our pace the last few games. We played at their pace tonight.”
Hawks forward Paul Millsap on ending the losing streak
“Just not coming out focused. Not coming out sharp on the (scouting report). Just not being aggressive. We’ve just got to get off to better starts.”
Millsap on the poor start
“When we play with a lot of pace on pick-and-rolls and getting up-and-down the court, we can score a lot easier and we get a lot of open shots. But when we come down and have to grind it out and grind it out against these big teams—we are a small team—it’s tough for us to score.”
Hawks guard Jeff Teague
“We’ve just got to get in a groove of things again. I think everybody is trying to figure out what we did to make us successful earlier in the season. Right now we are just a little hesitant on the offensive end. We are playing with emotion but we just need a little more aggressiveness.”
Teague on the losing streak
