Hawks-Suns postgame quotes

What they said after the Hawks’ 129-120 loss to the Suns Sunday night:

“Tonight, you give credit to Phoenix. They shot the ball extremely well. The played with great pace. They put a lot of pressure on your defense, make or miss. Tonight our transition defense just wasn’t good enough. If your transition defense is not at a high level every night, especially tonight, you are going to struggle to have a good defensive outing. We dug ourselves a big hole in the first half and a lot of it was because of our transition defense. Our guys continued to fight, continued to compete. We cut it to (one). Our guys battled. We’ve been talking about transition defense from the start of camp and tonight hammered home how important it is.”

- Hawks coach Mike Budenholzer’s opening statement

“That is what we talked about in one of the timeouts in the third or fourth quarter, that our defense was allowing us to get back in the game. We were getting back. We were establishing ourselves. We were able to play some half-court defense. If you are doing something decent defensively, than you can cut into a lead and get back in the game.”

- Budenholzer on improved second-half defense

“A lot of them were. We watch four or five (3-pointers) at halftime that were all a result of transition defense. I’m sure not all of them were because of transition but an inordinate number of them were.”

- Budenholzer on whether transition defense led to Suns’ 12 first-half 3-pointers

“They are big-time 3-point shooting team. I think they are fifth in the league in percentage of points from the 3-point line. We knew that was a priority and we talked a lot about it in regards to our pick-and-roll defense. We needed to be able to cover the pick-and-roll and cover the 3-point line. Tonight, just establishing our transition (defense) at the 3-point line was where we got hurt more than anything.”

- Budenholzer on whether Suns’ 3-point shooting was a concern entering game

“No adjustments. Transition defense, a lot of it is just a commitment to sprinting back and not worrying about running to your own (man), stopping the ball, taking care of the basket, finding the most dangerous man, things we’ve been talking about all year. I think our guys just did a better job of doing what we’ve been talking about all year in the second half.”

- Budenholzer on second-half defensive adjustments

“He was excellent. He was the X factor. A lot of the guys did what they’ve been doing all year. Gerald Green had a fabulous night. He hit some tough shots and he hit some open shots. He got going. He felt confident. We felt like we did a decent job on (Goran) Dragic but Gerald Green got away from us.”

- Budenholzer on Suns’ Gerald Green, who had a game-high 33 points

“That was it all the way. It’s what we talked about all morning at shoot-around. They are the number one team in the NBA in fast-break points. Traditionally, in an NBA game you are used to going back to the basket and fanning out. That is always the emphasis. But they all stopped at the 3-point line. Their point guards are good at getting in (the paint) and we just got sucked in too much. And they got hot. They are a good shooting team and they had a good shooting night. I thought the second half we did some good things, made some adjustments and fought back. But when you are on the road, on this trip, we have to play 48-minute games.”

- Kyle Korver on Hawks’ transition defense

“We were trying to get back. Jeff was doing a great job of attacking the basket. A lot of times his man was the first guy out. Jeff isn’t back and we are trying to pick up his man. He is coming in. They are kicking out to shooters. It wasn’t an effort thing. You have to give them credit. We’ve just got to be a little more focused on what we are doing.”

- Korver on what went wrong in transition

“It’s the NBA. You live to go into other teams place and upset them. We’ll stay positive in what we are doing. We are going to keep grinding and keep our head up.”

- DeMarre Carroll on facing Portland next

“I thought we just ran out of gas. A couple of loose balls we didn’t get. Just one of those nights. We have to learn from it. We want to be the team we were in the second half and not the team we were in the first half.”

- Carroll on difference after Hawks trimmed deficit to one point

“They were making everything. They played well. We just couldn’t get a defensive stop. We played well offensively in the first half. We’ve got to get back in transition and limit their 3-point opportunities. In the second half we did a better job of that. We just dug ourselves too deep of a hole to get back. We played hard. We played with a lot of energy. We gave the effort. It’s just that first half killed us.”

- Jeff Teague on loss

“Ish Smith was really pushing the basketball and getting into the lane. He wasn’t looking to score. He would get in the lane and draw the defense and they had shooters all over the floor. When you’ve got shooters like that it’s a tough team to defend.”

- Teague on Hawks’ transition woes

“We made a conscious effort just to get back. We knew that Ishmail Smith was going to penetrate but we told ourselves to let him finish. Let him make the 2 instead of helping out and kicking it out for 3s.”

- Teague on halftime defensive adjustments

“It felt great. I didn’t have as many butterflies as I thought, to be honest.”

- Mike Muscala on NBA debut

“All my other shots felt good too. It’s good to get the first one. Unfortunately we lost.”

- Muscala on making first NBA basket

“We just locked up in the second half. Eighty points in the first half is unacceptable. We just locked up. We just dug ourselves a hole. We tried to come back but it was too much. They made some big shots at the end and it was too late.”