What they said after the Hawks 106-98 win over Pelicans Wednesday night:
"I think a lot of credit to New Orleans, coming in off a back-to-back and without Anthony Davis and the injuries they are dealing with. The job their players did on us in the first half, the job Alvin Gentry is doing as a coach, they had us definitely on our heels. We have to play better coming out early in games and not put us in that kind of hole. There are lots of areas to improve and get better. Obviously, credit to the players for finding a way to play much better in the second half, especially defensively. I think it's good to get a win." - Hawks coach Mike Budenholzer's opening statement on win
"At first, they always had somebody open. I don't know how. They made 11 3-pointers and that's a lot for a half. Second half we took care of that and everything was going our way. We moved the ball. We found the guys who were open and it was a basketball game for us. We knew that they were making a lot of shots in the first half. That was the key. If we could take those shots away and just do our basketball we would be fine. You have to do that on the court. We only did it in the second half." - Tiago Splitter on second-half defensive adjustments
"If you look at it, it wasn't so much they were leaving me open. I was picking and popping but instead of popping to the two I was popping to the three. Some of them they were contesting. I got into a good rhythm. I felt like Dennis (Schroder) and Jeff (Teague) were giving me really timely passes and I was stepping in and making them." - Al Horford on career-high four 3-pointers
"You have to give them credit. They did a good job of moving the ball and knocking down shots. Once we started switching things we just got more active. Our activity cranked up a little bit and we were a little bit closer to guys because we didn't have to rotate as much. I think it bugged them a little bit." - Kent Bazemore on Hawks' second-half adjustments
"We stunk in the first half, I thought. It's something we have to be aware of. In the first five minutes of the first quarter, the starters have to come out and do a better job." - Kyle Korver on Hawks' slow start
"There are no kinds of moral victories. We were right there and gave ourselves a chance to win. We held a really good offensive team to 105 points. That's two really good defensive games we had against Dallas and Atlanta. We had enough defense. That's something to build on but there are no moral victories. We've got to get that win." - Pelicans guard Ish Smith on loss
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