What they said after the Hawks’ 115-104 loss to the Celtics Wednesday night:
“It’s a tough loss. There is a lot of length, a lot of size, that we are battling (against). When you look at the shot disparity, they had 90 shots to our 76, 17 (more) on the boards, we had more turnovers, (they had) more offensive rebounds (14-6), all of that just becomes hard to overcome. So we have to collectively stick together. Find a way to rebound better, take care of the ball better. A few defensive breakdowns late. Try to maintain the momentum when we start well. We’ll stick together.”
- Hawks coach Mike Budenholzer’s opening statement
“Jerryd just did a great job of coming off screens. His activity and he made shots. He had one of those nights. I think he banked in a 3 from the corner. He had a heck of a night. I don’t think that had much to do with us trying to stay with their bigs or stay with their length. It’s really more a credit to Jerryd.”
- Budenholzer on Jerryd Bayless
“Just trying to find a group and also maintain some energy. We can’t run ourselves into the ground. You are always trying to find a group that might catch a spark. Going unconventional, that was the hope. DeMarre was really good for us tonight. I though Cartier helped us in the few minutes he played. We tried to catch a spark with that combination.”
- Budenholzer on playing DeMarre Carroll and Cartier Martin and the 4 and 5 spots
“To be honest, I don’t think offense was our problem. We had (104) points. It was defensively where we miss Paul(Millsap) and some of our big guys. And on the boards is where we miss him. I don’t think we were necessarily forcing the ball anywhere. I though the offense was OK. It’s just defensively, collectively, we’ve got to find a way to get it done.”
- Budenholzer on coping with lack of big men
“Every team in the league has back-to-backs and tough schedules and lots of injuries. We are not any different and nobody feels sorry for us.”
- Budenholzer on tough spot Hawks find themselves
“Defensively, we didn’t get as many stops. There were a few momentum type of plays that allowed them to cut it and it got down to a two-point game by the end of the first quarter. You can’t relax defensively. When we go back and review the film, we’ll see if we relaxed. Defensively is where we probably gave up that 15-point lead.”
- Budenholzer on failure to hold 15-point first-quarter lead
“Too many turnovers. We gave up a 15-point lead. We should have stepped on their neck then. Too many turnovers. They got their rhythm and when a team gets its rhythm at home, they can come back.”
- DeMarre Carroll on loss
“It’s difficult but we can’t look at that because we had ample opportunities to win. All the positions and not having enough guys, that doesn’t mean anything because we had chances to win. We didn’t win. We really shot ourselves in the foot.”
- Carroll on playing without big men
“Definitely defending. The offensive rebounds. They were getting to the glass. They are a really athletic team and they just pounded the glass on us tonight. When we did block out, we were holding and grabbing and trying to do whatever we could do. And they were being aggressive and got some foul calls on us.”
- Jeff Teague on what is most difficult playing undersized
“I’m fine offensively. I just want to win. We have to find whatever we need to do, defensively, offensively, whatever we need to do. I just want to get a win. I don’t care about points or any of that. I just want to win.”
- Teague on his 26-point effort
“(Tuesday the Bulls) were big. I think we did a better job (Tuesday) of gang rebounding and giving a better effort. We just have to come together and do whatever we need to do to get a win.”
- Teague on trying to stay with bigger teams
“We had some mistakes in that second period. We just have to be aggressive and be us. We slowed down the pace a little bit and started playing their basketball. We were out in the first quarter and running and getting a lot of easy baskets and playing with energy. We got a big lead. In the second quarter we slowed it down a little bit. Us being small, we have to play fast and with a lot of energy.”
- Teague on how Hawks lost 15-point lead
“He just made shots. Sometimes you start out with the mid-range shot. When you start hitting those, the 3-pointers become a litter (easier). You start seeing the basket a little bigger. That’s what happened. Once he got rolling, he was hard to contain.”
- Teague on Jerryd Bayless
