Here is what they said after the Hawks’ 109-107 loss at the Nuggets Thursday night:
“Eventually we are up eight in the fourth quarter and as a group we’ve got to learn how to finish that game and keep the lead. Overall, it’s another learning, another growing, experience. Defensively, we need to put together where we are holding teams under 100 (points) and having a better defensive effort. It’s not for lack of competing or lack of effort.”
- Hawks coach Mike Budenholzer from opening statement
“They hit some tough shots. They hit some 3’s. A couple of them hit the front of the rim and somehow found a way to crawl over the top and go in. It’s a credit to them that they were able to answer us being up. … That’s what NBA basketball is like. It’s throwing punches at each other. Tonight we weren’t able to come out on top but I’m proud of our guys.”
- Budenholzer on back-and-forth game
“There are always multiple options but Paul Millsap getting it on the block against a smaller player, one-on-one, is a great opportunity for us. We feel good about the execution. We feel good about the shots. That’s basketball. Sometimes they go in, sometimes they don’t. We’ll win them together. We’ll lose them together. We’ll go to Paul again I can assure you.”
- Budenholzer on Paul Millsap’s last-second shot
“I take some of the blame for this. Jeff gave me a great pass down the stretch, a play I make all the time, I couldn’t make it. Then we had a last chance to send it to overtime and I didn’t make that either. It’s encouraging to see our team the way we are handling this right now. I feel like we are going to learn from this and we are going to be better.”
- Al Horford on final minutes
“It goes back to defense but at the same time they hit some tough shots. We have to go back and look at the film and figure out what we were doing defensively. We have to be better. I missed some shots that I normally would have made. I just feel bad about that. We really had a chance. Paul played great. A lot of guys stepped up. It was too bad we couldn’t finish it out.”
- Horford on what went wrong in Nuggets’ 17-4 run
“We can look at it morally. We are still a new team getting better. We still have to get better. There are still a few things we have to work on, down the stretch type stuff but it will come.”
- Paul Millsap on road trip
“It was such a game of runs. They made a run. We made a run. Dramatic lead changes. That is what happens. They are known as a team that gets out and runs. They make exciting plays. They got some stops. They shot the ball really well from 3 tonight, which they haven’t done so far this year. You have to give them credit. We still had our chances at the end. We made a lot of mistakes that are so correctable. They are so correctable. So we just keep learning as a team.”
- Kyle Korver on Nuggets’ late run
“There are definitely good things happening. There are good habits that are growing. I feel like the most part we played good basketball tonight. We just had a couple stretches, bad shots, turnovers, just kind of got away from what we are trying to do. You can’t do that on the road. It doesn’t matter who the team is. This is the NBA. You have to play solid on the road. We had a couple lapses.”
- Korver on Hawks’ growth
“They made some big shots and we missed some easy shots. We were right there on the road and the end of the game with a chance to win. That is all you can ask for.”
- Jeff Teague
“I feel relieved to finally getit. It wasn’t easy; nothing is going to be easy for us. With this team, every night is going to be a dog fight. It feels good to finally get one.”
- Nuggets coach Brian Shaw on first victory
“I just knew I was fading back, so I tried to put a little extra on it. That’s when it came off a little strong and hit the backboard. I told Nate (Robinson) I called it, but I didn’t.”
- Ty Lawson on late 3-pointer that banked in
