Here is what they said after the Hawks 107-89 loss to the Pacers in Tuesday night’s exhibition:
“A couple of observations of what we’ve talked to the group about. We’ve had a heck of a preseason schedule and we’ve played Miami, San Antonio, Memphis and now we’ve played Indiana. Those were the last four teams playing in the playoffs last year. So, we’ve had a heck of an opportunity to be tested, to be put in difficult positions offensively and defensively. There have been times when we’ve been good and there have been times when we really need to improve.”
Mike Budenholzer on preseason schedule
“Each of these games have shown us lots of different things, including positives, areas where we need to improve. Probably the thing we talked about is we want to get better from the start of the game to the end of the game, we want to get better from the start of the season to the end of the season. Tonight, we started well and we digressed. It’s an emphasis that we want to be getting better from start to finish, especially defensively we digressed.”
Budenholzer on preseason ups and downs
“There are moments. There are first quarters. Some nights it’s the third quarter when we’ve played well. We are talking about we need to sustain that and we need to do it for four quarters.”
Budenholzer on playing four quarters
“We feel fortunate that we’ve played this kind of schedule. I thank my athletic director Danny Ferry for signing up for this preseason schedule. It’s been good. It’s never fun to lose. The guys don’t like it but the preseason we are really putting an emphasis on what we are doing and the areas we need to improve and also the positives.”
Budenholzer on 1-5 record
“(Budenholzer) preached to us – something we haven’t been doing – about maintaining our defensive intensity throughout preseason, as well as our execution on offense. It’s easier said than done. That’s just something we have to do.”
Mike Scott on playing a complete game
“We’ve shown that we can play well in spurts this year. I think that our turnovers in the second quarter really affected us. We had nine turnovers in the second quarter. They really benefitted from that. We are trying to put together a whole game or as much as we can. You are going to mess up put we are trying to put a whole game together efficiently like we did in the first quarter.”
Al Hoford on the takeaway from the game
“It is a concern but we are going to do the best that we can to finish the preseason and get to work in practice to get it together as best we can.”
Horford on concern about 1-5 preseason
“I felt really good. It was kind of a tease playing limited minutes. It might take a while to get my rhythm. (Wednesday) will be my first chance because that’s when I will play a lot of minutes. I look forward to doing that. Today was a good start. My back felt great.”
John Jenkins on preseason debut
“Our bench really stepped up and took control of the game. David West was also sensational throughout the night. … We were a little out of rhythm in the first quarter but we stayed with it. We do have to execute a little bit better.”
Pacers coach Frank Vogel on team’s effort
“We were one step away from the championship last year so that’s our primary goal, to get to the Finals. (Luis Scola) gives us that big guy we need off the bench that we didn’t have last year. I’m glad we picked him up. You have him coming in here and he could be a starter on any team.”
George Hill on Scola, who finished with 20 points off the bench
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