Gametime

Coach Hollins

On the team's performance:

“Well they [Hawks] had the two really quick guards in the game. ‘Q’ [Quincy Pondexter] is not going to guard Lou Williams or Jeff Teague. So you have to match up in the same way with Wayne Ellington in that situation. Eventually I went back to Tony [Allen]. It was a lot of factors tonight: we played tired, we thought tired and we only had 15 assists. We didn’t share the basketball; we didn’t shoot it well or shoot free throws well. We looked like a team that was tired. They had 42-38 points in the paint at 15 fast break points. At every area they just beat us. We survived the first half and they tried to save their guys by subbing. I tried to do a little of that in the third [quarter] and we were up five and they went on a 19-2 run. We kept turning the ball over, missing shots and just not getting it back. We had our chances to come back in the fourth quarter but we just didn’t have enough mental toughness to do it.”

On Mike Conley:

“I can’t say that because one guy scores 19 points and he [Conley] scores 11 means he got outplayed. I thought he played well last night. There are quick guys out there and you can’t blow by all of them. When they had quick bigs showing out of the pick-and-rolls we kept them out of the paint in that regard as well. They did a nice job on their shows and a nice job on their recovering. We couldn’t even play high-low. There was a lot of stuff they took from us offensively that is part of our strengths. Mike [Conley] is a little banged up. Not with the flu, but he is physically banged up. He twisted his knee again tonight and he played through it. We just need our bench, obviously, to play better than they did tonight more consistently. We couldn’t get anyone to do anything. Wayne [Ellington] came out and made some shots, but for the most part we didn’t do anything. Quincy Pondexter played 19 minutes and didn’t get a shot but last night he couldn’t miss a shot. There are a lot of factors that go into this winning and losing.”

Mike Conley

On the game:

“They just outworked us. We turned the ball over too much. We didn’t execute offensively. We didn’t get any stops. Defensively, they turned us over a got out in transition to easy buckets. In the third quarter, we let it slip away and weren’t able to get back in the game.”

On what caused the turnovers:

“It was little bit of pressure, but we were just out of sync offensively. We didn’t get guys in the right spots. That falls on me. I wasn’t able to get guys in position. That caused me to turn the ball over at times. It is uncharacteristic, but give them credit they played great defensively.”

Zach Randolph

On the Hawks:

“They played harder than us tonight. You have to give them a lot of credit. They hit shots. They outscored us 32-13 in the third quarter. There the game goes right there. After that we were just trying to come back from behind.”

“They hit threes, open threes, and hustle balls. Josh Smith played a good game. He hit big shots, open shots. We just couldn’t get stops.”

On moving forward:

“We’ve got to chalk it up and put this behind us. It is a lesson learned. We have got to come out and play. We had a good first half. Well, an ok first half. The second half we didn’t come with a lot of energy. You have got to find other stuff to do. If you’re not scoring, you’ve got to grab enough rebounds, play defense. We have got to figure it out. It is a lesson learned.”

On the loss:

“It is just a game. Everybody comes with their best A-game. There is no excuse. They played the night before just like we did. They just played harder than us tonight. It is just one of those games we have got to put behind us. We have got to get ready for Phoenix and go out and try to have a good road trip.”