April 15, 2009 at Conseco Fieldhouse
Pacers 115, Bucks 108
PACERS COACH JIM O'BRIEN
“It was a great finish with a terrific crowd."
"The group we had in there in the fourth quarter did a very good job. Brandon (Rush) and Danny (Granger) hit some big shots. I would say they (Travis Diener and Josh McRoberts) provided a tremendous spark."
"If not for all the guys who played in the fourth quarter we wouldn’t have won the game.”
PACERS FORWARD TROY MURPHY
“We started very slow and didn’t play that well, dug ourselves a deep hole. Danny and Brandon bailed us out and did a great job in the fourth quarter. It was definitely a great win for us and everybody. We’re very glad that Josh and Travis were able to contribute and played as well as they did."
"I feel real good about this win. I am looking forward to next year and coming back and getting better. I feel really good about the record with this franchise and these people that I’ve played with. It means a lot.”
PACERS GUARD BRANDON RUSH
“We turned it up a notch in the fourth quarter. I feel good about this. We definitely came a long way throughout the year and are really looking forward to next year."
"This is fun. This is the way the game is supposed to be played, by having fun and winning. Hopefully, this is a beginning. Everybody contributed, everybody helped. It was a good win to build on.”
BUCKS COACH SCOTT SKILES
“We built a nice lead, played well and hard. It has happened to us so many times this year. We had a hard time getting baskets in that stretch. We had defensive breakdowns. They’re a good offensive basketball team and they made us pay for it."
"We want to be a playoff team. But we didn’t deserve to be in the post season. We will use the summer and try to get better.”
BUCKS FORWARD RICHARD JEFFERSON
(On them losing the big lead) "I’m not a believer in luck or good fortune. I believe you either do things like you’re supposed to do or you don’t do them. We played very good defense through the third quarter, combined with them missing some shots. And then we came out in the fourth quarter and didn’t do those things. We just didn’t do anything to make things go right for us."
(On the season in general) "Losing players like Michael Redd and Andrew Bogut for the season and suffering injuries throughout, that makes things more complicated than you like."
(Was the season satisfying for him in any way?) "For me, I’ve always judged myself on how my team does. Coming here, I really believed we had a playoff team. For three quarters of the season we were in that position. But in the last quarter of the season we didn’t do the things we needed to do."
"It was disappointing not to have Michael and Andrew, two guys I was looking forward to playing with.”
BUCKS FORWARD LUC RICHARD MBAH a MOUTE
(On losing the big lead) "It was kind of the story of our season. We’ve been an inconsistent team all year. We lost our focus and against a team like this who can shoot the ball well, you can’t afford to lose that."
"Once they got the lead down to nine, I don’t think we executed like we did the third quarter. They were coming down in transition and scoring a lot of baskets. Then we lost the lead. Once we did that, that was it. "
"Like I said, it’s been that way all season. The third quarter we executed nicely; we moved the ball and made plays to help us get that big lead. Then it seemed like we stopped doing that. It was crazy.”