That's What He Said - vs Hawks, 2/26

Hawks at Celtics
TD Garden, February 26, 2014


Celtics 115
Brad Stevens
Re: Starting Jerryd Bayless and 'knowing' that he would score 29 points:
"It’s why we did it. Knew that – I actually thought it was going to be 32, but he missed that last three. No, I don’t know – he made shots, and we do need that from him and Chris Johnson in normal off-the-bench roles for us to have a chance. That’s one of the things; if you look at us tonight, we’re 8-for-22 and if you look at us the other night we’re 4-for-22. Those 12 points make a difference."

Re: Bayless getting in a groove:
"Well, you want to ride it, that’s for sure, and everybody’s been in those moments where the basket looks bigger than other days. And you get into a little bit of a rhythm. But I think he got into that tonight, and the goal is to do that as consistently as possible. But he’s done a lot of good things for us since he’s been here, but he’s really impressed me with his ball-handling and his decision-making and then on nights like this, obviously, it’s doubled."

Re: Rajon Rondo's pace:
"I think he knew he had to play well for us to have a chance. And, again, you know with nine guys – it was two teams with nine guys, I think – so they were off of a back-to-back, we’re off of our West Coast trip, and we looked like we were the worse for weary at the start. But Rondo did a really good job, and you have to against Jeff Teague. Jeff Teague is a – I’d like to say slowly becoming, but he’s pretty much become – one of the better guards that you play against at the point position."

Re: Starting Gerald Wallace in the third quarter:
"Pretty much based on the first six minutes of the game. And Gerald brings a toughness to us, and there’s no question about that, you know I tried to protect our rotations a little bit by not starting him and that was clearly a genius move, so we went back with him at the start of the second half."

Re: Bayless' performance giving Stevens something to think about when it comes to a starting lineup:
"It’s a good question. I haven’t thought about it since the game ended, but I think it’s a reasonable question to consider for Saturday. Depending on how we feel, what our roster looks like on Saturday, who’s available, all of those things. I think it’s certainly something to consider. That being said, I think, obviously against the Pacers, if you have bigger bodies you have to start a little bit bigger. But, not necessarily at the two; you have to do that pretty much everywhere. So I’ll think about that and we’ll consider that for sure."

Re: Coaching a team where any player can have a good night:
"I don’t think it’s that unique. There are only a handful of Kevin Durants in the history of the game, and you know what they’re giving you on a given night, and it’s the 30 point a night. That’s just not normal. And you look across the league and you look as we’re preparing for teams, and you know, Shelvin Mack had 21 on Friday, Mike Scott had 30 on Saturday, Teague’s had 26 multiple times. People have career games. People have games where they score a little bit more because of what they’re doing on that given night, or because of the way they’re being defended, or whatever the case may be, them being advantageous. I think that’s team to team. But it is, obviously it is nice to know when you have that, but you also have to recognize the hot hand and try to ride it."

Jerryd Bayless
Re: The game:
"We just got to play well, we think we have improved as a team and we showed that tonight. Yesterday we had a day off to clear our minds from the road trip and everybody came in and played well today."

Re: Understanding what his coach expects of him:
"I understand what Brad is looking for and Brad really is really defensively minded. The shots are going to come and go some days or not - depends on the day. Tonight they were going well. When we play together defensively and we're helping each other, we're out there and everybody is covering up after each other we're a good team and we have to do that more constantly and we'll be okay."

Jeff Green
Re: How it feels to end a five-game losing streak:
"It feels good, we have gotten better and we finally got over this hump to get this win."

Re: Jerryd Bayless' performance as a starter:
"We needed it, he kept us in the game in the second half. The team made shots and he kept the lead for us and that’s what we need to do for the team. If we are not the guy to have it going then we need to set up and make plays for each other."


Hawks 104
Mike Budenholzer
Re: The game:
"It’s a tough loss. I think there was a lot of length, a lot of size that we are battling and I think when you look at the shot disparity, I think they (Celtics) had 90 shots to our 76, and I think 17 on the boards, and we had more turnovers, they had more offensive rebounds and all of that just becomes hard to overcome. We just have to collectively stick together, find a way to rebound better, take care of the ball better, a few defensive breakdowns late and trying to maintain the momentum when we start early, when we start well, maintain that momentum. But we will stick together."

Re: Jerryd Bayless:
"I think Jerryd (Bayless) did a great job of coming off the screens, his activity, he made shots, he had one of those nights; I think he banked in a three from the corner. He had a heck of a night and I don’t think that had much to do with us trying to stay with their bigs or stay with their length. Was just really more a credit to Jerryd (Bayless)."

Re: DeMarre Carroll and Carier Martin at the 4 and 5:
"I think it's just trying to find a group and also trying to maintain some energy and we can’t run our guys into the ground, and I think they are always just searching for a group that might catch a spark. Going conventional, that was the hope. DeMarre was really good for us tonight and I thought Cartier helped us in the few minutes he played. We tried to catch a spark with that combination."

Re: Trying to force things inside on offense:
"To be honest with you, I don’t think offense was our problem. I think we had 107 points. Defensively is where we missed the ball and where we missed some of our big guys and on the boards is where we missed them. I don’t think we were necessarily forcing the ball anywhere and I thought the offense was okay. It's just more defensively, collectively we've got to find a way to get it done."

DeMarre Carroll
Re: What decided the game:
"Too many turnovers. We got a fifteen point lead and we should have stepped on it back then, but too many turnovers, they got their rhythm and any team gets their rhythm at home they can come back."

Re: Being the smaller team:
"It’s difficult but we cant look into that because we had ample opportunities in the end so honest position and not having enough guys doesn’t mean anything because we had a chances to win and we really shot ourselves in the foot."

Jeff Teague
Re: Was the size disadvantage most apparent on offense or defense:
"Definitely defending. Offensive rebounds, they were getting to the glass, they’re a really athletic team and they just pounded the glass on us tonight. We did block out, we were holding and grabbing and trying to do whatever we could do to get them. They were being aggressive and we got some foul calls on us and things like that, but nothing we could really do. They were big tonight."

Re: Feeling pressure to score:
"I'm fine offensively, I just want to win. We got to find whatever we can do, whatever we need to do defensively, offensively whatever just to get the win. I don’t care about scoring points or any of that stuff. I just want to win."





bob



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