Al Harrington Quotations

We're so close. If we didn't have such a bad start, we'd be in the thick of things. We're still playing for a lot of pride.

We've won our last three that way. We'll take 26 more like that as long we win. We never get discourage. We just play through our mistakes and that's the biggest difference.

We're a better team than we were last year. We've given away 10 games this year. We have to continue to compete.

When you're a bad team, you don't get any benefit-of-the-doubt calls. You see it on TV, the media knows it, and we were a casualty of that tonight. We played as hard as they did. We deserved that one as much as they did.

I got the call when I was getting into my car. I can't (pretend); I cried like a baby. I cried as soon as I got in the car. Then I called my mom. When you realize you're never going to see somebody again, it hits you. We'll never see him again.

I don't think you guys realize sometimes how connected we really are in that locker room. We are a family. We lost a brother. The only consolation we have is that he left us making sure no one can ever say a bad thing about him, because Jason was such a good person.

He came in here and kicked our behinds tonight. I know the game meant a lot to him, and he played that way.

We took a couple steps backwards. The last couple of games we were focused in the fourth quarter and pretty much could get the job done. Tonight, we didn't do that.

(Hawks GM) Billy Knight told me I'm not going anywhere, so mentally that's where I'm at now. I'm not thinking about it at all. He said if there's something that comes along, something that he's thinking about doing, I'll be the first to know before he does it.

I wish we played them 80 times this year. That's a great team over there, but for some reason we just out played them. We got the sweep but now we have to move on and win this game on Friday (against the Nets).

That was big because I let my team down (in the last game). I just had to come on -- be more aggressive and produce.

(Williams) played well, and he got it done for them. He hit all the big shots, got into the paint when he needed to, to find guys and get easy looks. He did a good job tonight.

We had way too many days off. We lost our rhythm. We lost our feel.

We could not put the ball in the hole, but the biggest thing is we did not get any stops defensively. We had the lead once again and they turned it up a little bit, but we went the other way.

We came out a little flat and we shouldn't have had that type of lapse. We had a great shoot-around, so there was no reason for us to come out and play the way we did.

We owe these guys because one time in the year, they beat us pretty bad. Other than that, we were in close games with them and down the stretch, they would out-execute us.

We kind of got disoriented by not running our stuff. But we came out and played the way we're supposed to in the second half.

When someone is scoring like that, everybody else isn't involved. When they do shoot, they're ice cold, so that worked in our favor.

(We want to) give the fans something to look forward to next year. We're going to be a much better team, and we are going to be scratching and clawing our way into the playoffs next year.

We just want our goal to be to double our win total from last year. Over these last five games, we have to find a way to win two or three of them. I think that is our focus right now and to continue to get better as a team going into next year.

Believe it or not, when it left my hand, it felt good.

They always play hard. Every time we cut it close, they would come down the next three or four possessions and get exactly the shot they wanted. They really execute well.

Defensively, I guess you could say they took us out of it. They are playing much better defense than they have in the past. With a team like that, with so much offensive firepower, you cannot get behind.

That's nonsense, and it's not fair to Coach and not fair to Jason. Jason never complained about anything. Never. He was a true professional in every sense, and he understood, like we all do, that a coach is like a parent in a lot of ways. They're on your case one minute, but at the end of the day, we're still a family no matter what.

It's a good trade for everybody now, until they start playing with these guys. Indiana gets some much-needed scoring punch, and the Kings get that much-needed defensive presence. ... Right now it looks real good. But if Ron-Ron is right, Sacramento will get the better end of that deal.

It's a great victory. They're the best team in basketball. They came in and thought they were going to blow us out of the arena. We stood up for ourselves.

It's almost funny before you realize how sad it is. You want to try and tell somebody how to brace for the impact but you know you can't. How do you tell somebody they're going to get run over by a truck when they see it coming too but can't get out of the way?

It's hard to know which way to go when you get blindsided by something like this. It's literally one foot in front of the other right now. That's as far as you look.

The No. 1 thing is their tradition and their history. And then you look at the steps they're taking to get back to that level. Right now, I would love to be in the situation they're in, where they're fighting for a playoff spot and have a very good chance of making it.

It was a hard-fought game, but we gave them too much cushion and we couldn't really recover. But our second unit in the third quarter played unbelievable. I wish we could've played them the whole second half.

It was personal for both of them. They both did a great job tonight.

I want to be a Hawk first, and hopefully we'll find a way for that to happen. That's my number one goal.

I'm not even sweating that stuff. There's no need for that. I know who I am as a player and that I have a job to do for the next 32 games, whether that's in an Atlanta Hawks uniform or some other uniform.

I'm sure he is from everything I hear, but I've got to wait until that happens.

In a close game like this, you're battling and you can't afford turnovers and allow them to score. When they were shooting free throws, we were taking jump shots. It doesn't work that way. You've got to attack the basket.

I guess they were taking it to the hole and we weren't.

Hopefully, we've gotten this one out of our system and well bounce back with a better effort on Monday night.

He played well. He got all the big shots.

The Magic just beat us. They did what they had to do to protect their home court. We've got to keep trying to win and continue to play the right way.