Dog days. Especially after the holidays. After the holidays, you've had some big games last week. So what happens is you come in and it takes time to get your energy going a little bit. I thought we came out and traded baskets too much.

To our credit we came back and located him in the last few minutes, and didn't give him any good looks.

I was concerned because at shoot-around this morning I heard a couple of guys mention some stuff about Miami. I was concerned we might overlook Atlanta. But we came out and played like a well-oiled machine in the first half.

I thought we came out with a good focus, especially after a back-to-back. We came out methodically offensively and defensively went into a swarming defense and controlled things right from the beginning.

When I came here, a lot of the players told me it'd be like that. We float under the radar a lot. So I think that's fine with us.

They came out and were very aggressive. As I told the guys before the game, in an emotional game like this, they're going to play extremely well and play aggressive. You have to match their intensity and make shots. The two things you need to do to start the game, we didn't do.

I want to win. My thing was not what this team has done in the past, it's what we have an opportunity to do in the future. So, my decision came pretty easy.

I think everyone thought he had the opportunity to be a good player. I thought he was a good player when I came here, but I never understood how good he was until I saw him day in and day out. His commitment to the game, his commitment to the team, and just how versatile he is.

After the second half started, we locked down and were a lot better defensively. Even though we got down, we didn't lose our aggressiveness. But we came down and ... scored three times on them. We just kept controlling it.