In the Giants’ locker room after the game, the buzz word was “momentum.”

As in, New York feels it has good momentum going as it prepares for a first-round playoff game in Tampa Bay next weekend, despite the loss to New England.

“This is a pretty good momentum-builder coming out of a game like this,” defensive lineman Justin Tuck said. “We are still disappointed because you don’t want to lose, but I think it gives us the gauge that we wanted.”

Backup center Grey Ruegamer: “It is a great momentum builder, but we still lost. So I’m pretty ticked off about that. When you play a team like that, you want to gauge yourself and you want to win. We played to win and we just came up a little short at the end. We lost but we are in the playoffs.”

Safety James Butler, whom Randy Moss blew past on his way to touchdown number 23: “The way we played tonight is definitely a momentum-builder going into the playoffs. But you still want to win this game. There are a lot of positives that we can take out of tonight’s game. We were hustling, we were aggressive, and we were playing hard-nosed football tonight. And that is the same kind of attitude and intensity that we have to bring into next week’s game.”

But linebacker Antonio Pierce apparently didn’t get the momentum memo.

“It is a confidence builder,” he said. “That is the best team in the league, probably hands-down in the regular season. I thought we played toe-to-toe with those guys. But you have to play four quarters. You have to play [darn] near perfect against them.”

-SHALISE MANZA YOUNG