Flip Saunders
Flip Saunders
Philip Daniel "Flip" Saunderswas an American basketball player and coach. During his career, he coached the Minnesota Timberwolves, Detroit Pistons, and Washington Wizards...
ProfessionCoach
Date of Birth23 February 1955
CityCleveland, OH
family
It's a close-knit group. When someone in your family is hurting, you hurt.
came camp credit expect good guys start
It's a credit to the way these guys came into camp and came in focused. They've made some big plays. I thought we could get off to a good start but you can't expect to go 20-3.
great loss remember smile sports
It's a great loss for the sports world and Minnesota. He was someone that you always remember with a smile on his face. It's tough.
court home lock overall secure weeks win
It's a five-step process. One, you want to get in the playoffs. We did that about two weeks ago. You want to win your division, which is going to pretty much lock in home court, at least through the first two rounds. Now what you want to do is secure home court in the East. Then secure home court overall and then the championship.
seven three
I told him I'd like to do this seven more times in two or three months.
against certain chance good offense ourselves playing prepare win work
I told our guys, we're not playing Milwaukee. We're playing ourselves. We have a certain way we want to play on offense and on defense. And if we do that, we give ourselves a chance to win against anybody. We can feel good about this right now. But we have to get back to work and prepare to go to Milwaukee.
break good guys single
I told our guys it's always good to go to the break with single digits in losses. That's always a good sign.
authority coach course deal helps main mutual players respect seven time
It really helps any time you have it. The coach is the authority figure, and you've got to be able to communicate with players. Over the course of seven months, things are going to happen, and you've got to deal with those situations. The main thing is the players know that I respect them. It's because of that mutual respect that we're able to deal with any kind of situation.
defended playoff positive time
The positive was we defended down the stretch. That's what we're going to have to do when playoff time comes.
battle billy club coming few game heat might next players rest trying
We have players we are trying to get rest over the next 11 games. But you get into the heat of the battle sometimes and you need a billy club to get them out of the game sometimes because they are so competitive. We might have a few tangles coming down the stretch.
couple last level played talked team
We've talked about Chauncey and how it would be a travesty if he's not an All-Star. It's the same way with Parker. He's really played at that level the last couple of years, and I can't see any way he doesn't make that All-Star team this year.
bit dust ran run
We ran some things we hadn't run in a while, just to dust them off a little bit and do them in a game-type situation.
came fine float players radar
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.
gave helped negative
The only negative was I wanted to play Carlos (Delfino) and I didn't. I think he could have probably helped us. We went with Mo, and Mo gave us energy.