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
athletes hard matter score trying
Those guys, they play hard no matter what the score is. They've got a lot of athletes and they keep on trying hard to come at you.
early everybody fresh given high playing ready reason year
You know, early in the year everybody was questioning his minutes. But given his history, there was a reason we weren't playing him a lot. We wanted to get him fresh and ready for now, and you see he's playing at an unbelievably high level.
control gain lost second
We had control. We lost that control and couldn't gain it back in the second half.
tough
We made him take a lot of tough shots.
great league plays team teams
We have a team that plays on the edge. You have to have that. All the great teams in this league have been like that.
area defended kicked point soft
We have not defended how we need to defend. We've been too soft on the ball. ... They kicked out butts every which way. I would like to point to one area and say that we did something well, but we didn't.
against earn game good great guys hopefully job limited main michael nice points shots taking volume
Were not going to keep Michael at 11 or 14 points. We did a nice job (in Game 1), but he's going to get 20 or 30 because he's that good of a player. What we've got to do is make him earn those and make him be a volume scorer. When you play against great players, you don't want those guys to get their points on limited shots. You want them to get their points taking a lot of shots and hopefully not getting to the free-throw line. That has to be our main focus.
ball considered games move played playoff
We played 82 games that we considered playoff basketball. That's the way we're going to play. We're going to defend, we're going to move the ball offensively, and that's why I told our guys.
bench chase extended focus guys health minutes ready rest staying
We're not going to chase that record, but if it comes, it comes. Our focus right now is health and staying sharp. We're going to rest some guys and give our bench extended minutes to get them ready for the playoffs.
We sense what's coming. We know what's going to come here in two weeks.
games grind mental win
This season, as much as anything, has been a grind. When you win 63 games and how you've played, it's as much as mental grind as it is physical.
against games
Those are always more grind-type games than those against the West.
knew time
Yeah, I knew it was time to get him out when he did that.
bench range start starters
We'd like to start getting our bench in that 70- to 80-minute range to give our starters some rest.