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
accept five job minutes open team time whatever winning within won
Any time you take a job where a team won the championship and got within five minutes of winning another, you wonder, how are they going to accept you? But they've been very open to coaching, very open to doing whatever we've asked.
care job makeup medical missing people total
That's even more unbelievable than not missing any games. Part of that is the (players') makeup and how they take care of themselves. And part of it is our medical people and the job they do. It's a total approach.
energy true
That's especially true for them at home. They are improving. They play with a lot of energy in this building.
character easy extremely glass jump matched played settling switching took
(The Lakers) were extremely aggressive. We got pounded on the glass and they took things to the basket. We played out of character defensively. We were switching and getting little (guys) matched on big (guys) and we took the easy way out by settling for jump shots.
eight last miss pop six
The last thing we need is for him to go out there and really pop it and have to miss six to eight weeks.
games improve last sharp six stay
The last six games you want to stay sharp and you want to improve in some areas.
opening quite thinking
Their organization has always been very first-class. Opening night, sometimes they get really excited. Some of their people, they just really weren't quite thinking all the way.
nose putting
I just told the guys, we have to get dirty. We have to do what we do best, and that is putting our nose to the grindstone and going after them.
ben game goes guys happen instead league looked might nine points rebounds rip seems six
I looked back at that. What always seems to happen is, the guys will play well, and they'll have one stinker game that week. They'll have one game where Chauncey might have 11 points, six assists. Or Ben might get nine rebounds instead of 18. Rip might have 13 points instead of 23. And in this league so much, it goes down to statistics.
both bottom exciting images individual line mirror standpoint takes teams unselfish whatever
I look at their team, and we are mirror images from the standpoint of we both have some exciting players, but because both teams are so unselfish and there's not a lot of controversy, they don't get a lot of individual notoriety. Bottom line is, both teams are about winning, and about doing whatever it takes to win.
guys hang last playing teams tired week whether
I haven't thought over the last week we've been very sharp. We've let teams hang around. That's why I've said, whether guys are tired or whatever, we're not playing with the zip and the sense of urgency.
charles four game giving great guys halftime helped played playing run second talk thank
I have to thank Charles (Barkley) for giving a great halftime talk when he said the game was over. I thought we were playing too perfect, but in the second half we played exceptionally well. When our four guys (four All-Stars from Detroit) were in we started to run some plays, and I think that helped us.
lose
I like these games. I don't want us to lose what our personality is.
home offense playing whether
They'll be more comfortable at home, but we're not playing Milwaukee. We're playing ourselves. Whether we're home or away we want to play our offense and our defense. Hopefully, if we do that there won't be a letdown.