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
brought came everybody took
We came out kind of flat. We brought in Carlos, and he got us back in the game, took over the game, and everybody else finished.
faced fight teams
We've faced a lot of teams that have had that sense of urgency, so what has happened, teams have kind of jumped on us early. We've had to fight our butts off to get back in games.
afraid bigger certain might playing practice
We've done some things in practice where we'll play a bigger lineup, playing a two at the point. And even the development of (rookie Alex) Acker at practice, in certain situations, we might not be afraid to play him some.
biggest brought court deal far gave handle mitchell players porter practice prepare responsibility sam surrounded terry tried type veteran
We surrounded (Kevin). We brought in two veteran players in Sam Mitchell and Terry Porter that we thought were two very professional type individuals that would show him how to handle practice situations, what it was to be professionals, to prepare for practice, to prepare for games, how to deal as far as off the floor, not to put yourself in any awkward-type situations. And then we tried to communicate with him. Our biggest thing was we gave him enough responsibility on the court that he was able to perform, yet still improve.
capable playing team
To get 30 assists as a team after the way we started out - we started playing the way we were capable of playing offensively.
barometer concerned games half scoring shooting zero
He's a barometer a lot for us. ... I was not as concerned about him not scoring or shooting or not being aggressive, but his rebounding totals were way down. He had some games in the first half where he'd come in with zero or one.
bodies far gives guy inside question shot
He's a different presence. There's no question that without him, they didn't go inside as much. He gives them a low-block presence. He's more of a go-to guy as far as inside down the stretch. Defensively, he's a shot blocker. It just gives them more bodies up front.
great
He's a flat-out great shooter. You can never have enough of those guys.
relaxing run time
We'll run our offense. We'll run our plays. That'll be the most relaxing time that I'll have at the All-Star Game, when they're on the floor.
ability anticipate holding playing
We have the ability to get by without him, but he's going to want to play. That's how he is. I don't anticipate anything holding him back from playing, and playing a lot of minutes.
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.
judge
I can only judge what I have seen,
deal expect games great players team turn veteran
From what I read and hear, as a team and with Shaq, they feel like they are going to be able to turn it on when they need to. Veteran players have that belief. We go through that here in some games But I expect them to come with a great deal of energy.