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
bad easy job moved pressure situations taken teams walking
I've been in situations where I've taken bad teams and moved them in the right direction. In those situations, there is no pressure. Would it have been easy for me to take another job and not have as much (pressure)? Pressure is what you put on yourself. I don't really feel any pressure walking into a situation.
ankle bad easy games gets hurt leg people players position sit watch work
The thing you have to watch out for is if you sit a guy, and his leg gets weaker. We're not going to put him in a position where he's going to hurt his ankle more. People out there, they don't know how bad the ankle is. It's way too easy for everyone to say, ?Just sit him and not have him play.' But players work 82 games to get into a rhythm, to play well in the playoffs.
bad chance defensive game mentally minute played step win
We were mentally a step slow. We had some defensive breakdowns, we played out of character. But as bad as we played, we still had a chance to win the game with a minute to go.
bad capitalize chance mentally minute played somewhat
I thought we were not as mentally alert. We played somewhat out of character, but as bad as we played we still had a chance with a minute to go. We didn't capitalize on our opportunities down the stretch. You play 82 games, and you don't like to say you didn't have it, but we didn't have it tonight.
bad good looked playing shows team
To have 36 assists on 43 baskets shows that we are playing team basketball. We aren't as good as we looked tonight, and we aren't as bad as we looked in Dallas.
anytime bad bounce carries coach energetic energy excitement initial takes whether
There's always an energetic bounce - whether good, bad or indifferent - because a new voice, a new energy comes in. Anytime a coach takes over a team, there's always that initial excitement that carries over to the team.
bad chance mentally minute
I thought that we were not as mentally alert. But as bad as we played, we still had a chance with a minute to go.
bad east grind night team took tough tougher trust west
If you took a team from the West and made it play in the East on a nightly basis, they would find out how tough it is. It's such a grind. The East is tougher mentally. It's a grind night in and night out. . . . Trust me. The East is not as bad as they make it out to be.
ability available basket both bring creating effective good instant knew offense scoring tony
Tony is in a good rhythm. We knew when he was available what he could bring to the team, and we knew he had the ability to score. I don't think everyone knew he could be effective at both perimeter scoring and going to the basket and creating for other people. Right now, he's kind of our instant offense off the bench.
calm lost playing starters thrown
We lost focus. When you have two starters thrown out in a three-minute span, I wouldn't say you're playing calm at that time.
energy passion picked played seemed terrible
We had terrible energy and terrible passion in the first half. We just seemed very much disinterested, and then we really picked it up and played with more energy.
follow four guys played talk touch unique
We try to talk a little bit, keep in touch every now and then, follow each other's career. It's a unique situation. You have two guys who played with each other, went four years together.
start
We got pretty much what we wanted offensively. Defensively, we were like vultures to start games.
gave guys heat main played quarter third trap turned worked
We got out of it what we wanted. Our main guys played really well, especially in the third quarter when they turned the heat up. We worked on some of our trap defenses that were really effective. Then we gave our young guys some fourth-quarter experience.