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
basically bench bit giving guys playing start three
We wanted to try to start establishing our bench more, so basically we're playing three guys and giving those guys a little bit more minutes.
bench extend game guys last situation stay
Last night's game was a big game just because it put us up (9 1/2 games) with 15 to go. Now we're in a situation where we want to try and extend our bench a little bit, get those guys more minutes, and get our guys where we can stay competitive and fresh.
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.
bench gave lift points tonight
It's not always about how many points they score. I thought our bench really gave us a lift tonight in a lot of different ways.
bench benches comfort fifth fourth guys minutes reason situation tendency
It's natural. We're in a very different situation than a lot of teams. A lot of teams, the reason they play their bench is because they don't like their fourth and fifth guys that much. I like my fourth and fifth guys. That's why our bench doesn't get the minutes some of the other benches get. You have a tendency to go to a comfort level.
bench creates minutes playing starters vicious
The bench has been great. And that creates that vicious cycle. When the bench is playing well, they play more minutes and the starters get more rest.
ben respect talked
I told Ben when I talked to him that I have a lot of respect for him and everything he does.
against ben coached conference good guy job playing points seen volume western
I told Ben after, I had been in the Western Conference for a lot of years and I have coached against Dirk many times. I don't think I had seen as good a job of playing a guy one-on-one as that. Dirk made some shots, but he really had to work. We wanted to make him a volume scorer, and 25 points on 23 shots, that's pretty good.
ben free harder motivates stretch throws
Ben usually makes big free throws down the stretch and when he misses, it motivates him to play harder defensively.
ben final last lock minutes needed night played
Ben played 56 minutes last night (in Memphis), and he played 41 tonight. Yet, he was able to do what he did. When we needed to lock down in the final two minutes, he pretty much did it.
again amazed beat ben catalyst defensive player score tough year
Ben is our energy. I would be amazed if he wasn't the defensive player of the year again just from everything he does. He's our lock-down guy. When we have energy, we are tough to beat and tough to score on. When we don't, we can be pretty ordinary. And Ben is usually the catalyst for that energy.
ben mistakes
Ben erases a lot of mistakes for us. He was unbelievable with everything he was doing.
ability ben defensive gave good job presence shut
Ben did as good a job as you can on Shaq when you play him one-on-one. His defensive presence gave us the ability to shut down some of their other people.
basically ben free shooting works
Ben works on it a lot, ... We do a lot of shooting as a team, 15-, 17-foot shooting, which is basically free throws. We shoot probably 100 of those a day. So he's getting a lot more free throws.