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
bell charlie contest continue ford game good guys limit normally overall philosophy played rebound shot shots three whatever
We have to know that they have other guys that are capable. Charlie Bell has played well. T.J. Ford had a pretty good game overall and we've got to continue to find those two. Just do what we normally do. Our philosophy is to contest whatever shot is taken, try to limit three-point shots and rebound the basketball. Those are three things we did.
against contest defense detroit played sets understood
That was Detroit basketball. The more we played against them, the more we understood their sets and we were able to contest their shots. If we play lock-down defense like we did tonight, we can play with these guys.
contested lose shots slow taking
We weren't aggressive. We were taking half-(hearted) cuts, so when you take slow cuts, you're not going to lose anybody. All the shots were contested shots.
beat breathing contest great job jump looks position produce reasons rip team teams top
Rip did a great job and Redd didn't have a lot of breathing room. One of the reasons we aren't a big fouling team is that we don't produce a lot of steals. We don't jump out and we don't gamble. We play position defense. That's why so often our man-to-man looks like a zone. We try to make teams beat us over the top and contest every shot.
contested good help job might rip send tried understanding
Rip did a good job of understanding where help might be, tried to send him to as much help as he could and contested pretty much most of his shots.
aggressive contested ends shots starts staying taking talk time turn worse
He starts to get hesitant. He'll turn down shots the first time and then all of the sudden, he ends up taking a shot that's a worse shot than he had the first time. Or a contested shot. So with him, I talk to him about staying aggressive offensively.
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.
active ball bit hands needed tonight
We don't try to get the ball out of guys' hands too much. We did a little bit tonight because we needed to do some things to get active a little bit.
carry consistent high point stretch superstar team turn
We're going through this stretch where every team has a superstar that can carry a team. The consistent thing is that, at some point in the game, we turn it on at an unbelievably high level.