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
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.
ball basketball care chances early forced locked score took turn
We locked down defensively to get the lead. We got to do what we wanted to do offensively. We didn't turn the ball over. We forced turnovers early and turnovers late. We took care of the basketball and didn't give them chances to score out of our offense.
cities early games grind knew leading playing road tough trying
Before the season, we said there were going to be two tough stretches -- being on the road so much early and this one, where we are playing 10 games in 10 different cities leading into the break. We knew it would be tough. We're just trying to grind our way through.
bearing couple exhibition games good last lost regular season start whether
Whether we play well or don't play well come Sunday, will have no bearing on how we've done this season. As I recall, we lost our last couple games in the exhibition season and got off to a pretty good start in the regular season.
became dimension gave reasons somebody tony
Tony is a high-energy guy, and that's one of the reasons that when he became available, he was somebody we really wanted to look at. We thought he gave us a different dimension from what we had on the roster.
against attack biggest defense
What they're going to try to do is do what they did during the season, try to get more off open-floor, transition-type opportunities, and try to attack that way and not have to go against our half-court defense as much. That will probably be their biggest adjustment.
bit came lost
We got up 18, 20, lost a little bit of our concentration. They came at us aggressively.
dallas hold points score
We're going to have to score more points because Dallas is going to score. We're not going to be able to hold Dallas to 70-something points. It's just not going to happen.
defense games good winning
We're doing a lot of good things on defense and that's how we're winning as many games as we are.
tried win
We wanted to win big right away. We didn't let things happen, we tried to make too many spectacular plays.
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.
defended playoff positive time
The positive was we defended down the stretch. That's what we're going to have to do when playoff time comes.
far iceberg tip
We are at the tip of the iceberg as far as where we are and where we could be.
far happened playing playoff prepared throw thrown
We still only had 10 turnovers for the game. They were magnified as far as when they happened a little bit. When you're playing well, they try to throw everything at you. From that standpoint, as I say, the more things that are thrown at you, the better prepared you are come playoff time.