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
few games minutes start
When you get to 41 games you get him a few minutes at a time, start getting into the rhythm.
fun games gets serious start
When you get in these games, it's very interesting. The games start out being very fun and everything else and then all of a sudden, it gets very serious and very competitive.
bowl games hunted people played prepared pressure regular season since super talk time
You have to understand, we've played 82 games to get here; 82 games of playoff-type basketball. People talk about the pressure of being the hunted. Well, we've been the hunted since we were 8-0. It's been like our opponents' Super Bowl every time they play us. I think the regular season prepared us for what's at hand.
against game games guys half lead parts played team tonight york
We've played 37 games and different guys lead us over different parts of the game and play unselfish...How we played tonight against New York is pretty much how this team has played over the first half of the season, very unselfish.
bench conscious create effort games last role three won
Two of the last three games that we won were because of our bench, and (Sunday) night, our bench got us in the game. We say we're going to make a very conscious effort to play them, create a role for them, create a niche, create an identity, and I think that's what we've done.
aggressive both ends entertainment extremely games people team watch win
We also are in the entertainment business. I've always been one to go out and win games but also entertain, and I think we've become a team now that a lot of people like to watch play, because we play extremely aggressive at both ends of the floor.
games guys playing rest tired
We have been playing a lot of games home-road-home-road, so I think we were a little tired tonight. We'll have to give some guys a rest down the stretch.
basically fourth games judge losses nine played three wins
I don't always judge things by wins and losses. I just go by how you play and the opportunities to win. We played 51 games, and out of those 51 we had nine losses and probably only three of those games where we basically didn't have opportunities to win in the fourth quarter.
few games gone guys happened last minutes played plays team
I think what's happened is (starters) minutes have gone down in the last few games because of the play of (Antonio) McDyess, the play of Mo (Evans), the play of (Carlos) Delfino, the play of (Carlos) Arroyo. Those guys have played well, and if a team plays well, you keep them on the floor.
couple exhibition games good guys last lost recall regular start
I think I recall that we lost our last couple games in the exhibition season, and we got off to a pretty good start with the regular season. These guys have been there. They know that this is when it all begins.
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.
games guys last mitchell older productive sam tires tread understand utilize wear
Fortunately for me I've had some older guys where we do the same thing. We did that for two years with Ervin Johnson. He didn't play the first 45 games but he started in the last 25 and started in the playoffs. Sam Mitchell was the same way. You have to understand the guys that have a lot of wear on their tires and know how much tread you have left. You want to try to utilize it in a very productive manner.
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.
games player solid
He's been a solid player in all 29 games we've played.