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
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.
fine game gets guy line minutes players productive
I think if a guy gets in the game and he's productive, then he's going to get more minutes. That's what it's about. And it's that fine line: Do you become productive when you get minutes, or do you get minutes and then become productive? That's always the fine line between players and coaches.
care freak gets guy harm injuries knows sure took work
One, you've got to be lucky. Freak injuries are the things that usually put you down sometimes. I don't know how Mo is, but I know KG is a guy who really took care of his body. During the season, he gets massages every day. He's done a lot of work with his body. He knows that's his tool, that's his profession. And he doesn't do anything that's going to harm his body, and I'm sure Mo Pete has to be the same way.
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.
attitude ben defensive gets motivates
When Ben struggles, sometimes that motivates him at the defensive end. He gets the attitude that if I'm not going to score, then you aren't going to score.
bored chance forced gets guys instincts maybe stimulated team
Our guys have to be stimulated mentally. I've always said this team gets bored at times. When you're forced to react, forced to move, you don't really have a chance to maybe think about getting bored. You just go out and your instincts take over.
aggressive defense five game gets gotten improved last pressure seconds shoot shots watching
He's gotten really aggressive and he's making big shots. Watching them play a lot, he gets a lot of shots in the last five seconds of games. He will put pressure on your defense because he can shoot the three, but he's also improved his game getting to the basket.
bit conserve energy few gets guys last thinks tries
He's been like that the last few games. I like when he's a bit more aggressive. A part of it is he tries to conserve energy when he thinks he has to and gets other guys going.
coach days gets guy luxury next night replace sat sit
In the past, you had a guy who got nicked up, you had to make a decision. You put him on the IRE and he sat out days and games, or a coach said, 'Well, we're going to sit him out, but we're not going to replace him.' Right now, you have the luxury of, if a guy gets the flu, you can sit him out that night and if he's better the next night, you can let him play.
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.