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 closest column games good loss next satisfying team
The satisfying thing is, right now we've put basically 16 games in the loss column between us and the next closest team in our division. When you can do that with 26 games to go, you're in pretty good shape.
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.
autographs cared face great help holder kids loss next player season sign smile sports talk tickets time took
I got to know him when he was a player and he had season tickets right next to our bench. I didn't know him just as a season-ticket holder but as a friend. It's a great loss to the sports world and Minnesota. He always had a smile on his face and cared about kids. He always took time to sign autographs and talk to kids and try to help them.
great loss remember smile sports
It's a great loss for the sports world and Minnesota. He was someone that you always remember with a smile on his face. It's tough.
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.
ability fine game last line main major month needs people scary shot strengths watching weakness win
The scary thing is he's only 21. Watching him when he was younger, I always thought one of his main strengths was the ability to make other people better. That can always be your major weakness if you do that too much. What he's done in the last month is on the fine line of when he needs to take over a game and when he needs to take a shot to win a game.
closest division game games next puts satisfying team
The satisfying thing about this game is it puts us 16 games up over our next closest team in the division with 26 to go. That's pretty good.