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
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.
biggest brought court deal far gave handle mitchell players porter practice prepare responsibility sam surrounded terry tried type veteran
We surrounded (Kevin). We brought in two veteran players in Sam Mitchell and Terry Porter that we thought were two very professional type individuals that would show him how to handle practice situations, what it was to be professionals, to prepare for practice, to prepare for games, how to deal as far as off the floor, not to put yourself in any awkward-type situations. And then we tried to communicate with him. Our biggest thing was we gave him enough responsibility on the court that he was able to perform, yet still improve.
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.
energy lack maybe quick rest spots watch
When you watch film, you see we're maybe not getting to spots quick enough. Or there are some things where we lack the energy that I know when we get rest that we have. So we'll see.