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
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.
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.
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.
against expansive offense prepare teams
The thing is -- like it or not -- a lot of teams don't prepare much to play against zones, ... They don't have as expansive an offense as they do for man-to-man.
against certain chance good offense ourselves playing prepare win work
I told our guys, we're not playing Milwaukee. We're playing ourselves. We have a certain way we want to play on offense and on defense. And if we do that, we give ourselves a chance to win against anybody. We can feel good about this right now. But we have to get back to work and prepare to go to Milwaukee.
few games minutes start
When you get to 41 games you get him a few minutes at a time, start getting into the rhythm.
atmosphere best fired fun nba people
When you get in this place, there are 22,000 people and we've got the best atmosphere that you could have in an NBA arena. They get fired up and it's fun to play.
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.
exploit finding league playing shows team
When you get 30 assists, it shows you are playing team basketball, ... This league is about finding where the mismatches are and exploit the weaknesses.
athletes sure
When you have other athletes (in the arena), you want to go out and you want to perform. I'm sure that got them juiced up a little bit.
great points shots team volume
When you play great ones, it's the team assignment. You have to make him a volume scorer. You can't let him get 30 points on 18 shots. What you want to is keep him out of the free-throw line, make him take a lot of shots if you can.
When you have 22 turnovers, you can't set up your defense. So that's why I've always said, the better offensively you are, the better defensively you can be.
ahead coming crowd division excited focused focusing front great night players playing sunday trying
When you get up 15 in your division through 45 games, what you're trying to do is you're focusing on what you have ahead and that's the playoffs. I think the players are going to be very focused and very excited about coming here Sunday night and playing in front of a great crowd in a great atmosphere.
far players
The players have been more than I probably expected, as far as being receptive,