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
ball easy move normally tried
We didn't move the ball like we normally do. We got to make easy plays. I thought we tried to make too many spectacular plays. We've got to make easy plays. We had 21 fast-break points; we could have had 40.
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.
tried win
We wanted to win big right away. We didn't let things happen, we tried to make too many spectacular plays.
beat closed dribble guys tried
They tried to beat us off the dribble as much as they can, which they did. We closed things down in the stretch. We had some guys who made some big plays.
both changed free game half helped played teams tempo throw trap tried worked zone
I thought our full-court trap changed the tempo of the game out of free throw situations. And I thought we played some zone the first half that helped us a little bit. I think both teams tried some things to see what worked and to use down the road.
contested good help job might rip send tried understanding
Rip did a good job of understanding where help might be, tried to send him to as much help as he could and contested pretty much most of his shots.
chicago found plays tried turn type
Chicago plays physical. They play hard. I think that they found out that if they just let us do what we want to do, we can be very effective. So they tried to turn it into a muck it, grind-it-up type game.
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.