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
coaching establish hard individual performing players start thinking trying whether
The thing about young players, whether it's coaching or not, is that young players are always going to start out the same way -- they play hard and they play. That's who they are. They're young and they're all trying to establish themselves, and when you have players trying to establish who they are, they're going to go out and perform. Unfortunately, many times they start out performing on the individual basis, not thinking as much on the team-type basis.
coaches exhibition guess improve last maybe people ready regular season trying week
Very much so. It's something as coaches that we're not used to. You don't really go through that very much. I guess I would liken it to maybe the last week of the exhibition season when you're trying to get ready for the regular season. You want to improve and you want to keep sharp, you want to give people opportunities, you want to be competitive and you still want to win.
athletes hard matter score trying
Those guys, they play hard no matter what the score is. They've got a lot of athletes and they keep on trying hard to come at you.
league trying understand
What the league is trying to do is understand that there are a lot of people, young kids, who look at us like we're going to the office.
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.
accomplish bit carried guys heat juices offensive playing trying
We're trying to accomplish things. Playing a lot of people. Doing some things, playing some full-court pressure, play our bench. But always what happens, when you get in the heat of the battle, competitive juices flow, and our guys got juiced up a bit and really executed defensively and carried over the offensive end.
bought drive everybody forward guys looking playoffs reasons team trying
Everyone has their own reasons why they do things. All I know is this is my team right now, and the guys have bought into what we're trying to do. The playoffs are what drive everybody in this league, and we're looking forward to what's going to happen.
battle billy club coming few game heat might next players rest trying
We have players we are trying to get rest over the next 11 games. But you get into the heat of the battle sometimes and you need a billy club to get them out of the game sometimes because they are so competitive. We might have a few tangles coming down the stretch.
against playing trying
They're trying to find out who they are. I think everyone who is playing against them is trying to find out who they are a little bit, too.
chance goes guy hungry league players trying
Players in that league are trying to get here. So a guy that is up here and goes down, they want a chance to see how hungry he really is.
against close experience fourth gave good guys losing main overall played quarter team third trying win
Our main guys played really well in the third quarter. Then we gave our young guys some fourth quarter experience against a team trying to get a win after losing 10 straight. It would have been better if they would have got the win but overall they did some good things and got some good experience in a close game.
hit miss pin trying
He was trying to miss it. He was trying to hit it off the back of the pin to no avail.
cities early games grind knew leading playing road tough trying
Before the season, we said there were going to be two tough stretches -- being on the road so much early and this one, where we are playing 10 games in 10 different cities leading into the break. We knew it would be tough. We're just trying to grind our way through.
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.