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
finals last playing playoff team understand
The thing is, we're not going to change. You have to understand something: This team has a lot of playoff experience. They've been to the Finals the last two years. They're not playing differently than what they've played. That's how they play.
bit changes coaches few game gave league maybe people players reward rule team understand
I think people will understand that when we go in together, they will understand what it really is all about. A few years ago ... there were rule changes that were made to make the game aesthetically better and to make the game more team oriented, not as individually oriented. I think the reward that the coaches gave our players kind of signified a little bit maybe that's the way our league is going.
coming extremely feeling hard help island learning man pressure starting understand works
Carlos works extremely hard on defense. He is big and extremely strong. Now he is starting to understand where the help is coming from. He is learning how to pressure his man into the help, and he isn't feeling like he's out there on an island so much.
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.
blocking concept good presence shots supposed team understand understanding
What I didn't understand was how good he can be defensively, blocking shots and he has a pretty good presence of understanding what he's supposed to do in the team concept defensively,
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.
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.
coach far game good shooter understand
And I didn't understand how good a perimeter shooter he was and how good a passer he was. He's got some things as a coach you can't teach, as far as his feel for the game passing-wise.
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.