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
playing share shows team
We had 30 assists, and that shows you are playing team basketball. We share the ball.
bit dust ran run
We ran some things we hadn't run in a while, just to dust them off a little bit and do them in a game-type situation.
fine guess heat line morning staff stuff talked wait
We just have to play him better. It's a fine line as to how much you want to show (before the playoffs). We talked as a staff this morning about the stuff we've been working on -- how much do we want to use it or not use it? I guess we'll just have to wait and see in the heat of the battle.
against anybody broke guys hurt opportunity situation stale sure sweat top
We said going in the idea was to not get anybody hurt and make sure that the guys we had to play broke a sweat and didn't get too stale and give our young guys an opportunity to play in a heated situation against some top players.
feeling nice nine statement
We said he was feeling good, so we just let him go. He had 37 points, nine assists, one turnover -- I mean, that's a pretty nice statement for the All-Star team, or whatever.
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.
carry consistent high point stretch superstar team turn
We're going through this stretch where every team has a superstar that can carry a team. The consistent thing is that, at some point in the game, we turn it on at an unbelievably high level.
area ball bit couple improvement involved less move pass people quick reasons runs shots though took won
We took, I thought, too many quick shots. We took 50 shots with one pass or less out of 75 shots, which for us is way too many. And that's one of the reasons we only had 17 assists. Even though we won by 18, they made a couple of runs at us, and I think we have a big area of improvement to get more people involved offensively and move the ball a little bit more.
chance couple days gives good kept short
We kept him out today. He's getting treatment. He's going to be OK. It's probably good that we have a couple days off and don't have a short turnaround, because it gives him more of a chance to get ready.
accept almost challenges character enjoy extremely love players playing road win
You have to have a lot of character to win on the road. You have to have players who love to accept challenges and are extremely competitive. It's almost like they enjoy playing on the road more than playing at home.
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.
guys miss shoot shot thinking whether
To this point, we've shot it pretty well. I don't want guys thinking about whether they should shoot it or not. If they do that, they're probably going to miss it anyway.
ability build coach comments confidence somebody
Those I take as being comments from a young coach who has never been in that situation. I've never been a coach who downgrades what somebody else is doing to build myself up. I have enough confidence in my own ability to where I feel like I can just go out and show what I can do.
happens jump team waiting
(With) a young team, what happens is, it's like they're waiting for us to make a run. When a team makes a run, you have to really jump in there.