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
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.
ball floor playoff question
He can put the ball on the floor and make a play, and make a play for somebody. There's no question he's going to have opportunities during this playoff run.
against anyone beat challenge good guys matter people
It's going to be a good challenge for us to play against them. I think our guys are all of the opinion, no matter what anyone says, when people play against us, they want to show that they're better than us or can beat us.
against earn game good great guys hopefully job limited main michael nice points shots taking volume
Were not going to keep Michael at 11 or 14 points. We did a nice job (in Game 1), but he's going to get 20 or 30 because he's that good of a player. What we've got to do is make him earn those and make him be a volume scorer. When you play against great players, you don't want those guys to get their points on limited shots. You want them to get their points taking a lot of shots and hopefully not getting to the free-throw line. That has to be our main focus.
against dog energy gaudy hard levels record season seems takes team
I was disappointed in the defense, and I told them that at halftime. These are the dog days, when it seems like the season is never going to end, and it takes a while to get your energy levels up. And when you have a gaudy record like we do, every team is going to come out hard against you.
care determine
All that's going to take care of itself, ... I always say as a coach, 'I don't determine who plays, they do.'
against ben coached conference good guy job playing points seen volume western
I told Ben after, I had been in the Western Conference for a lot of years and I have coached against Dirk many times. I don't think I had seen as good a job of playing a guy one-on-one as that. Dirk made some shots, but he really had to work. We wanted to make him a volume scorer, and 25 points on 23 shots, that's pretty good.
basic both confidence ends needs plays work
I think everyone is getting confidence in Mo. He makes spectacular plays at both ends of the court. It's just the basic ones that he needs to work on. That's the frustrating part.
against amount average backs confidence couple great last played situation superior team
You're in a situation where the other team doesn't have anything to lose. Their backs are against the wall, and they're going to come out and play with a great amount of energy. They're going to play with confidence from the way they've played their last couple games. You know going in about that situation, so you know you have to go in and have a superior performance. You can't just come out and have an average performance.
ability affect based decisions pro somebody win
In pro sports, you want to win, not only now but down the road. If somebody does something, is it going to affect your ability to win down the road? You make your decisions based on that.
against amount carried days energy five four games great played playing team three
You've got a team that had three days off playing against a team that played four games in five days, in four different cities, and a back-to-back situation. They played with a great amount of energy and they carried that energy to a win.
both deserving driven team type
They're both very deserving because you look at where their team is at and what their team is doing and how important they are to their teams. But you know what? Our players, we're not driven by that. We're driven by rings, and so those type of things, that's not even up for discussion.
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 best body game plays seems shots taking team
It seems like every team comes out and plays their best game against (us). As a team, it's like taking body shots every game.