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
anxiety days dog guys multiply prior situation somewhere teams top tough upset week
The dog days are always the 10 days prior to All-Star break. That's always a tough time. You see a lot of teams get upset because guys say, 'OK, I've got a week off, I'm going somewhere for All-Star break.' Multiply that on top of our situation of guys wondering, 'Well, am I going to be an All-Star or not?' There's always that anxiety of wondering.
fair tough tougher
It's tough. It's always tough to play on the road. It's even tougher when you feel you aren't getting a fair shake.
coming players toughest wants
It's one of those things, if you put him out there for 10 minutes, he wants 15. If you put him out there for 15, he wants 20. That's the toughest thing about young players coming to championship-caliber teams.
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.
four games holding prior reason straight teams tough
The one reason we have been in the games prior to this was because of our defense. We had four (actually three) straight games of holding teams in the 70s. That's pretty tough to do in this league.
bad east grind night team took tough tougher trust west
If you took a team from the West and made it play in the East on a nightly basis, they would find out how tough it is. It's such a grind. The East is tougher mentally. It's a grind night in and night out. . . . Trust me. The East is not as bad as they make it out to be.
days expected gone needed second seven tough
They are always tough ones, when you've been gone for seven days and you come back and are expected to win. I thought we executed when we needed to - in the second half.
changed contain last league people rules touch toughest
Everyone can get better. You can always get better rebounding-wise. The toughest thing in our league is, with the way the rules have changed from last year, where you have to contain people out on the perimeter, and you can't touch people. That's always something that's very difficult.
accomplish game guys nice step win
You want to try to win every game you step out, but I think it would be nice to try to accomplish something like that at home. It's one of these situations, when we go in, all 12 guys got to play well because all 12 guys are going to have opportunities.
cities common dead game games half happened last percentage rough second seventh shooting sign stretch three
This is our seventh game in seven different cities in 10 days. This has been a rough stretch and I think the common thing that has happened to us the last three games is that our shooting percentage in the second half is going down, which is usually a sign of dead legs.
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.
exactly number time true
Every time it happens, you always try to find out if there's questionable ones. I don't exactly know what the number is and what the true number is.
supposed
You want to go in, play solidly for 48 (minutes) and play how you're supposed to play.
continue next shake
A lot of things could still happen. We will continue to look and see what's available. There will be things that could shake out in the next day or so.