Flip Saunders Type Quotations

I think the one thing that people underestimate is that when there's adversity and they become challenged they rise up to the occasion. They love those types of situations. That's why this team is built for the playoffs.

Chicago plays physical. They play hard. I think that they found out that if they just let us do what we want to do, we can be very effective. So they tried to turn it into a muck it, grind-it-up type game.

We surrounded (Kevin). We brought in two veteran players in Sam Mitchell and Terry Porter that we thought were two very professional type individuals that would show him how to handle practice situations, what it was to be professionals, to prepare for practice, to prepare for games, how to deal as far as off the floor, not to put yourself in any awkward-type situations. And then we tried to communicate with him. Our biggest thing was we gave him enough responsibility on the court that he was able to perform, yet still improve.

Sometimes in these types of situations, you want to get some organization. I thought that the way these guys play together, they can get some organization. We went through some stuff with Paul (Pierce) and he seemed to pick things up and play well off those guys.

He's had some other things from a mental standpoint. When you're dealing with that type of situation, it's got to affect you from a mental standpoint.

Our starters broke a sweat and didn't get too stale or hurt and I was happy to see the young guys play. It was good to see those guys in that type of situation.

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.

I talked to the guys at halftime and basically said that we were not as competitive. I thought that the second half they played exceptionally well. In these type of games, it takes a lot of time to get used to playing with guys. Every guy did something in a very positive way.