Flip Saunders Bit Quotations

We got up 18, 20, lost a little bit of our concentration. They came at us aggressively.

We wanted to try to start establishing our bench more, so basically we're playing three guys and giving those guys a little bit more minutes.

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.

He turned down some threes. He took a couple of dribble-penetrations, and that collapsed them more and helped out some of our other guys. Sometimes he might take some threes when he's covered, a little bit contested. (Wednesday) he didn't force too many, he let things come to him more. I think he didn't try to force too many, he let the game come to him more.

He made some shots early. Maybe got carried away a little bit in the second half. You can see that he's getting into better shape. He's lively. And he's one of those guys when he's guarding somebody, they don't want him on them.

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.

He's been so barraged by things right now. I want to wait a little bit until things all are done and then I'll reach out to him.

He's been like that the last few games. I like when he's a bit more aggressive. A part of it is he tries to conserve energy when he thinks he has to and gets other guys going.

I thought, especially for our league, the fourth quarter was a great quarter. They saw a little bit about what NBA basketball is about: great plays by great players.

I thought we played really well for stretches and periods, both defensively, offensively. I thought we got up 18-20, we lost a little bit of our concentration.

I thought we did some nice things. We built a lead, then you relax a little bit and they made some plays, but it wasn't where we didn't have control of the game.

I think they were all superficial deals. You hope that somebody might help you out a little bit but I don't think there's one deal where you can say, 'This is the guy that's going to put us way over the top.' They were deals that might help a little bit, maybe improve your playoff position, but that's all.

My thing is, if you're going to let them play, let them play. There was a little bit of inconsistency, so it was hard to adapt to that.

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.

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.

We don't try to get the ball out of guys' hands too much. We did a little bit tonight because we needed to do some things to get active a little bit.

We did a good job setting screens. We changed it a little bit on some of his runs. He did more change of pace. He'd change, run, stop, then he took off again. And Chauncey delivered. We set screens a little bit lower to get Rip a little bit more room coming off those screens to try and read.

So what happens is, it eats up some of those minutes and the other guys have to play a bit more.

Zone might be a four-letter word around here, ... but they've been pretty receptive to it. I think it's one of those things that, if we play it and we're successful with it, they'll wrap their arms around it a little bit more.

They pounded us on the glass. Give them credit. They made shots and played with more energy. We were a little bit tired.

In the back of their minds, there's a little bit of a mental letdown. The other team, when they're missing a player they always get a little more juiced up to play because they know they have to play at a higher level.