Flip Saunders Couple Quotations

Cato was out of his boot (protecting his injured right ankle). He was shooting and jogging. He's still at least a couple of weeks away (from being able to practice).

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.

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.

I was concerned because at shoot-around this morning I heard a couple of guys mention some stuff about Miami. I was concerned we might overlook Atlanta. But we came out and played like a well-oiled machine in the first half.

I think I recall that we lost our last couple games in the exhibition season, and we got off to a pretty good start with the regular season. These guys have been there. They know that this is when it all begins.

We've talked about Chauncey and how it would be a travesty if he's not an All-Star. It's the same way with Parker. He's really played at that level the last couple of years, and I can't see any way he doesn't make that All-Star team this year.

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.

Whether we play well or don't play well come Sunday, will have no bearing on how we've done this season. As I recall, we lost our last couple games in the exhibition season and got off to a pretty good start in the regular season.

The way this team is built, our bench guys are meant to play together in clusters with our main group. When you put all five guys on the floor, they're not as effective as when three of those guys play with a couple of starters.

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.

The biggest thing is he turned down some threes tonight and took a couple of dribble penetrations. It helped out some of the other guys to make some plays.

The nice thing is we have a couple of days off.

It's incentive to get days off. ... Any time you can get in a playoff situation where you can get a three- or four-day rest, it's almost like a mini-training camp situation, and you can get back to your basics. Get back and have a couple of good practices and really kind of get calmed down from winning a series and get rejuvenated and get back up and get into that crescendo where you're playing extremely well again for the first game.

He took a couple of hits both on the face and in the head, I thought it was best for us not to take any chances if we didn't have to. He's going to get enough punishment, hits and bruises on our next game (facing Shaquille O'Neal ). He's a pretty resilient guy, but still, you don't want to see that.