Flip Saunders Games Quotations

From what I read and hear, as a team and with Shaq, they feel like they are going to be able to turn it on when they need to. Veteran players have that belief. We go through that here in some games But I expect them to come with a great deal of energy.

Fortunately for me I've had some older guys where we do the same thing. We did that for two years with Ervin Johnson. He didn't play the first 45 games but he started in the last 25 and started in the playoffs. Sam Mitchell was the same way. You have to understand the guys that have a lot of wear on their tires and know how much tread you have left. You want to try to utilize it in a very productive manner.

I don't always judge things by wins and losses. I just go by how you play and the opportunities to win. We played 51 games, and out of those 51 we had nine losses and probably only three of those games where we basically didn't have opportunities to win in the fourth quarter.

He's a barometer a lot for us. ... I was not as concerned about him not scoring or shooting or not being aggressive, but his rebounding totals were way down. He had some games in the first half where he'd come in with zero or one.

He's been a solid player in all 29 games we've played.

He had a good look when he came off, and I saw Ricky (Davis) was trailing him. I knew he was going to get a good look, and earlier we were doing our shooting games and Rip said, 'I never miss from the corner.' So when he got it down there, I felt pretty good.

I think what's happened is (starters) minutes have gone down in the last few games because of the play of (Antonio) McDyess, the play of Mo (Evans), the play of (Carlos) Delfino, the play of (Carlos) Arroyo. Those guys have played well, and if a team plays well, you keep them on the floor.

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'll continue to throw different things. I think the last few games we've done a better job as far as some of our rotations.

Those are always more grind-type games than those against the West.

This season, as much as anything, has been a grind. When you win 63 games and how you've played, it's as much as mental grind as it is physical.

We played 82 games that we considered playoff basketball. That's the way we're going to play. We're going to defend, we're going to move the ball offensively, and that's why I told our guys.

We have been playing a lot of games home-road-home-road, so I think we were a little tired tonight. We'll have to give some guys a rest down the stretch.

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.

We're doing a lot of good things on defense and that's how we're winning as many games as we are.

When you get in these games, it's very interesting. The games start out being very fun and everything else and then all of a sudden, it gets very serious and very competitive.

When you get to 41 games you get him a few minutes at a time, start getting into the rhythm.

We've played 37 games and different guys lead us over different parts of the game and play unselfish...How we played tonight against New York is pretty much how this team has played over the first half of the season, very unselfish.

The satisfying thing about this game is it puts us 16 games up over our next closest team in the division with 26 to go. That's pretty good.

The satisfying thing is, right now we've put basically 16 games in the loss column between us and the next closest team in our division. When you can do that with 26 games to go, you're in pretty good shape.

You have to understand, we've played 82 games to get here; 82 games of playoff-type basketball. People talk about the pressure of being the hunted. Well, we've been the hunted since we were 8-0. It's been like our opponents' Super Bowl every time they play us. I think the regular season prepared us for what's at hand.

We also are in the entertainment business. I've always been one to go out and win games but also entertain, and I think we've become a team now that a lot of people like to watch play, because we play extremely aggressive at both ends of the floor.

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.

The thing you have to watch out for is if you sit a guy, and his leg gets weaker. We're not going to put him in a position where he's going to hurt his ankle more. People out there, they don't know how bad the ankle is. It's way too easy for everyone to say, ?Just sit him and not have him play.' But players work 82 games to get into a rhythm, to play well in the playoffs.

Two of the last three games that we won were because of our bench, and (Sunday) night, our bench got us in the game. We say we're going to make a very conscious effort to play them, create a role for them, create a niche, create an identity, and I think that's what we've done.

So your whole day is a preparation, really, for that game, as far as the night. The nice thing about afternoon games is you get up, go to the game and you're done.

They still shot extremely well today, but we were more aggressive defensively and forced more turnovers. It was one of those games where they either turned it over or scored almost every time.

Our division was closed with 20-something games to go. The conference was closed with 10 or 12 games to go, so everyone turned their attention toward out west and the chase that was happening out there.

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.

You never feel like you're in good shape. These are all winnable games, but they're all games you have to go out and play. No one's going to give you the game.

Dog days. Especially after the holidays. After the holidays, you've had some big games last week. So what happens is you come in and it takes time to get your energy going a little bit. I thought we came out and traded baskets too much.

The last six games you want to stay sharp and you want to improve in some areas.

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.

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.

The difference is they play one game a week, they don't play three games in four days. We're kind of in a different situation. And part of it was how sharp we've been. We've been extremely sharp the last few weeks. That's how they played (Sunday) night together as a group.