Flip Saunders Score Quotations

We locked down defensively to get the lead. We got to do what we wanted to do offensively. We didn't turn the ball over. We forced turnovers early and turnovers late. We took care of the basketball and didn't give them chances to score out of our offense.

Our main guys didn't have much rust because they've been playing. At least I've been able to keep an eye on them. The one thing you've got to appreciate about Atlanta is they play hard no matter what the score is.

I think what we can do now is we can change our personality. Defense can carry us at times. But I thought in the fourth quarter, our offense, we executed. To score 28 points down the stretch in the fourth quarter that's pretty impressive.

I think it means something because in this league confidence means so much. You never want a player to have so much confidence that he feels he can take over a game at any time. The positive thing about this is that he's not going to think he can walk out on the floor and score 17 straight against us.

We can still get stops and we can score 67 in a half, ... That shows the players that they can get it done at both ends of the floor, which is going to be big for their confidence as we go through the season.

Those guys, they play hard no matter what the score is. They've got a lot of athletes and they keep on trying hard to come at you.

We're going to have to score more points because Dallas is going to score. We're not going to be able to hold Dallas to 70-something points. It's just not going to happen.

When you take a team like Milwaukee that can really score and you hold them to 74 points your team defense is doing something. That's the staple of our team.

Ben is our energy. I would be amazed if he wasn't the defensive player of the year again just from everything he does. He's our lock-down guy. When we have energy, we are tough to beat and tough to score on. When we don't, we can be pretty ordinary. And Ben is usually the catalyst for that energy.

You never want to have a player that has so much confidence against you that he thinks he can just take the game over at any time. At least he's not going to think he can walk on the floor and score 17 straight on us.

Anytime you got a guy that can score 50 points in this league, you know he can score.

The bottom line is, he's going to score. What you can't let him do is get into that 40-point range. You have to make him a volume scorer -- what he's done now is score without taking a lot of shots. We've got to make him work more, offensively and defensively.