Flip Saunders Took Quotations

One, you've got to be lucky. Freak injuries are the things that usually put you down sometimes. I don't know how Mo is, but I know KG is a guy who really took care of his body. During the season, he gets massages every day. He's done a lot of work with his body. He knows that's his tool, that's his profession. And he doesn't do anything that's going to harm his body, and I'm sure Mo Pete has to be the same way.

I got to know him when he was a player and he had season tickets right next to our bench. I didn't know him just as a season-ticket holder but as a friend. It's a great loss to the sports world and Minnesota. He always had a smile on his face and cared about kids. He always took time to sign autographs and talk to kids and try to help them.

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.

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 thought the first unit played well in both of their stints. They basically took control in the third quarter.

We came out kind of flat. We brought in Carlos, and he got us back in the game, took over the game, and everybody else finished.

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.

Delfino really took advantage of his time. He's the one guy we have (on the bench) who can beat people off the bounce, off the dribble. He can create plays for himself and for other people.

I have only been here three months, and I took offense to it. I just don't think that's right ... especially in our league right now. Commissioner David Stern has made a statement that he wants this league to be classy and to clean things up. To do something like that was uncalled for.

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 Lakers) were extremely aggressive. We got pounded on the glass and they took things to the basket. We played out of character defensively. We were switching and getting little (guys) matched on big (guys) and we took the easy way out by settling for jump shots.

If you took a team from the West and made it play in the East on a nightly basis, they would find out how tough it is. It's such a grind. The East is tougher mentally. It's a grind night in and night out. . . . Trust me. The East is not as bad as they make it out to be.

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.