Flip Saunders Turned Quotations

Carlos had fresh legs, because he didn't play the other night and we had yesterday off. But he's improving. In the past, he's been overaggressive and turned easy plays into hard ones. Today, he was just taking the easy plays.

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.

The defense turned it up, no question. Offensively, we turned things up. ... It was at both ends. That's why this has been a championship team. It was a fun game to watch. I'm sure the people at TNT got their money's worth.

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.

Teams are waiting for us to get things turned up. When that happens, that's when we go on our little runs.

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.

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 first time I talked about that, we went out and turned it over the first four times we touched the ball. That mark I credit to players who are extremely disciplined and players who know their roles. They don't play out of character and that goes back to what I've talked about all year -- this team has a very high basketball intelligence.

We got out of it what we wanted. Our main guys played really well, especially in the third quarter when they turned the heat up. We worked on some of our trap defenses that were really effective. Then we gave our young guys some fourth-quarter experience.