Flip Saunders Season Quotations

We don't change our style of play. A lot of teams, they play one way during the regular season and their style of play has to change once they get to the playoffs. When you play for seven months one style, and now you're going to change in a three-day span, you're not as prepared, you're not as comfortable.

These are the dog days. The season seems like it will never end at this point. But it seems like no matter who we play, they play pretty good against us.

These are the dog days, because the season seems like it's never going to end. You have to take every game one game at a time. When you're on a big run and winning games, that's the biggest challenge you have -- can you withstand the pressure night in and night out of what teams throw at you?

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.

I was disappointed in the defense, and I told them that at halftime. These are the dog days, when it seems like the season is never going to end, and it takes a while to get your energy levels up. And when you have a gaudy record like we do, every team is going to come out hard against you.

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.

Very much so. It's something as coaches that we're not used to. You don't really go through that very much. I guess I would liken it to maybe the last week of the exhibition season when you're trying to get ready for the regular season. You want to improve and you want to keep sharp, you want to give people opportunities, you want to be competitive and you still want to win.

I'm sure they will want to get a win and split the season series. We'll want to be competitive, and stay sharp.

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.