Flip Saunders Might Quotations

Rip did a good job of understanding where help might be, tried to send him to as much help as he could and contested pretty much most of his shots.

Things might shake out a little more in the next few days. Teams might have been hanging on to people to see if they could make a trade. Now they might let them go. You see a lot of guys go on waivers after the trade deadline. I'd say by Tuesday you'll know more about around the league from a roster standpoint.

I think they were all superficial deals. You hope that somebody might help you out a little bit but I don't think there's one deal where you can say, 'This is the guy that's going to put us way over the top.' They were deals that might help a little bit, maybe improve your playoff position, but that's all.

We've done some things in practice where we'll play a bigger lineup, playing a two at the point. And even the development of (rookie Alex) Acker at practice, in certain situations, we might not be afraid to play him some.

Zone might be a four-letter word around here, ... but they've been pretty receptive to it. I think it's one of those things that, if we play it and we're successful with it, they'll wrap their arms around it a little bit more.

I think they are finding out that it might be a change of pace that can help you win.

We have players we are trying to get rest over the next 11 games. But you get into the heat of the battle sometimes and you need a billy club to get them out of the game sometimes because they are so competitive. We might have a few tangles coming down the stretch.

So with different personnel, you can run the same play, but your option that might be one of your main options for one team, for the other team, it might be a whole totally different option. So they have a familiarity in knowing some things you want to run, some tendencies as far as what you're going to do. But we're kind of a counter puncher. You come out, we jab, we jab, we see what you're going to throw, and then we counter-punch that.

The guy that has been on a mission here is Ben. They might as well take the Defensive Player of the Year trophy and send it here for the fourth time, because when you look at all the things he's doing - defensive rebounding, blocking shots, steals - he's just doing everything.

I was concerned because at shoot-around this morning I heard a couple of guys mention some stuff about Miami. I was concerned we might overlook Atlanta. But we came out and played like a well-oiled machine in the first half.

I thought we might have played 10 to 13 minutes of championship basketball tonight. We won the game, but there are things we need to work on.

This is the third of our five steps, but this one might be the most important of the first four, because of the 2-2-1-1-1 format in the conference finals.

If he does, we're going to play zone. And we'll see if those guys can shoot from 23 feet. (Johnson) might do it, but we have a few things up our sleeve.

If he didn't get hurt, he might have been the favorite to win Most Improved Player.

Ben was phenomenal. People talk about Bruce Bowen and others as the best defender. Bruce is a great individual defender. Ben is a great individual defender. But Ben Wallace might be one of the best that's played the game as a team defender.

That's the only negative ? the guys play so well sometimes it becomes too easy. But it's what I said before ? an obligation of entertaining, knowing that when you go into an arena, for some people that might be the only time they watch you play. As a professional you have an obligation to play at a high level ? it's almost like a rock band going on the road.

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.

I looked back at that. What always seems to happen is, the guys will play well, and they'll have one stinker game that week. They'll have one game where Chauncey might have 11 points, six assists. Or Ben might get nine rebounds instead of 18. Rip might have 13 points instead of 23. And in this league so much, it goes down to statistics.

They might as well take the Defensive Player of the Year trophy and send it. When you look at all the things he's doing as far as rebounding, blocking shots and steals, he's been phenomenal.

They might as well take the defensive player of the year award and send it to Ben. He's been on a mission in the last three weeks, and when you look at all of the things he's doing - rebounding, blocking shots and making steals - he's phenomenal.

The last three weeks, they might as well take the Defensive Player of the Year trophy and send it for the fourth time, or whatever, because when you look at all the things he's doing, as far as from defensive rebounding, blocking shots, steals, he's doing everything. He has been phenomenal.