Flip Saunders Takes Quotations

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.

Dog days. Especially after the holidays. After the holidays, you've had some big games last week. So what happens is you come in and it takes time to get your energy going a little bit. I thought we came out and traded baskets too much.

We executed pretty much, ... You have to be aggressive. If a team takes something away, you have to have enough freedom to go in and attack. And they didn't do that, but you can see in the second half they started to execute better and get some open looks.

Ben erases a lot of mistakes for us. He was unbelievable with everything he was doing.

(McDyess) has been like that the last week or two. It takes him a little while to get into his flow. I consider him one of the starters, and that's how he's playing.

I talked to the guys at halftime and basically said that we were not as competitive. I thought that the second half they played exceptionally well. In these type of games, it takes a lot of time to get used to playing with guys. Every guy did something in a very positive way.

There's always an energetic bounce - whether good, bad or indifferent - because a new voice, a new energy comes in. Anytime a coach takes over a team, there's always that initial excitement that carries over to the team.

I think what happens is that experience takes hold as the series progresses, that's usually what happens. Whether there are adjustments to be made or how you react after a win or a loss. Sometimes, those young guys don't know any better, when they haven't had experience.

I look at their team, and we are mirror images from the standpoint of we both have some exciting players, but because both teams are so unselfish and there's not a lot of controversy, they don't get a lot of individual notoriety. Bottom line is, both teams are about winning, and about doing whatever it takes to win.

There are no unknowns at this point. But from their standpoint, the X-factor is that they are a team that takes as many three-pointers as anybody. If they get hot like they can, they can cause you a lot of problems. But, one of our strengths all year was defending the three. Hope that continues.