Flip Saunders Ally Quotations

The satisfying thing is, right now we've put basically 16 games in the loss column between us and the next closest team in our division. When you can do that with 26 games to go, you're in pretty good shape.

I thought we were not as mentally alert. We played somewhat out of character, but as bad as we played we still had a chance with a minute to go. We didn't capitalize on our opportunities down the stretch. You play 82 games, and you don't like to say you didn't have it, but we didn't have it tonight.

You saw both teams as basically who they are -- meat-and-potato teams. Maybe this is why the game wasn't hyped as much. This is what basketball was meant to be like -- play defense, play team basketball.

You saw both teams as basically who they are - both meat-and-potato teams.

That wasn't our night. Just physically a step slow, and mentally we just didn't react as quickly as we normally do. Just not as sharp.

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

I thought that we were not as mentally alert. But as bad as we played, we still had a chance with a minute to go.

We didn't move the ball like we normally do. We got to make easy plays. I thought we tried to make too many spectacular plays. We've got to make easy plays. We had 21 fast-break points; we could have had 40.

For whatever reason, we just weren't as mentally alert. We had a lot of mental breakdowns on defense, and offensively we didn't make the extra pass as often as we normally do. You hate to say it, but we just didn't have it tonight.

It was a good learning experience for those young guys to play a team that was basically in a must-win situation.

I don't always judge things by wins and losses. I just go by how you play and the opportunities to win. We played 51 games, and out of those 51 we had nine losses and probably only three of those games where we basically didn't have opportunities to win in the fourth quarter.

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.

Ben works on it a lot, ... We do a lot of shooting as a team, 15-, 17-foot shooting, which is basically free throws. We shoot probably 100 of those a day. So he's getting a lot more free throws.

When he's got his legs, what he can do, he can defend in the post with his feet. He can use his quickness and play different angles in the post and not have to rely on totally fronting and totally just playing behind. He gives you an added dimension defensively to do some things.

We were mentally a step slow. We had some defensive breakdowns, we played out of character. But as bad as we played, we still had a chance to win the game with a minute to go.

We have to know that they have other guys that are capable. Charlie Bell has played well. T.J. Ford had a pretty good game overall and we've got to continue to find those two. Just do what we normally do. Our philosophy is to contest whatever shot is taken, try to limit three-point shots and rebound the basketball. Those are three things we did.

He finally got tired at the end. I told him that, the way he was rolling, we were going to him until he couldn't move.

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.

We wanted to try to start establishing our bench more, so basically we're playing three guys and giving those guys a little bit more minutes.

I think we've gone through the dog days now. What we are doing now is preparing ourselves mentally for the next 29 days leading up to the playoffs. We are 53-13 overall and 29-2 at home. I'd say we have taken care of ourselves fairly well.