Flip Saunders Start Quotations

We'd like to start getting our bench in that 70- to 80-minute range to give our starters some rest.

When you get in these games, it's very interesting. The games start out being very fun and everything else and then all of a sudden, it gets very serious and very competitive.

The bench has been great. And that creates that vicious cycle. When the bench is playing well, they play more minutes and the starters get more rest.

I thought that McDyess and Evans played extremely well. (McDyess) has been extremely effective. I said in the beginning of the year, we have six starters -- and I consider him one of the starters. He's playing like that right now.

We got pretty much what we wanted offensively. Defensively, we were like vultures to start games.

We've been doing a lot of shooting, and I think that's starting to pay off. Guys are starting to understand. Most of the shooting we do are in places where we plan to get shots in our offense, so the more you do that, the more you take those shots, the more comfortable they get, and I think that's what's happened.

Our starters broke a sweat and didn't get too stale or hurt and I was happy to see the young guys play. It was good to see those guys in that type of situation.

When you get to 41 games you get him a few minutes at a time, start getting into the rhythm.

I think I recall that we lost our last couple games in the exhibition season, and we got off to a pretty good start with the regular season. These guys have been there. They know that this is when it all begins.

They came out and were very aggressive. As I told the guys before the game, in an emotional game like this, they're going to play extremely well and play aggressive. You have to match their intensity and make shots. The two things you need to do to start the game, we didn't do.

It's a credit to the way these guys came into camp and came in focused. They've made some big plays. I thought we could get off to a good start but you can't expect to go 20-3.

They showed us how to start playing again. Our first group started playing a lot of one-and-one, and that's not us.

He's got size, and he's done a nice job. I have been really impressed with him. He's starting to get heat-of-the-battle minutes now and he's been productive. He's not shied away at all.

I told Avery (Johnson) after the game that I'd like to see him seven more times, starting in about three months.

He starts to get hesitant. He'll turn down shots the first time and then all of the sudden, he ends up taking a shot that's a worse shot than he had the first time. Or a contested shot. So with him, I talk to him about staying aggressive offensively.

The starters have always been a fan vote and Vince has probably gotten more votes for the last seven years almost than anybody that's played the game. He had a lot of votes this year.

Wally has been very important to us, but he hasn't been starting for us. So it's not like we have to change a lot how we approach the game.

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 what it does is it shows the character of the team, the whole roster, your ability to go out every night and perform at a high level. To win that many games, you don't take too many days off. Especially the start that we had, it seemed like everyone was playing pretty much their Super Bowl.

I would have liked to have seen the guys get off to a better start early, with their main group.

We lost focus. When you have two starters thrown out in a three-minute span, I wouldn't say you're playing calm at that time.

Carlos works extremely hard on defense. He is big and extremely strong. Now he is starting to understand where the help is coming from. He is learning how to pressure his man into the help, and he isn't feeling like he's out there on an island so much.

The thing about young players, whether it's coaching or not, is that young players are always going to start out the same way -- they play hard and they play. That's who they are. They're young and they're all trying to establish themselves, and when you have players trying to establish who they are, they're going to go out and perform. Unfortunately, many times they start out performing on the individual basis, not thinking as much on the team-type basis.

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.

We went to our bread-and-butter play to see how they were guarding it. They were starting to cheat over the top, so we decided to throw up over it a little bit, and we got some good looks and we got some separation. That's why (Hamilton is) an All-Star.