Flip Saunders Quotations

The positive was we defended down the stretch. That's what we're going to have to do when playoff time comes.

We are at the tip of the iceberg as far as where we are and where we could be.

We still only had 10 turnovers for the game. They were magnified as far as when they happened a little bit. When you're playing well, they try to throw everything at you. From that standpoint, as I say, the more things that are thrown at you, the better prepared you are come playoff time.

When you watch film, you see we're maybe not getting to spots quick enough. Or there are some things where we lack the energy that I know when we get rest that we have. So we'll see.

When you take a team like Milwaukee that can really score and you hold them to 74 points your team defense is doing something. That's the staple of our team.

We're not going to lose our personality. Our personality is still our ability to defend and to execute offensively, and we did both today.

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.

Tony is a high-energy guy, and that's one of the reasons that when he became available, he was somebody we really wanted to look at. We thought he gave us a different dimension from what we had on the roster.

What they're going to try to do is do what they did during the season, try to get more off open-floor, transition-type opportunities, and try to attack that way and not have to go against our half-court defense as much. That will probably be their biggest adjustment.

We got up 18, 20, lost a little bit of our concentration. They came at us aggressively.

We're going to have to score more points because Dallas is going to score. We're not going to be able to hold Dallas to 70-something points. It's just not going to happen.

We're doing a lot of good things on defense and that's how we're winning as many games as we are.

To our credit we came back and located him in the last few minutes, and didn't give him any good looks.

To our credit, we calmed down and just played basketball. The thing is, especially on the road, you put yourself in a position to win games. We don't beat ourselves.

We know when to lock down. Our defense hasn't slipped at all.

We've won 22 of our last 24. You play 82 games, and you don't like to say you didn't have it, but we didn't have it tonight. We didn't capitalize on our opportunities down the stretch.

We wanted to win big right away. We didn't let things happen, we tried to make too many spectacular plays.

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.

We ran some things we hadn't run in a while, just to dust them off a little bit and do them in a game-type situation.

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.

We've talked about Chauncey and how it would be a travesty if he's not an All-Star. It's the same way with Parker. He's really played at that level the last couple of years, and I can't see any way he doesn't make that All-Star team this year.

When I came here, a lot of the players told me it'd be like that. We float under the radar a lot. So I think that's fine with us.

The only negative was I wanted to play Carlos (Delfino) and I didn't. I think he could have probably helped us. We went with Mo, and Mo gave us energy.

What I'd like to do is get him the ball more in low-block situations and not as many things in pick-and-pop situations. He played well with Carlos, but he'll play well with anybody, how he plays.

What I didn't understand was how good he can be defensively, blocking shots and he has a pretty good presence of understanding what he's supposed to do in the team concept defensively,

When we're taking shots from the corners and we did a lot tonight, that shows we are playing a lot of ball movement, a lot of player movement and making the extra pass. That's pretty much how you'd want to play offensively.

Like I said, I think a coach is as good as the players he has. You do have to drive them. You've got to make sure to put them in the right situations. And we have a group that's very committed as far as what we're doing.

Simmons is their second-best scorer, and he's got the ability to post up. If you take your three-man off of him, now all of a sudden, you've got Rip guarding somebody down in the block a lot.

Mo gave us a spark at both ends of the court.

Mo (Evans) gave us a boost at both ends tonight. Guys have confidence in him. The guys on the bench want to play more, but they have to do what he did. He came with the right frame of mind.

(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.

One of the strengths of this team is we grind it defensively but we get fast break points. We have the opportunity to get points in the open floor.

One, you've got to be lucky. Freak injuries are the things that usually put you down sometimes. I don't know how Mo is, but I know KG is a guy who really took care of his body. During the season, he gets massages every day. He's done a lot of work with his body. He knows that's his tool, that's his profession. And he doesn't do anything that's going to harm his body, and I'm sure Mo Pete has to be the same way.

My take is that these guys need challenges. Sometimes maybe they can get a little bored out there. But when they're locked in, it's like a curtain goes up and you can see it in their faces. They go from fifth gear into a sixth gear.

On the road, you can't run as much at times. You just have to control tempo. The thing we did the first two games, we ran when we had opportunities and when we had man advantages, and when we didn't have it, we didn't. We didn't force things, and that is the big key.

One of the reasons I played him a lot, I thought it was better for him to be occupied than to sit and think. And considering his circumstances, not sleeping much last night after hearing about it, he played pretty good.

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

I wish I could have been in the stands.

If we don't win the title, no one will remember that we were 35-5.

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 don't judge somebody that's had five years of stellar work -- not only with the team but in the community, and how he has been in practice -- and judge him by one incident. You judge him on the long haul.

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.

I am happy we won, but I am not overall pleased with how we played. When we don't play well, we hold the ball. Tonight, we held the ball. I know our schedule had something to do with it, but we can't be effective when we play like we did tonight.

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.

Carlos had fresh legs, because he didn't play the other night and we had yesterday off. But he's improving. In the past, he's been overaggressive and turned easy plays into hard ones. Today, he was just taking the easy plays.

Cato was out of his boot (protecting his injured right ankle). He was shooting and jogging. He's still at least a couple of weeks away (from being able to practice).

I have been impressed with him from Day One. He always seems to be pretty effective for us. He has a chance to be an impact player in this league. He's still young and he's still learning, but he plays with a lot of aggressiveness.

I can only judge what I have seen,

From what I read and hear, as a team and with Shaq, they feel like they are going to be able to turn it on when they need to. Veteran players have that belief. We go through that here in some games But I expect them to come with a great deal of energy.

I don't think you can chase anything. Anytime you chase something, you never end up catching it. So it if comes, it comes.

I don't think it's even an issue. He's going to be fine.

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.

Fortunately for me I've had some older guys where we do the same thing. We did that for two years with Ervin Johnson. He didn't play the first 45 games but he started in the last 25 and started in the playoffs. Sam Mitchell was the same way. You have to understand the guys that have a lot of wear on their tires and know how much tread you have left. You want to try to utilize it in a very productive manner.

If we weren't 33-5 and doing as well as we are, you'd go in thinking, 'Boy, this is a big game to try and show them they made a mistake or whatever. Just where we're at, record-wise, you don't have to worry about that. For us, it's another game.

He's had some other things from a mental standpoint. When you're dealing with that type of situation, it's got to affect you from a mental standpoint.

He was a really nice kid, really fun to be around, and that's what makes it even more difficult.

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.

He was trying to miss it. He was trying to hit it off the back of the pin to no avail.

He has his niche. Defensively, he's got that quick first step. He can take away that first move. And most times defensively, people get beat off the first move.

He did a nice job. He helped us defensively, scored some in there. I thought for the first time extended minutes, he did a lot of positive things for us.

He has the ability to make big shots. He gives us good energy and athleticism.

He had a good look when he came off, and I saw Ricky (Davis) was trailing him. I knew he was going to get a good look, and earlier we were doing our shooting games and Rip said, 'I never miss from the corner.' So when he got it down there, I felt pretty good.

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.

He made some shots early. Maybe got carried away a little bit in the second half. You can see that he's getting into better shape. He's lively. And he's one of those guys when he's guarding somebody, they don't want him on them.

We can feel good about winning, get over it and get back to business tomorrow. I think the big thing with us, we're not playing Milwaukee, we're playing ourselves.

We took, I thought, too many quick shots. We took 50 shots with one pass or less out of 75 shots, which for us is way too many. And that's one of the reasons we only had 17 assists. Even though we won by 18, they made a couple of runs at us, and I think we have a big area of improvement to get more people involved offensively and move the ball a little bit more.

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've faced a lot of teams that have had that sense of urgency, so what has happened, teams have kind of jumped on us early. We've had to fight our butts off to get back in games.

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.

We surrounded (Kevin). We brought in two veteran players in Sam Mitchell and Terry Porter that we thought were two very professional type individuals that would show him how to handle practice situations, what it was to be professionals, to prepare for practice, to prepare for games, how to deal as far as off the floor, not to put yourself in any awkward-type situations. And then we tried to communicate with him. Our biggest thing was we gave him enough responsibility on the court that he was able to perform, yet still improve.

To get 30 assists as a team after the way we started out - we started playing the way we were capable of playing offensively.

He's a barometer a lot for us. ... I was not as concerned about him not scoring or shooting or not being aggressive, but his rebounding totals were way down. He had some games in the first half where he'd come in with zero or one.

He's a different presence. There's no question that without him, they didn't go inside as much. He gives them a low-block presence. He's more of a go-to guy as far as inside down the stretch. Defensively, he's a shot blocker. It just gives them more bodies up front.

He's a flat-out great shooter. You can never have enough of those guys.

Going into this game we needed the bench to give us both good minutes and good production, which they did. Chicago plays physical, they play hard. But to our credit, we can play that way.

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.

He's just going to have to be a good boy. Bite his lip. We were thinking of getting Judge Judy, getting it on TV. But I don't think commissioner ( David ) Stern would go for that one. They'd probably get very great ratings.

He's been so barraged by things right now. I want to wait a little bit until things all are done and then I'll reach out to him.

He seems to be pretty effective and I think that he's a guy that has a chance to be an impact player in this league. He's still pretty young, learning things. But he plays with a lot of aggressiveness, which is something I love, guys who are aggressive as far as defensively. And he can make plays not only for himself but for other people.

He should be OK, but we felt he'll take enough hits on Thursday. He could have played if we needed him.

He's gotten really aggressive and he's making big shots. Watching them play a lot, he gets a lot of shots in the last five seconds of games. He will put pressure on your defense because he can shoot the three, but he's also improved his game getting to the basket.

He's going to get enough punishment, hits and bruises next game.

He's going to be bench pressing a lot of weight come Wednesday.

He's better today than he was Tuesday, and you don't want to sit him out and have the ankle get weaker.

He's better than I thought he would be. And I thought he'd be pretty good.

He's been like that the last few games. I like when he's a bit more aggressive. A part of it is he tries to conserve energy when he thinks he has to and gets other guys going.

He's been good. He's a wide-bodied guy. He's undersized, but he plays bigger than he is.

He's been good, ... He's a wide-bodied guy. He's undersized, but he plays bigger than he is.

He's been a solid player in all 29 games we've played.

We locked down defensively to get the lead. We got to do what we wanted to do offensively. We didn't turn the ball over. We forced turnovers early and turnovers late. We took care of the basketball and didn't give them chances to score out of our offense.

He was incredible. We had a hand in his face all night, and he goes 5-for-5 on threes in the first half. Some of those shots were unbelievable.

He's playing pretty good. He's been playing with the main guys and I think he's a lot stronger and obviously, playing on his national team (Serbia-Montenegro) this summer, he's in great condition.

He's playing great right now. I said one of the reasons they're playing so well right now is because of the play of Johnson and the play of (Danny) Granger. Those two guys have stepped up and they're playing at an extremely high level.

He's playing and getting in shape and he makes a difference in games. Guys on opposing teams typically don't want Lindsey to guard them.

He can put the ball on the floor and make a play, and make a play for somebody. There's no question he's going to have opportunities during this playoff run.

He causes problems. He has improved his perimeter game so much.

This was a good overall game for us. We did what we said we were looking to do with these last few games. We were sharp, we played a lot of people and were able to keep the starters' minutes down.

This was a game I wish I could have been in the stands, just sitting there watching. This was a great basketball game between two teams who played hard and with a lot of emotion. It was a very entertaining game.

Kind of how we've been for 37 games. Different guys lead us over different parts of the game, play unselfish. Thirty assists, eight turnovers, that's kind of where we've been when we win games. I think how we played tonight against New York is pretty much how this team has played through the first half of this season.

Kelly Clarkson will be replacing Rasheed Wallace at power forward, ... She brings a burst of energy - and a special knack for making the players around her better.