513 Quotes by Flip Saunders

We seemed to lose our energy. They were more aggressive and the team that's more aggressive is going to get the loose balls, get the calls and have things fall their way.

That's even more unbelievable than not missing any games. Part of that is the (players') makeup and how they take care of themselves. And part of it is our medical people and the job they do. It's a total approach.

Our main guys played really well in the third quarter. Then we gave our young guys some fourth quarter experience against a team trying to get a win after losing 10 straight. It would have been better if they would have got the win but overall they did some good things and got some good experience in a close game.

You're happy. It's one of the moments where you end up really happy or really sad.

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.

We've been known in the league that we played the best zone defense, when I was in Minnesota, ... In one day, I can tell you that we're going to be a much better zone defensive team than we were in Minnesota.

Our main guys didn't have much rust because they've been playing. At least I've been able to keep an eye on them. The one thing you've got to appreciate about Atlanta is they play hard no matter what the score is.

That's especially true for them at home. They are improving. They play with a lot of energy in this building.

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.