Well then, a pause in Wizards coverage to allow a moment to send out thoughts and prayers with head coach Flip Saunders, whose 90-year-old mother, Kay, who passed away this morning after a lengthy battle with illness.
Saunders, who had escaped back to Cleveland on multiple occasions over the last two months, missing two games in the process, wasn’t even there, having left earlier in the day to fly back to Washington, where he received the news yet still coached practice at Verizon Center. He said he’ll be on the sideline when the Wizards host Minnesota tomorrow.
“It’s funny because this morning when Mom passed away – I left her and got on the plane, and had the news when I landed – you kind of get there and you wonder what you’re going to do,” said Saunders. “But as I told some of the players, they’re like family. It’s a good outlet. I think that’s part of the situation of being around a team and being with the team as much as anything. That helps anyone deal with any situation, whether it’s me dealing with a situation or it’s the players dealing with it.”
Saunders gave a mini-eulogy when asked whether he had second thoughts about coaching against the Timberwolves.
“It’s funny because my mom was tough,” he said. “We made a decision last week where we took her off support, and they thought that she go relatively quick, 20 minutes or so, because she had been on life support for almost two months, and she lasted almost three days. So they called her the ‘miracle grandma,’ at the hospital.
“She was an unbelievable fan of the NBA. She watched, she knew more – if I wanted to know about the NBA, I’d call her up because she watched all day. She watched NBA TV. She knew what was going on. She knew everything about our players. She’s a huge fan, a huge fan of the Wizards, and I can remember early in the year, when we lost to Orlando and we lost to Miami by one, she goes, ‘Those are wins. I’m counting those as wins.’ I told her to call the league and let them know.
“As my dad said when I talked to him this morning, ‘She would want you to coach, especially because you’re going against Minnesota.’ After the game tomorrow, I’ll head back to Cleveland for a couple days.”
