The Washington Wizards held a press conference on Tuesday afternoon to announce that assistant Randy Wittman was promoted to replace head coach Flip Saunders, who was relieved of his duties that morning. Team president Ernie Grunfeld was on hand as well to field questions from the media. Wittman will finish out the remaining of the season as the interim head coach, the rest of the coaching staff was retained.

Wittman emphasized his experience being an interim head coach:

“I have coached in this league on a number different teams. It is not an easy transition. I have done this before and I have been on a staff  and taking over in the middle of the season. I know what is about and what change needs happen to try to make this a positive situation … The main thing that I learned the first time that I stepped in — this is even more magnified because of the condensed schedule and playing so many games without practice time — we just got to simplify things … you can’t flood these guys with information overload … just two or three things to concentrate on and take the baby steps after there.”

The removal of Saunders brought a level of personal sadness:

“Is this a happy day? Not by any regard. A good man walked out the door today. It is always hard. I did not come here to Washington to be the head coach. I came here to help him [Saunders] … This is a black mark on all of us, absolutely. Everyone has their own beliefs and philosophies on how to do it. And I think the reason that Flip and I have been successful together throughout the years in the NBA because we are kind of polar opposites. And you have to have a staff that is mixed like that. Strengths and weaknesses of a staff is just as important as strengths and weaknesses of your players.”

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Matching up post-game locker room quotes with corresponding facial expressions.

Caron Butler

When asked about the shot Hedo Turkoglu hit with 8.1 second left in overtime, putting Toronto up for good at 109-107 …

“Turkish Jordan.

You know, it’s tough. It was a tough shot. Tried to make him take a difficult shot, and that’s exactly what happened.”

Brendan Haywood

When asked about the rebounding of Chris Bosh, who had nine offensive boards, five in the fourth quarter alone, and 16 total for the game … Read more »

Last Monday’s Washington Wizards media day seems like such a long time ago.

In addition to me being there, blogging about DeShawn Stevenson’s new tats, the musings of Gilbert Arenas, and the ‘consistent’ goals of Andray Blatche, there was a ton of great coverage from Hoops Addict, Wizards Insider, Wizards Outlet, and Bullets Forever.

Now, after transcribing all of my interview recordings, I wanted to share some of the quotes/pictures that have been relatively unheard/unseen.

{Note: I will be in Richmond for training camp on Saturday and Sunday. There’s limited media access, but I’ll be updating some of the goings-ons via Twitter}