Come to games early, and you'll get autographs.

As he spends more time here, Saunders is becoming more accustomed to the way things are in the District. When it comes to eateries, he only knows where Subway and Papa John's are. And he's learning to make his way around, allowing for extra time because of the constant traffic.

The coach also has learned that his new team's fans prefer to arrive fashionably late. Because of that, Saunders said the Wizards need to get off to fast starts to energize themselves rather than rely on homecourt pregame buzz to get going.

"I've found out one thing from being here: that this is a late-arriving crowd," he said. "You're looking around late [in the] first quarter, and there are a lot more people there than at the start of the games."

Saunders admitted he was caught off-guard by this because it was much different at his previous stop, Detroit.

"We had [259] straight sellouts. So when you walk out there to start the game, they're there, and then when I would walk back pregame to the locker room, there's about 300 people there for autographs and everything," he said. "As the team becomes better and becomes more exciting and people see they can identify more with the team, they'll all come out and get here sooner and have an opportunity to get autographs and things like that, too."

QUOTABLE

"He's one of the most exciting young players that's come into this league in a while. ... He reminds me of Tiny Archibald."

- Wizards coach Flip Saunders on Milwaukee's Brandon Jennings

BY THE NUMBERS

1,000 Regular-season games Flip Saunders has coached in his 14-year NBA career. He improved to 594-406 with Wednesday's victory.