Basketball in Boston Tonight

The Celtics, losers of 18 straight and approaching the NBA record of 24, are favored in tonight’s game versus the Milwaukee Bucks. Favored! How bad must the Bucks be? What have they done to deserve this ignominy? Have they gone undetected by the recordkeepers and lost 100 in a row? Well, they have lost 17 of their last 20 and are without their leading scorer, Michael Redd. Meanwhile, Paul Pierce, captain of the Celtics, the team that’s succumbed 13 straight times at home, did what all good leaders do: he, with steely resolve, cautioned the team, the team that hasn’t won at home in two months, against over confidence: “we can’t take this for granted”. No, you wouldn’t think so.

Meanwhile, The Eagles of Boston College, the team that gets no national respect despite decades of success on the national stage and sending reams of talent to the NBA, host the Blue Devils of Duke. Duke rather easily handled BC in Durham on 1/28, 75-61, as the Eagles were still adjusting to life without their now departed, but soon-to-be NBA draft pick center, Sean Williams. Duke has lost four straight; unheard of. Anyone who wins as much as Duke and Coach K must hate losing. They’ve gotta be pissed and ready to go. Meanwhile, the Eagles are on-track and on-a-roll, dispatching, among others, Virginia Tech, winners last night IN CHAPEL HILL!!! Who would have thought, on, say, 1/29, that two weeks later, BC would be favored in this game? Not you, not me.

Great basketball fun in Boston tonight.

Technorati Tags: Celtics, BostonCollegeEagles, MichaelRedd,

“Who Then is the Basketball God?”

In yesterday’s post, I posed the the question” who is the basketball god?”, knowing the answer was obvious.

In “Comments”, the last responder postulated: Bill Russell?

My reply: DZ - - Close. Russell is Moses. (This Moses not That Moses). Russell, Auerbach, those early Celtics laid down the basketball commandments: Thou shalt not walk the ball upcourt; Thou shalt not rely on half-court defense; Thou shalt not rely on one big scorer to bail-out the team; Thou shalt believe in one another (ball movement on offense, pressure defense into help-defense); Thou shalt learn, understand, practice and assiduously apply the fundamentals of good basketball; Thou shalt mentally and physically wear down the other team; and last but not least and, as the best way of spreading the word of this gospel to all the basketball land, Thou Shalt Win.

To find the true basketball god of gods, one must look within. (But good guess.)

Technorati Tags: BillRussell, RedAuerbach, Celtics

Doc Rivers, The Basketball Gods, and Getting Back on Defense”

A week or so ago, Doc Rivers commented on the “winning by losing mantra seemingly embraced by many fans”. The losing, of course, leading to the wishful-thinking via the luck-of-the-draw landing of Greg Oden or some other savior of the franchise. He said, pointedly, “I think the basketball gods punish you” (scroll to bottom of linked page) if you try to lose, or don’t try to win. So, who are these basketball gods and how does he know them? Well, Doc Rivers played a lot of basketball in his life, thousands of hours on the playgrounds of Chicago, many more in schools, at Marquette and in the pros. He was very talented and hugely sought after coming out of Proviso East High School and left Marquette early for the pros. He played 13 years in the NBA, including an all-star year. In the pros, his talent alone could not always sustain him; he had to work very hard. Sometimes things went right, sometimes things went wrong. When things go wrong for no apparent reason, even after you feel as though you’ve done everything right, where do you to turn for answers? To the basketball gods.

Which is a kind of a joke. Because, in reality, nobody knows anything about no gods. But since basketball’s a sport, a game, it’s cool to talk about those gods, and even take them semi-seriously. Since the gods are, in reality, the imagined and, therefore, real manifestation of integrity (the honor that you give to proper effort) they must be respected at all times. Respecting the basketball gods means respecting effort and the inviolate principle of team play. That’s how Doc Rivers played and that’s how Doc Rivers coaches. That’s why, if able, you always give it your all in drills. That’s why you always make the extra pass. That’s why you always, always, always get back on defense to help your teammates. And that’s why you never intentionally don’t try your best, right up until the last moment, to win each game. And, finally, that’s why, if given the chance, Doc Rivers will turn the Celtics franchise around.

Technorati Tags: DocRivers, Marquette, GregOden

“Defending the Post”

My first year as an assistant at Harvard, we, of course, had pre-season staff meetings to discuss and outline how we would play and, therefore, how we would teach, all the aspects of individual and team offense and defense. Basically, we were laying the foundation for the season. When the topic of post defense came up, we talked about when and where and how we would defend the post. Pete Roby, then the top assistant and later the head coach at Harvard, told a story that answered our question and is instructive to all players who are defending down low. Pete said when he had been an assistant at Stanford, Bill Walton, who was enrolled as a student at Stanford Law, was serving as a “volunteer” on the hoops’ staff. There they engaged in a similar discussion. Should they primarily play behind? Should they 3/4 front and two-step across, get to the low side when the ball went below the dotted line? How about full fronting? Back and forth they went. Finally, someone noted that one of the greatest post players of all time was sitting in the room and, given that he played for John Wooden, the greatest technician, the master motivator, the most brilliant mind, the greatest college coach in history, that Walton just might be able to offer some insight. Well, Bill, how did Coach Wooden teach it? Bill: “he told us not to let our man catch the ball. Don’t let him get it.”.

Technorati Tags: BillWalton, JohnWooden

Jay Jennings on Maravich (and a Never Too Late Basketball Weekend Camp)

Jay Jennings, a sports and literature guy who will take down a book in his reviews if it deserves it, wrote a generally complimentary piece for today’s NY Times Book Review on two biographies published recently about Pete Maravich. He is like I am: interested enough to read about Pete and his dad, Press, and what made him who he was (and wasn’t) but in the end it’s . . . roll the tape, let’s see that behind-the-back pass to the front of the rim from - heaven strike me down if I did not see this with my own eyes - the dead right corner. Jennings played (and practiced) hoops with us at the second ever NTL Weekend Camp (we’ve now held more than 70) in The Berkshires in Western Massachusetts for a feature piece in Sports Illustrated. Here’s what he wrote of himself: “I had come to (NTL) . . . to become Bobby Hurley. I figured if one whiny, short white guy with a bad haircut could play against the Dream Team, there was hope for me”. Turns out, Jennings was a good ballplayer (as good in the drills as in the games; with work could have played Harvard JV, maybe) and wrote an enormously encouraging piece that gave us our first national exposure.

(Bill Simmons also, as usual, has a funny and on-the-money take ["Maravich was like 12 Globetrotters rolled into one"] on the same two books in ESPN the Magazine.)

This was my introduction to Pete Maravich: I was in eighth grade, I think. I was way into Pat Riley (and Louie Dampier) because Riley was from Schenectady, NY’s Linton High School; he and the Kentucky Wildcats were big in the Albany area, where I lived. I had planned to listen to the Kentucky/LSU game on the radio that night (if cloud conditions and weather were right, I could actually get the signal from WKYM). But I was a kid, probably had played five hours of hoops that day, so I fell asleep before the game. Then, then I was awakened by this roar from the radio. I thought, “did I miss the whole game”? I looked at the time and it was only 8 o’clock, the game hadn’t even started. Here’s what the announcer, barely audible over the din said: “A freshman from LSU, Pete Maravich, has just electrified the crowd by scoring 70 points in the freshmen game (freshmen weren’t allowed to play varsity then) in the most incredible individual performance I have ever witnessed”! Then, as now, I could not wait to see Pistol Pete flying down the court, the ball a yo-yo, the defenders props, with nothing but a world of magic and endless possibilities between him and the hoop.

(Thank you to Nelson for the Pistol Pete You Tube video tip.)

Technorati Tags: JayJennings, PatRiley, LouieDampier, BobbyHurley

“Listening to Rick Majerus”

Years ago, after leaving coaching at Harvard, I spent five days at the University of Utah as a guest of Majerus, watching the Utes practice, having lunches with him, even sitting in on staff meetings (except for those that involved recruiting). I learned as much in those several days as I had in all my basketball life. I’m constantly referencing him when I coach players and clinics. Now, I love listening to Rick Majerus commentate a basketball game. He did the Notre Dame at DePaul game last night and, though his style is somewhat halting, not much flow or rhythm and he doesn’t really hold a “conversation” with his partner, as is the way with many others (Raftery, Elmore), what he says is loaded with basketball wisdom and advice. It’s a clinic; it’s like he’s letting you inside the brain of a true basketball man. For instance, when defense didn’t get back he said, it’s fundamental that they first “point, talk and touch”. When a defender got beat on a backdoor cut because he turned his head away from the ball, Majerus reinforced my belief (that many coaches seem to have gotten away from): “keep vision on the ball when the cutter goes through”. He reacted to a hustle play by saying: ” give him the “atta boy award”! And, my favorite insightful, insider’s tip? After a player had dribbled and dribbled, looking for something that was not there, Majerus said, “The Celtics have a sign in their lockerroom that says ‘no dancing with the ball’”. I’m gonna use that one!

Majerus, of course, is also known for his quips, analogies, self-deprecation. Al McGuire, who famously said of the portly Majerus, “him losing twenty pounds would be like a deck chair blowing off the Queen Mary”, was, after all, his coach and mentor.

Technorati Tags: Raftery, LenElmore, AlMcGuire, RickMajerus

“Going One-on-One”

NTL Photo Library

I can still hear my eighth grade coach, Bill Tweedy, yelling, “you’re going one-on-one”! That, the going one-on-one, used to be a bad thing. Basketball was, and is, first and foremost, a team game. So, the idea, back then, was if you weren’t completely relying on your teammates, then you weren’t playing the game right. In the late 60s and early 70s, the game made a big turn; the game went modern. Pete Maravich, Earl Monroe, Dean Meminger and a host of new breed basketball wizards brought a dazzling array of never-before-seen offensive skills and therein expanded what was possible. Behind the back, between the legs, inside-outs, spins and fallaways went from being “showing off” to part of the standard repertoire. Players copied what they saw the great ones doing and coaches saw that one-on-one, if it was the right “one”, was indeed an offensive advantage. Now coaches scheme to create those situations where players can be isolated with a solitary defender. Moral to the story: work on your one-on-one skills and hope that someday, somewhere, someone calls you “Pistol” or “Pearl” or “Dream”.

Technorati Tags: One-on-One-Basketball

“Up Screen (Back Screen)”

NTL Photo Library

If you come down court and you settle into the post and one of your teammates fills the wing area and you notice the wing’s defender really extending out, effectively in a “denial” position, it is a good idea to come out and back screen that defender. What the defender takes away on the outside, he/she gives up on the inside. It’s consistent with the principle of “reading the defense”: in taking away one thing, they give up something else. It is up to you, oh astute basketball player, to read it (see it and understand it) and take advantage of it. Don’t worry, after awhile it comes naturally. You’re doing lots of good things out there naturally already that fall under that principle, and you don’t even know it. It’s, like, in your soul, your basketball soul. (Okay, you’re right, you caught us. The photo was staged.)

“See the Front Rim”

When shooting, focus, really concentrate your vision, on the front of the rim. Don’t just look generally at the area of the hoop. See the front of the rim and imagine shooting the ball over the rim. Remember, the target is actually air, that slice of air that occupies the area of the circle encompassed by the round rim. To get to the target, you have to shoot “up” and have the ball come down through. When releasing, follow through intentionally with your shooting hand, wrist snapping at the basket. Given good balance with your feet, the ball will go where your hand sends it, so be aware of what your hand does on the release.