[USA Today] Launch codes: An inside look at the Houston Rockets' playoff operation

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https://www.usatoday.com/story/spor...io-spurs-mike-dantoni-james-harden/101521352/

Launch codes: An inside look at the Houston Rockets' playoff operation
Sam Amick , USA TODAY Sports Published 6:31 p.m. ET May 10, 2017

HOUSTON – Mike D’Antoni had an announcement to make.

The pre-practice prep with his Houston Rockets staff was about over, this skull session coming inside his crowded Toyota Center office just hours after their Game 2 blowout loss in the Western Conference semifinals to the San Antonio Spurs. It started as a two-man meeting, just D’Antoni and his top offensive assistant, Brett Gunning, analyzing the loss from every angle on video at around 9:30 a.m. Eight other men piled in from there, everyone from defensive guru Jeff Bzdelik to young video coordinator Mitch Vanya sitting around a table and plotting ways to take down the Spurs machine that, as they say, never beats itself.

The tape was hard to watch, but D’Antoni’s background tunes helped soothe their frustrated basketball minds – James Taylor, Creedence, Adele, John Legend and others cutting through the chorus of critical hoops analysis. And as the clock ticked past 11 a.m., the gray-haired D’Antoni had a silver lining to share.

“On a better note,” he said with a smile. “I beat Mitch twice on ‘Words With Friends.’”

The room erupted with laughter at the inside joke that won’t go away. And boy did they need it.

The NBA season is exhausting, a morning-till-night grind that demands the occasional dose of levity that the 66-year-old D’Antoni has always been eager to provide. Seven months of coaches meetings for people who see each other more than their friends and families. Seven months of teaching stars and role players in practice and game-day shootarounds. The Rockets granted exclusive access to USA TODAY Sports last week, providing a behind-the-scenes look at a team's preparation during an NBA playoff series.

Nearly 100 games later, down 3-2 in the series with the Rockets’ special season on the line ahead of Thursday’s Game 6, the routine is the same. It’s the mounting pressure that is different. And the one guy who should be uptight is anything but.

For all the well-deserved credit D’Antoni has received for changing the game with his famous Phoenix Suns teams of the mid-2000s, and for doing it again with this trailblazing Rockets team that is heading up the NBA’s three-point revolution, D’Antoni has still never defeated the Spurs’ Gregg Popovich in the playoffs. (He’s 0-4 in all.) What’s more, this is his first time coaching in the second round since 2007, when his Suns fell to the Spurs in six games.​

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