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Popovich talks Offense

Discussion in 'NBA Dish' started by durvasa, Mar 5, 2014.

  1. durvasa

    durvasa Contributing Member

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    http://blog.mysanantonio.com/spursnation/2014/03/04/pop-talks-offense-a-qa/

    [rquoter]
    CLEVELAND — The question was about Cavaliers coach Mike Brown and his stated goal to model his team’s approach to offense after the team he once worked for, the Spurs. The Spurs, Brown noted, don’t run offense so much as they “just play the game.”

    Before the Spurs’ 122-102 romp over Brown’s Cavs on Tuesday night, someone asked Gregg Popovich to explain his views on offensive basketball. What followed, as transcribed below, were five minutes of expansive oratory that perhaps inadvertently opened a window into the psychology of coaching.

    It should be noted, the Spurs went out and logged a season-high 39 assists on 43 field goals in the couple hours after this exchange.

    Q. Mike Brown says he wants to get to the point his guys are not running rigid offense, but “just playing basketball.” He says your team is the best at that. In your experience, how long does something like that take to instill?

    Popovich: “The quest never stops so to speak. You just keep doing it. Even though our core has been together so long, I still have to remind them, run a drill every now and then or have an emphasis in a scrimmage in a practice where we’re talking about. Maybe we’re holding the ball too long, and it’s not moving, and we’re not going good to great with our shots.”

    Q. Can you explain the concept of “good-to-great?”

    Popovich: “There are a lot of good shots, but if you can turn that into a great shot, percentages go through the roof. Contested shots are really bad shots. People’s percentage goes down almost by 20, almost without exception. All those things in an offense are things a coach is always trying to develop. It takes time to get everybody to the point where they all buy in and understand how it’s good for the group to do things.

    “You want to penetrate not just for you, but for a teammate. Penetrating because I want to make things happen. It could be for me. It could be for a teammate. It could be for the pass after the pass I make. As people start to realize that, then you get a flow and people start playing basketball rather than just running the play that’s called or making up their minds ahead of time.”

    Q. How do you get players to take ownership of the offense? Is it a confidence thing?

    Popovich: “That’s a good question. A lot depends on the competitiveness and the character of the player. Often times, I’ll appeal to that. Like, I can’t make every decision for you. I don’t have 14 timeouts. You guys got to get together and talk. You guys might see a mismatch that I don’t see. You guys need to communicate constantly — talk, talk, talk to each other about what’s going on on the court.

    “I think that communication thing really helps them. It engenders a feeling that they can actually be in charge. I think competitive character people don’t want to be manipulated constantly to do what one individual wants them to do. It’s a great feeling when players get together and do things as a group. Whatever can be done to empower those people …

    “Sometimes in timeouts I’ll say, ‘I’ve got nothing for you. What do you want me to do? We just turned it over six times. Everybody’s holding the ball. What else do you want me to do here? Figure it out.’ And I’ll get up and walk away. Because it’s true. There’s nothing else I can do for them. I can give them some bulls—, and act like I’m a coach or something, but it’s on them.

    “If they’re holding the ball, they’re holding the ball. I certainly didn’t tell them to hold the ball. Just like, if they make five in a row, I didn’t do that. If they get a great rebound, I didn’t do that. It’s a players’ game and they’ve got to perform. The better you can get that across, the more they take over and the more smoothly it runs.

    “Then you interject here or there. You call a play during the game at some point or make a substitution, that kind of thing that helps the team win. But they basically have to take charge or you never get to the top of the mountain.”
    [/rquoter]

    It sounds a lot like what the Rockets are trying to do as well.
     
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  2. Rock3t Man

    Rock3t Man Contributing Member

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    Cool approach, I don't think Brown can/will ever reach the level of coaching Pop is at.

    I love how simple Pop is, and he theory about shooting open shots is plain and simple, of course there is a lot more that goes to his coaching, such as creating plays and coaching the team on defense.

    More importantly this guy is trusted by the players, to have a team that can fall back on someone's confidence is huge. If your star player is hurt or struggling, they can rely on any player in that team to step up, and when the team is struggling they go to POP.
     
  3. Ziggy

    Ziggy QUEEN ANON

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    It sounds exactly like what we're trying to do. And I do like that. But it's not like Popovich has been using that approach during his entire tenure with the Spurs. It has been an emerging philosophy for him.

    It's a lot easier to do effectively when your core is completely unselfish and has been together for so many years. A team as young as the Rockets needs more discipline, more direction and more help finding an identity. Otherwise... you get a ****load of turnovers and changes in tempo.
     
  4. Houstunna

    Houstunna The Most Unbiased Fan
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    Great philosophy. No surprise he's an All-Time coach.

    Team mentality on offense keeps everyone involved and, in turn, makes guys work harder on defense. Win-win scenario.
     
  5. DocRock

    DocRock Member

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    I feel like you could say that about every contender besides OKC.
     
  6. TheRealist137

    TheRealist137 Member

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    The difference is Houston has McHale while Pop is a HOF coach.
     
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  7. HMMMHMM

    HMMMHMM Contributing Member

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    The approach indeed is very similar, however the Spurs offense is a lot more structured, which might make it a bit harder for them to get guys to "just play" basketball at times, though it probably helps them to create quality in late(r) shot clock situations whenever the first few options have been taken away.

    It's pretty funny to hear Mike Brown making those comments by the way when their offense pretty much has nothing to do with how the Spurs play. They don't push the ball. They run much more set offense. And there's only little playbook overlap between them and the Spurs. So... good luck.
     
    #7 HMMMHMM, Mar 5, 2014
    Last edited: Mar 5, 2014
  8. Easy

    Easy Boban Only Fan
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    The difference is Pop has Duncan and Parker, and McHale has Howard and Harden.

    But I agree that it's a culture and it takes time. It's the coach's job to create the culture because the coach is the leader. And you need to get the player leaders to buy into the culture (not just lip service) on the court then the other players will follow... and you get rid of the players who don't follow.
     
  9. Carl Herrera

    Carl Herrera Contributing Member

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    What does this even mean other that "I don't like McHale regardless of what the objective data says how his team is doing"?
     
  10. JuanValdez

    JuanValdez Contributing Member

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    It doesn't sound all that revolutionary or anything. With effort, I could probably pull quotes from Rudy T driving at the same stuff. He was always talking about making the extra pass to go from a good shot to a great shot. Rick Adelman had the same philosophy on offense, and he had a lot of success as well. But, it's a precarious sort of thing and the key likely isn't the philosophy itself but whether the team has the culture and leadership to actually take responsibility and to actually trust one another. Pop's been great at cultivating that culture and they've had players like Duncan who have the right character for it. If you put the game in the players' hands and ask them to take responsibility, trust each other, and make plays, but the players don't have that mindset... well, results will be suboptimal.

    All of this speaks to why I think all the criticism of McHale is so dumb. Critics focus on tactical minutae like rotations or play-calls as if the coach is a master puppeteer with 12 hands. And they completely ignore the real job of the coach to put players in positions to suceed and empower them to take responsibility and play the game. That's a harder thing to inspect and praise or criticize. You only really see it when it's really working with coaches and players, like with Pop or Jerry Sloan, but perhaps not so much with players who won't take up the job. It makes me think particularly of Larry Brown and Allen Iverson. That one year, Brown got Iverson to buy in and he was great; the rest of Iverson's career, I'd say he didn't really do that, and his results reflected it.
     
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  11. A_3PO

    A_3PO Member

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    Saying the Spurs "just play basketball" is just dumb IMO. They have a clearly defined structure and players have specific roles within the structure. They know what they are supposed to do. It's very repetitive to the point of being boring sometimes. The only guys who consistently ad lib with the ball in their hands are the big 3.

    The NBA is definitely a players game. Not even debatable. But Pop's "my way or the highway" mentality means everyone has to buy into what he says or suffer the consequences. This includes TD, TP and Manu. Unlike a lot of coaches, Pop has no problem unloading on them during games (and publicly in years past). He always wins the battle of wills. This is what separates him from most other coaches. You do it or he will sit you down. Not everyone can play for Pop.

    Completely agree. Bonehead is bailed out by having 2 superstars who overcome his lack of offensive sophistication.
     
  12. Juxtaposed Jolt

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    I really, really liked this part of the interview.
     
  13. dragician

    dragician Member

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    amazing somebody was able to make him talk in an interview like that...
     
  14. mdrowe00

    mdrowe00 Member

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    Just from my point of view, here, JV...

    ...and I have nothing but the utmost respect for Larry Brown as a coach (nobody has done more with less over the course of a career than he has, at the collegiate or pro levels, in my opinion)...

    ...but I think exactly the opposite is true of Brown's relationship with Allen Iverson in Philadelphia.

    Brown didn't get Iverson to buy in to his thinking. Just the inverse: Brown at least catered to Iverson's way of thinking.

    The Detroit Pistons team that Larry Brown coached to an NBA title played offensively much more in line with what Brown as a coach (or even as Greg Popovich) would like to see from professional players.

    Unselfish. Disciplined. Fearless. Relentless. And accountable.

    Every one of them.

    Brown never got that from Iverson or the teams he coached in Philadelphia. Brown (reluctantly, I think) surrendered temporarily to the idea of letting Iverson play offensively without license. Iverson was singularly talented, and singularly focused, but he was never much of a TEAM offense player.

    That's not to say that I don't think Brown didn't want that or didn't try to create that. As Popovich said, trust is an important component in a team dynamic, especially when you're relying on the guys around you to be as focused on "...playing the right way..."

    Brown knew better than anyone (including Iverson) that if the 76ers were going to improve and compete as a team, they couldn't rely on the template of their 2001 playoff run. Which is why, even when Brown sought to subsequently improve the team, Iverson bristled and resisted it.

    In Iverson's mind (along with the rest of the national media), he was a guy who could win by himself. Brown never intended, I think, for that to happen, but he had to know something of Iverson's psychology and ego.

    At the end of the day, you have to play a team sport AS A TEAM. Everybody, got a job to do, and everybody has to do it.

    The only "specialists" in a team sport as interchangeable as basketball should be in the training room or the medical staff.
     
  15. JuanValdez

    JuanValdez Contributing Member

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    I wouldn't really disagree with you, and I suppose I'm only talking about Iverson that year relative to Iverson in other years. It's fair to say he still didn't really trust his teammates and trust the system the way he should have (and neither did he win a championship), but he did moreso than he had in other years. He relented, for example, on his insistence to be the point guard.
     
  16. Old Man Rock

    Old Man Rock Contributing Member

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    People don't give Rudy T enough credit on here. He was revolutionary in using 3 point shooters. In utilizing Hakeem in the inside out game. He lost Hakeem and then used Mobley and Francis to run a frenetic drive to the basket pace that they had to change the rules to compensate for the Rockets style.

    Morey understands better than anyone what works. I have never considered him an innovator like Rudy or Adelman but he is a gatherer of what works. he sees what works and then analyzes it to death and figures out why it works and what could make it work better. he feeds that info to all the coaches and they all take it in except mcHale and the Rockets are better for it.

    The biggest reason for the Rockets improvement is they are starting to get Morey's system and stick with it for longer stretches. Pops team has been doing that for longer. They can beat weak teams with less. I don't think they can beat us in the playoffs.
     
  17. Rip Van Rocket

    Rip Van Rocket Contributing Member

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    Interesting interview, and it does sound similar to what the Rockets are trying to do. I found it interesting that Pop stresses that the players must communicate with other to make everything work. That's something that I think the Rockets do very well. The Rockets do a lot of communicating with each other when play stops. The Rockets coaching staff is trying to empower the players to take the reins of the offense. Which I think is a good thing since the game moves quickly and the coaches can't always call all the shots.
     

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