Whatever James Harden Needs, There’s a Coach for That

HOUSTON — Rockets Coach Mike D’Antoni has been in basketball long enough to know that most of his staff’s work ought to be done by the opening tip.

The scouting. The scheming. The teaching. The worrying.

D’Antoni is merely the public face of a sprawling operation that includes dozens of employees behind the scenes.

When the Rockets host the Golden State Warriors on Saturday for Game 3 of their Western Conference semifinal series, D’Antoni will be joined on the bench by seven assistants with varying seniority. He was recently asked to describe what they do during games.

“Nothing,” he said, deadpan. “Except when we lose. Then they do it all.”

The truth is that they do a lot, even when the Rockets are winning. They identify opposing play calls. They suggest tactical changes during timeouts. They track statistics, tweak sets and (surprise!) argue personal fouls. D’Antoni is joined by three assistants in the front row, while the other four sit directly behind them — sideways at home, because of a comically narrow seating configuration.

“It’s like a toboggan,” said Devan Blair, a 26-year-old staffer whose official title is offensive strategy/video coordinator. “We’re very close.”

Since D’Antoni first became a head coach more than 20 years ago, his bench staff has expanded while each role has become more specialized. The Rockets may play with flair, but D’Antoni craves structure. So his top two assistants in charge of the defense, Jeff Bzdelik and Roy Rogers, sit in the front row with Brett Gunning, who helps D’Antoni run the offense. (Jason Biles, the head athletic trainer, also has a front-row seat.) Blair is in the back row with Matt Brase, Mitch Vanya and John Lucas.

There are also unspoken rules about how they communicate among themselves — and with the players, a delicate dance that helps provide order.

“You have rules to prevent chaos,” Bzdelik said.

Here is a look at how it all works.

JEFF BZDELIK, associate head coach

Bzdelik, 66, carefully observes the Rockets’ first three defensive possessions. He wants three straight stops, which he considers a reasonable measure of whether the team has the right approach. He picked that up from Jerry Sloan, former coach of the Utah Jazz.

“I’m not the brightest light in the room,” Bzdelik said. “I have to steal stuff from every coach I find.”

In reality, Bzdelik is regarded as one of the N.B.A.’s savviest defensive minds. He has broad powers but picks his spots with D’Antoni.

“I’m very cautious about when to say something and how to say it,” Bzdelik said. “Because having been a head coach, I know what it’s like to have a lot of people in your ear.”

When Bzdelik worked as an assistant under Coach Pat Riley with the Miami Heat in the late 1990s, he knew to offer his suggestions to Stan Van Gundy, the team’s top assistant, who would decide whether that information reached Riley.

In much the same way, D’Antoni generally communicates the most with Bzdelik and Gunning during games. Bzdelik will filter the information he receives from Rogers, Brase and Vanya, while Gunning will process the tidbits that Blair feeds him from the back row.

If Bzdelik wants to make a schematic change, he runs it by D’Antoni first. But it is almost always a formality.

“He’ll be like, ‘We should double down,’ ” D’Antoni said. “And I’ll be like, ‘Yeah, O.K.’ ”

BRETT GUNNING, assistant coach

It may come as a surprise that the Rockets are uniquely unstructured. They do not run many plays. They operate out of sets, but Harden is a master of improvisation. None of which is to suggest that the Rockets do not prepare for opposing defenses: They do. A lot.

The 46-year-old Gunning, like many other members of the staff, spends hours breaking down film. “By this point, we’ve seen everything,” he said.

During games, Gunning searches for mismatches the Rockets can exploit. Roughly every six minutes, a staffer brings a couple of iPads to the bench with fresh clips that Gunning and the other coaches can analyze, and present to the players. Harden, Gunning said, likes to study how he is being defended.

“In football, as soon as the quarterback comes out, what do they do? They hand him an iPad,” Gunning said. “It’s the same idea. Obviously, you can’t go back and change what you did, but it can make you better prepared for your next possession.”

ROY ROGERS, assistant coach

“There’s so much stuff that you can’t control,” said Rogers, 45, who joined the Rockets’ staff in 2016. “So we just try to control what we can control.”

Rogers, a former first-round pick who played three seasons as a power forward, thinks of himself as a second set of eyes for Bzdelik. And he keeps his attention on the action. He used to take notes, he said, but he found that he would invariably miss something important and be in no position to help players asking for feedback.

“So I just take mental notes,” he said. “I want to be sure that if something happens, I’m seeing the entire floor.”

DEVAN BLAIR, offensive strategy/video coordinator

D’Antoni has a database of nearly 100 plays based on six sets that he can run out of timeouts. They are known as “ATOs,” for “after timeouts.” For years, D’Antoni would more or less pick one on the fly and hope for the best.

But over breakfast one day this season, D’Antoni had the idea to have his staff select a few before the game even starts.

The bulk of that process is in the hands of Blair, who gives Gunning a list of 25 to 30 ATOs based on the opponent. In a pregame meeting, Gunning will discuss them with Blair and D’Antoni before they settle on 15 — a menu for the night ahead.

D’Antoni and Gunning tuck printed copies in their coat pockets. Blair keeps his on an iPad. He sits directly behind Gunning so they can communicate. During the regular season, Blair said, the Rockets ran successful ATOs more than 70 percent of the time, meaning they were able to get the type of look they wanted, even if they did not necessarily score.

Blair, the youngest member of the bench staff, will offer occasional reminders to players during timeouts. But he was chastened earlier this season when he gave the first-year forward Gary Clark a bad bit of instruction that led to a snafu.

“When Gary came back to the bench, I told him, ‘That’s on me,’” Blair said. “But I think I waited to tell Coach until the next day.”

MATT BRASE, assistant coach

Brase, 36, spent three seasons as coach of the Rockets’ G League affiliate, the Rio Grande Valley Vipers, before becoming a full-time member of D’Antoni’s staff this season. “I’m not used to sitting down,” Brase said.

Brase helps oversee a staff of 30-odd scouts who produce reports on opponents. He sifts through the material and works with Bzdelik and Rogers to concoct defensive game plans.

He also manages special situations: Whom should the Rockets foul if they are trailing at the end of a game? When should they trap? Should they play fast to squeeze out an extra possession — known as a two-for-one — at the end of a quarter?

“We try to think about what might come up,” Brase said, “just so we’re ready for anything.”

MITCH VANYA, special assistant/advanced operations and coaching

Vanya, 34, is the Rockets’ resident expert on the opposing team’s plays.

At the start of each possession, he watches the point guard, notes how the other players are lined up and listens for cues from the opposing coach. Vanya then relays the play call to Bzdelik — “fist up,” for example, or “horns” — so Bzdelik can alert his defenders to what is coming. The whole sequence usually takes a couple of seconds, tops.

Vanya also charts each possession and result in a notebook. If the Rockets are having a difficult time defending a play, Vanya will have staff member prepare video clips for the coaches and players to review at halftime.

Vanya has found that he can no longer watch a game at home as a casual fan.

“It’s hard,” he said, “because I’ve trained my eyes so much, particularly when it comes to defense — I’m looking for breakdowns. I’ll always see how the defense screwed up.”

JOHN LUCAS, assistant coach for player development

A 65-year-old basketball lifer, Lucas has done just about everything: player, coach, scout, general manager. Once upon a time, he even owned a semiprofessional team. (In the early 1990s, the Miami Tropics of the United States Basketball League won two championships under his direction.)

He also briefly dabbled in pro tennis after he was a two-sport all-American at Maryland.

The point is, Lucas has a unique brand of gravitas in the organization. The players let him sit with them in the back of the plane on trips. At this stage of his career, Lucas says his greatest asset is his ability to tell the truth.

“Mike has given me the freedom to be me,” he said, referring to D’Antoni.

Lucas tailors his interactions with players, especially during games. Criticize the wrong guy, he said, and it can backfire.

“I’ll get cussed out,” Lucas said. “Or we’ll cuss each other out.”

He knows, for example, that he can be candid with veterans like Chris Paul and Eric Gordon. But Lucas tends to take a different approach with someone like Clint Capela, who has worked hard on his craft (and his free throws) with Lucas.

“Once the game starts, I leave him alone,” Lucas said. “Because if I say something, he’ll tighten up.”

The Rockets are all about adjustments and in-game activity. But sometimes, Lucas said, the key is knowing when to do nothing at all.

really good read

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/03/sports/rockets-coaches-nba-playoffs.html