Posts for category ‘coaching’

The Washington Wizards talk about fourth quarter full-court pressure defense against Chicago, which helped make the 10 point loss a little more interesting, to say the least…

If anything, Randy Wittman has proven that he’s no Flip Saunders, past his own claims of the two being “polar opposites.” No, it’s not about wins and losses (beating the Bobcats twice? please), at least for the rest of this season. Yes, outcome is important and positive outcomes are nice, but ask a fan about winning or losing, and the Wizards can’t win. From moral victories to lottery losses to scoreboard reward, not many can be satisfied in this current state of four victories and 17 losses.

Wittman is willing to try more new things, starting Jan Vesely at the four over Andray Blatche for example. Or, down 78-63 to the Chicago Bulls on Monday night with nearly a quarter left to play, throwing a full court press after a Chicago timeout allowing Tom Thibodeau to insert M.V.P. point guard Derrick Rose back into the game. It’s not like Saunders didn’t reach deep into his bag of gimmicks, responsiveness from his players was clearly the issue.

“I was a little hesitant to really do what we did there in the fourth quarter,” said coach Randy Wittman at the end of the night, “because… [chuckles]… we hadn’t worked on it, but I said, ‘Let’s go, guys, we got one chance here to make this a ball game.’”

Washington responded immediately — with a unit of John Wall, Jordan Crawford, Nick Young, Trevor Booker, and JaVale McGee – racing to a 15-8 run in fewer than four minutes. Thanks to the pressure, the Wizards trimmed their deficit to eight points. A Nick Young three-pointer capped the comeback, with Wittman afterward stomping his feet all over the hardwood floor to remind Young to not bask in his offense, but rather to find the shooters and pressure as necessary. Chicago answered by finally breaking Washington’s full-court defense with ease, ending the Wizards run with a Carlos Boozer dunk, holding their lead at 88-78.

“Our point guards Shelvin [Mack] and John are picking up 84, 94 feet… Book [Booker] has to ability to really cover a lot of ground, and I thought he did a heckuva job of trying to get the ball out of Rose’s hands early, make [Joakim] Noah and those guys make a play,” said Wittman. “JaVale… there’s a little technique being the last man standing back there with what you have to do. You know… he didn’t know. We haven’t been able to work on it. He came away from the basket a little bit too much — a couple drop-offs to [Carlos] Boozer where you got to make Noah, the 7-foot center, make plays driving down the middle of the floor.”

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You talk about Andray Blatche’s bad defense, you talk about JaVale McGee’s bad defense, you beat dead horses that really won’t die. That’s how things go with the Washington Wizards franchise these days.

Head coach Flip Saunders is not happy, evidenced by the manner in which he cut his press conference short after Wednesday night’s 109-97 loss to the Philadelphia 76ers, making his team 0-17 on the road for the season. Saunders wasn’t particularly terse in dealing with the media after the game, as seen on Comcast’s coverage, but it’s something we’ve seen before. He was suddenly done answering questions in his own, subtly annoyed tone, and ‘poof’ … he was gone, as some media member tried to get in a question to no avail.

But before the abrupt ending, Saunders twice exclaimed how bad his team fared at defending Philadelphia’s pick and rolls and twice pinned most of the blame on his big men, saying, “bigs didn’t give enough help.” Nothing new here. After the loss to New Orleans on January 1, Saunders indicated that his team addressed defending pick and rolls in a soft manner. Not long after Saunders made that comment, I asked John Wall to assess the so-called “softness.”

“It’s not about defending soft,” he said. “You know, I think we were pressuring the ball, it’s just that we’re not doing a great job of hedging. You see when I came off the screen, they big men was there, and they was hedging pretty hard, making me pass the ball and pick up my dribble. I feel like when [Chris Paul] came off a screen, he just had freedom to do whatever he wants to … find teammates and scoring. We just got to do a better job of stepping up and making the guards pass the ball.”

According to Synergy Sports, through 33 games this season the Wizards, in charted plays that end in a field-goal attempt, turnover or free-throws, are allowing the pick-and-roll ball handler to score 0.88 points per possession (PPP), ranked 23rd in the league. They are allowing the P&R roll man to score 1.06 PPP, ranked 22nd in the league. Not the worst in the world, not the best — and worth saying that these stats don’t paint a complete picture of what action develops off of P&R possessions.

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STOP:

First go read part one of my piece on Nolan Ricahrdson, then read below …

Richardson understands he signed up for full-on rebuilding mode, in the WNBA, and seems dedicated to getting Tulsa off to a good start. But his personal transition to coaching the women’s game has also been a challenge.

“In the female game, it’s more patterned. A goes to B, B goes to C, you know, pick and pop and those kind of things,” Richardson told me. “In the male game, it’s more you can get after people like we did at the end there where we got into our scramble defense. We normally do a lot of that with the men’s game, in the women’s game you can’t play that way.”

Most of Richardson’s critics will say he’s failing because his active defensive scheming, aka the “40 Minutes of Hell,” just won’t work with females. Not so says the coach.

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[I have to thank Rashad Mobley. He was the originator of 'Hey, Nolan Richardson is coming to town,' idea, which so happened to be the same night President Obama decided to head down the street to the Verizon Center for a Washington Mystics game against the Tulsa Shock. Rashad tackled the evening in the midst of the President and let me cover Coach Richardson, who was kind enough to speak with me for a considerable amount of time after the game. Thus, part one of my piece is below, and part two will follow.]

Nolan Richardson coached his final game as head coach of the Arkansas Razorbacks on February 27, 2002, an 89-83 loss to Mississippi State on the Bulldogs’ home court. It was a night where 35 points on an efficient 10-18 FGs (7-12 3PT) from Arkansas’ Jannero Pargo couldn’t overcome the efforts of Mississippi State’s Mario Austin and Derrick Zimmerman. In my days working with the men’s basketball team in Starkville, Mississippi, I witnessed Richardson solemnly walk off the court that night and knew it would be the last game he coached for the Razorbacks. It was the end of an era. Flash-forward to almost eight and a half years later …

Now Richardson is much grayer. He’s more calculated and comfortable than my memories of watching him patrol the Southeastern Conference sidelines. But he still has the zest, backed by the experience of a ring he wears representing each of the JUCO, NIT & NCAA national championships he has won as a coach (he’s still the only one to do so). In the coach’s box of the WNBA, the 68-year old clearly gets joy from instruction and spry interactions with the referees, on top of relishing his foray into women’s basketball. I should know, I was afforded the opportunity to sit on press row, mere feet from Richardson as his Tulsa Shock were in the District of Columbia to take on the Washington Mystics on the first Sunday of August, with President Barack Obama in attendance no less.

Richardson said he was excited to see the surprise appearance of President Obama, which was chronicled by my colleague Rashad Mobley, and proud to see the President supporting women’s professional basketball, but the coach said he’s been there before, at least four times. Past President Bill Clinton attended countless Arkansas games and cheered himself to the cover of Sports Illustrated when both he was in his political prime and Richardson was at his coaching apex. ‘Woooo, Pig, Sooey!’ was the Razorback chant all the way to the 1994 NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship.

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Once, when asked about what his team would look like in the coming season, whether it would be more offensively minded, and how it would keep up the intensity on the defensive end, Flip Saunders said:

Well, defensively, the team always takes the personality of their players. The players we have here … are very defensive oriented. The strength of this team from a defensive aspect – how hard they play and how aggressively they play won’t change. What will change is the changing defenses we’ll use, being able to change the tempo of the game will full-court pressure, half-court traps and defenses. Offensively, like our defense, we will always stay aggressive. I always want my teams to attack, and so we will look to push the ball more and score more out of our fast break.

And on whether he would try to evolve a player into a superstar or continue with the teamwork mentality:

In Minnesota, even though we had a great player in Garnett, the team was built on team play. I look for this team to continue that. This team will move the basketball, become a high-assist, low-turnover team playing a very aggressive style.

This was in the summer of 2005, before Saunders’ Detroit Pistons finished with the best record in the NBA at 64-18, and before they lost to the Miami Heat in the Eastern Conference Finals.

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While Ted Leonsis was getting all the attention today, and deservedly so, there’s also a team being built. Flip Saunders usually isn’t made available to the media before or after pre-draft workouts, so today’s press conference was a good chance to catch up with Saunders and get his thoughts on the process leading up to June 24th.

I asked Flip, with John Wall reportedly set to workout for the Wizards on June 17th, if they’ve scheduled Evan Turner or any other top prospect. So far, the Wizards have hosted more on-the-cusp players who might be available at 30 and 35 or go undrafted.

Saunders deferred to Milt Newton, vice president of player personnel, but later indicated that the Wizards have talked to Turner’s people. The coach also said the Wizards would probably have seven more days of pre-draft workouts with five or six guys each day.

On the process of trying to get players to come workout, Saunders said:

“Some of it’s not of our choosing. Players don’t have to come in if they don’t want to. Some players, either through word of mouth or their agent, don’t think they’re going to have an opportunity. And I’m not talking about the No. 1 pick, we’ve had guys who we’d like to look at, at maybe No. 30, that we can’t get in because they don’t think they’re going to be there.

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Shaun Livingston has been through basketball hell, but the point guard just might be the godsend Flip Saunders has been searching the heavens for to lead his team.

The Wizards, as was pretty much expected, lost their third game in as many nights 109-95 to the Orlando Magic on Saturday, but Livingston broke out with his best game (most points with 18 and most assists with eight) since his career-changing knee injury in February 2007 .

Livingston has barely been with the Wizards two weeks and he appears more comfortable running Flip’s offense than anyone else has been all season.

“The biggest thing is he’s got a very high basketball I.Q. He seems to calm everybody down a little bit when he’s on the floor,” said Saunders. “And he’s got great size so when things break down he’s has the ability to back somebody down and get a shot off.”

More and more Saunders is turning to the player in his second consecutive 10-day contract to succeed where Randy Foye and Earl Boykins have fallen short. Down 15-13 to Orlando after a Jameer Nelson free-throw, Livingston took the floor at the 6:30 mark in the first quarter and led the Wizards on a 20-5 run to finish the period. During that time Washington went 9-13 from the field with seven of those baskets being assisted upon while not committing one turnover.

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The piece below originally appeared in the February 23, 2010 edition of ESPN’s Daily Dime.

Believe it or not, Flip Saunders is a relieved man. Out the door are the failed expectations of the previously constructed team. Now he can get back to what he likes to do, teaching.

Watch the Wizards coach on the sidelines now. He’s taking time to talk to his young players immediately after subbing them out the game. He’s pointing and instructing, imploring his students to do the same with each other. It’s not like Flip wasn’t giving it his coaching all before, it’s just that now he doesn’t have to stand by while the fruits of his labor go untrusted by inflexible veterans whose play insisted they knew better.

“Well, I could always apply for a job as an air traffic controller,” said Saunders when asked how his in-game teaching has increased after the Wizards’ flurry of recent trades. Since, his team has gone 3-1, defeating the Chicago Bulls 101-95 on Monday night. “As a coach, that’s what you kind of enjoy. You live for those types of things, especially when you have a group that we have. They want to learn. So when you tell them something, they’re trusting. When you get your players to trust what you’re doing, what happens is they do it a lot more aggressively and you usually have a little better outcome.”

You wouldn’t immediately know it, but that’s a pretty damning statement about the past regime of players. When Caron Butler, Antawn Jamison, and even Gilbert Arenas for a brief time were the offensive cogs, lack of trust, in terms of the system and each other, was the prevalent theme as to why a team with high pre-season expectations just wasn’t clicking. “Selfish basketball,” is the idea team president Ernie Grunfeld has opted for in several recent public statements.

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Flip Saunders didn’t care about Tuesday night’s win over the Philadelphia 76ers. Well, not like he didn’t care, care. If you ask him, I’m sure he’ll tell you that he was damn glad to have a ‘W’ notched in the record book. The win wasn’t even one of those ‘whew, that was a close one, glad we came out on top’ victories of relief for the coach.

No, the Wizards’ 105-98 win over Eddie Jordan’s Sixers was more like a ‘Dammit, I’m still pissed that I had to sub all five of my starters out en masse with eight minutes left in the third quarter just to motivate this frickin’ 8-17 team’ type of night for Saunders.

After the game, I asked Saunders about that magic moment when he subbed Earl Boykins, Nick Young, Dominic McGuire, Andray Blatche and Fabricio Oberto all at once for Gilbert Arenas, Randy Foye, Caron Butler, Antawn Jamison and Brendan Haywood after watching his starters commit three turnovers and three fouls on their way to getting outscored 12-5 four minutes into the second half.

Before Saunders even answered my question, he retorted, “What did you see?”

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Not long after the ‘Design an Inbounds Play For the Wizards’ contest hit the interwebs, there were reports of Flip Saunders doing a Capitol Hill two-step, back-pedaling away like a politician.

“They talked, and we haven’t totally committed on that. It wasn’t an end of the game thing when we talked about it. It was a – if we do it – a how about a first-timeout play of the game. … It was designed to be an interactive thing with the fans, a first quarter you run a play and see what they have. … We’re still playing with the idea of where it really goes.”

[Flip Saunders via Wizards Outlet]

It only took a couple more days for ESPN’s Mark Jackson and Jeff Van Gundy to get to it. During Friday’s Wizards-Warriors broadcast, Jackson started by bringing up the contest and calling it a “joke.” Van Gundy followed with:

“My problem with it is this. People would say, ‘What’s the problem, it’s only one possession’, but they’ve lost six straight one possession games. Every possession matters in the NBA. And I would not be willing, as a team, to give away any possessions.”

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{flickr/Keith Allison}

No, this isn’t a joke … although, with the season going the way it is, you’d think it might be.

But really, what’s the harm in Flip Saunders & Co. using one play selected from a pool of civilian submissions. At this point, it can’t hurt. Right?

The details of the contest, via ESPN, are below … and more can be found by following the link at the bottom. (However, this will take you to an ESPN Insider page, so you might need an account).

The contest says it will be an inbounds play, but doesn’t really indicate if the play will be an ‘Out-Under’ (an inbounds play from the baseline under the basket) or a ‘Side-Out’ (an inbounds play from the sideline), so I guess you’ll have to use whichever one floats your boat.

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Count on seeing McGee in warmups more than in uniform - flickr/Keith Allison

Amidst Flip Saunders’ talk of an 8-man rotation (well, according to his quote below, really an 8 + 2 rotation), I wanted to attempt to predict the 2009-10 minutes distribution … all the way in August.

My philosophy’s always been you play eight players, nine and ten play when you have some foul trouble which you’re always gonna usually have in a game. -Flip

The idea reflected in my numbers below is that eight players will receive consistent minutes and the ‘plus 2′ can be any combination of the remaining players, given which one, contingent on a number of factors that will be judged by Saunders’ coaching experience, best fits the circumstance.

(Note: I first came up with my numbers on some gut feeling, Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink! type of thinking. I then read a great post, ‘How Deep Was My Bench?’ by bwoodsxyx on Bullets Forever. The post relays some great research and numbers that support the ’8 + 2′ idea when it comes to Saunders’ rotation.) Read more »

Like user ooba on Bullets Forever, I attended the Flip Saunders meet-n-greet with season ticket holders at the Verizon Center on Wednesday night. I didn’t intend on going (nor did I really know about it), but my boy Donte invited me that day, so big thanks to him.

Luckily, I had the room bugged beforehand so I could get some prime quotes from Flip … well, if ‘bugged’ means a small recorder I happened to have with me.

It’s kinda funny, I didn’t mean to be the sneaky blogger recording people’s conversations, or a coach talking to a practice court filled with 200-250 people (not sure if I’m a good crowd estimator or not), but like ooba, I just want to relay interesting team news, notes, and Et ceteras to those who weren’t able to attend.

Of course, one must wonder if Saunders was more candid speaking in front of fans, working under the assumption that no one was ‘covering’ the event, than he would have been with members of the main-stream-media.

Then again, unlike MSM types, I’m actually a fan of the team.

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Well, the Flip Saunders era “officially” begun today (yesterday, meant to get this posted then, but blogger was acting funny) with a short and sweet press conference. Yep, seems like the Wizards franchise is ‘Determined to Deliver’ four c-words to fans next year. Keep reading for quotes and commentary from the presser.

images via www.washingtonwizards.com

Ernie Grunfeld Quotes:

“Start of a new beginning.”

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As the dust settles from the “it’s a done deal” to the “it’s official” phase of hiring Flip Saunders as the next coach of the Wizards, I find it hard to form a solid opinion on perhaps the most important aspect of transforming this team from mediocre to championship contender (aside from health of course).

I still subscribe to the thought that players are on the court, playing the games, and thus hold the ultimate responsibility for winning and losing. But a good coach…well, he can be a difference maker.

Not to say I’m apathetic towards the hiring of Saunders. If I had to rank, I suppose he would have been my number one choice, with Mark Jackson being a sleeper pick (he is a minister, and could surely preach on it….plus, his NBA analysis on ABC/ESPN is on point….but he lacks significant coaching experience).

I might have taken Avery Johnson over Jackson…but over Saunders? I’m not so sure…..in fact, I doubt it. So Saunders it is, and I’m okay with that….but not exactly thrilled. Then again, the stink of this season hasn’t been laid to rest, and that certainly has something to do with my mundane attitude.

Michael Wilbon, whom I’ve taken to task before because of generic columns, when it comes to the Wizards, that scream lackluster effort of trying to cater to the masses instead of a knowledgeable fan base, actually wrote an astoundingly astute column on the Wiz coaching situation. However, I don’t exactly agree with his sentiment.

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