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Precision
Chuck Daly, who guided the Pistons to titles in 1989 and 1990, stressed execution. And even when his players nodded the first time, he stressed it again.
“Since everyone is so prepared, you have to really be sharp in order to get open shots, but it’s the simplest little things that work,” Daly recalled. “That’s what you emphasize, things like sliding two more steps to the right after passing it to a guy on a curl. Those two steps are the difference between being wide-open or not. It’s all the little things that you know during the regular season but don’t have time to emphasize when you’re playing three, four games per week. Offensive efficiency, executing is paramount. You can’t just come down and fire the ball up.”
With all of the advanced scouting and video capabilities available today, everything is out in the open. By tip-off in Game 1, opponents know each other as well as they know themselves.
Rudy Tomjanovich, who coached the Houston Rockets to a pair of titles in 1994 and 1995, said that is when strategy really gets interesting.
“It’s adjustments on top of adjustments, a chess match,” Tomjanovich recalled. “It’s amazing the little adjustments. I learned from Bill Fitch a minor adjustment about bringing a guy over three feet after a cut. Because of floor spacing and the illegal defense rules at the time, it gave Hakeem (Olajuwon) a chance to come free to the middle. That play was always a reminder to me that the simplest adjustment might be the one that does it for you.”
Of course, inevitably half-court offenses stagnate as defenses dig in. To overcome this obstacle, a team needs someone unguardable, someone who can create for himself or a teammate regardless of the defense.
Pure talent
“The penetration aspect is the one thing that you can’t coach and you can’t defend,” Daly said. “Teams that have great penetrators end up getting shots strictly off the penetration. And that’s an advantage of a particular talent that either you have or you don’t.”
The West field is loaded with these types of players, and more than ever among teams outside the Big Three (Dallas, Phoenix and San Antonio), which leaves the door open for some first-round fireworks. Bryant, Tracy McGrady, Allen Iverson and Carmelo Anthony can carve through any opponent. In addition to McGrady, Houston has a second problem for foes: center Yao Ming, who is enjoying his best season and consistently punishing teams who attempt to cover him with a single defender.
And Bryant enters this year’s postseason with more energy than in the past.
“I feel great,” said Bryant two weeks ago after scoring 46 points in a win over the Seattle Sonics. “I feel great. It’s different this season than what it was last season. Last season, from the beginning until the end, I was in attack mode. This year I didn’t have to do that because I felt like we had a well-balanced attack. And at the start of the season I didn’t have to go on those scoring runs. I could sit back in the pocket, so I was able to rest a lot more.”
In the 1995 West finals, Olajuwon was unstoppable in torching David Robinson and the San Antonio Spurs, averaging 35 points and shooting 56 percent in a six-game victory. After Olajuwon scored 41 points in a Game 2 win, which came the day after Robinson was named league MVP, Olajuwon’s teammate Sam Cassell said, “Who are the idiots who voted Hakeem fifth for MVP?”
The level Olajuwon reached in that series rests in the upper echelon of individual accomplishment. Ditto for last season’s run in the Finals by Dwyane Wade, who tallied 42, 36, 43 and 36 in the final four games — all victories — as the Miami Heat rallied to win the championship.
“The playoffs are what it’s all about, a kid in the driveway, the last second shot,” Tomjanovich said. “You see some wonderful things, like what Olajuwon did in the San Antonio series in ’95. Those kinds of things are what make our game great, having guys in a situation where they can reach these heights that haven’t been reached before.”
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