Individual and Team Honours

“I think back to the people who would drop by my office and say, ‘keep your head up’ when you’re feeling down. Publicly, when I was out and about, I kept my head up, you’re never going to show people that you’re struggling with things on the inside, but when you’re sitting in your office by yourself and you’ve lost three or four in a row and people come by and say kind words, you remember those times.”
- Sam Mitchell

The Toronto Raptors bested the New Jersey Nets 89-83 in Game 2 of a first-round series and Sam Mitchell claimed the Association’s Coach of the Year Award today. The former far supercedes the latter because it is the first playoff win in five seasons but Mitchell’s citation is also meaningful because it is significant of team effort and was earned because Toronto’s coaches and players kept their heads up and succeeded despite adversity, illustrating a number of clichéd verses written over the years.

April is the cruelest month. Two roads diverged in a yellow wood and sorry he could not travel both, Sam Mitchell finds a thrill in bucking fate and riding down the endless odds. Il a mis son manteau de pluie, parce qu’il pleuvait, et il est parti sous la pluie. His is not to make reply, his is not to reason why.

Oh, all the places he’ll go. If he can dream - and not make dreams his master, if he can think - and not make thoughts his aim, if he can meet with triumph and disaster and treat those two imposters just the same, his is the Earth and everything that’s in it.

“It is the eye which makes the horizon.”
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Preparation and attitude are two of the few things that a coach or athlete can control on game day. I’ve found the offensive sets that the Raptors run to be completely anemic occasionally (Tuesday’s win was encouraging because it shows that Toronto can compete with New Jersey and won’t settle completely for a perimeter game if faced with a combination of a zone defence and crucial no-calls) and Mitchell’s brief experience means that he has much to learn about coaching.

H.A. Dorfman comments on the fine line between athletes who are focused on accomplishing goals and those worried by negative self-talk. Greg Maddux’s mantra is to “execute pitches”; Dorfman believes that pitchers should try to “control the strike zone” or “attack the hitter” because those who fret that “they don’t have good stuff” are doomed to be hit hard.

Likewise, Sam Mitchell has been instrumental in helping this younger team come together and reach their potential. Mitchell has modeled how to remain positive and self-evaluate correctly and the team has benefited from his perspective. Coaching in the Association is exceptionally difficult, as Bob Hill demonstrated when he got a pink slip as Mitchell was getting the Red Auerbach Award.

There is room for improvement throughout the organization and it’s possible that the best path through the yellow wood is the one that Sam Mitchell is traveling. Also, props to my 2007 Championship pick, the Phoenix Suns, for not repeating last year’s mistakes and running the Los Angeles Lakers off the court during the first two games of their first-round series.

Basketball Is My Life

Reading books by Red Holzman or Bob Cousy describe playground basketball before World War II and the early days of the Association with enough detail to provide one with an excellent appreciation of the game’s history.

Basketball Is My Life: Quaintly narrated in a conversational tone, Bob Cousy’s first literary effort was written after the Boston Celtics’ first Association title in 1957. The book lacks meaningful insight into basketball but the key theme is work ethic: in basketball, business, or life. Obviously, Cousy devoted significant time to the sport but basketball is not his life. Nevertheless, given the obstacles that he faced, his drive was as critical to his success as his skill.

Cousy - one of the greatest ballhandlers of all-time - struggled to make his high school team because of his size and experienced difficulties catching on with a professional team after his career at Holy Cross. Boston passed on Cousy in the draft and Tri-Cities traded him to Chicago which folded, allowing the Celtics to draw his name out of a hat in a dispersal draft.

He also experienced a number of failures in the business world before starting a successful sports camp. One chapter describes the trials and tribulations faced by the nascent N.B.A. Players’ Association -- initially the idea was opposed by both players and owners. Without the efforts of Cousy and his contemporaries, today’s players would not have the salaries and lifestyle that they do.

The Loud Last Roar: Cousy recounts his final game, Game 6 of the 1963 Association Finals vs. Los Angeles. The text is somewhat dated and not as memorable as his first book. The point guard makes several astute points about the importance of reading the defence and understanding the strengths and weaknesses of teammates.

After winning the championship in his final game, Cousy would coach at Boston College for six years successfully and would later coach the Cincinnati Royals franchise with inauspicious results, although he did originate a number of strategic tactics that are now commonplace, for example using timeouts to save possessions.

La Dolce Vita

I’ve been told that you need to watch the adjacent Fellini films - The Nights of Cabiria and 8½ - to truly appreciate it, but I didn’t have a problem with the loose narrative of La Dolce Vita. In fact, the plot, seemingly unconnected at times, is essential to the themes that Fellini wishes to address.

“Rome: a tranquil jungle where you can hide.”
- Marcello Rubini

Uttered by at the opening of the film by Marcello, a tabloid journalist, these words endeavour to explain the motivation of the protagonist Marcello and the director Frederico Fellini throughout La Dolce Vita.

Marcello wanders from one distinct event to another, seeking a purpose for himself in life. In the end, he discovers that despite his attempts to find love, religion, or family, he is still alone, unable to connect with anyone in a meaningful manner. Trite sexual encounters, flamboyant parties, and a pretentious circle of friends and acquaintances seem to illustrate success on the surface but he is empty inside.

Disparate adventures explore the definition of beauty and the meaning of life. Marcello maintains his casual attitude when meeting his father despite knowing that he is falling short in life.

“I should change my environment; I should change a lot of things.”
- Marcello Rubini

Juxtapositions abound throughout the film, as in life. Chaos follows peace and quiet, love succeeds hate and vice-versa. The real world that Marcello struggles to navigate is replete with voyeurism and scandal; what caused controversy during the 1960 release is now commonplace.

Encounters are marred by miscommunication or a total lack of communication. The characters may interact often but they rarely understand each other.

Religion is often rejected in favour of the material world. Marcello and his friend are following the delivery of a sculpture to the Vatican yet stop in order to try to pick up some women sun-bathing on a rooftop. Leaving a party at dawn, the group encounters a procession heading to mass.

What can be learnt from a prescient black and white film? It’s difficult to find oneself and what passes for self-actualization for one person may be entirely unfulfilling for another.

La Dolce Vita was certainly worth the rental price and late fees. Considering I paid twenty-five dollars to watch an appalling display of basketball by the Toronto Raptors and the New York Knicks, Bay Street Video provides exceptional value.

Three Lessons from Red Holzman

Red Holzman coached the New York Knicks during the 1970s, an era when the team won two Association titles. Knicks players included Walt Frazier, Bill Bradley, Willis Reed, and Earl Monroe - among others - and they were one of the first squads to utilize pressure defence throughout the entire game. The team is also fascinating because a number of very intelligent players executed a motion offence selflessly and because of Willis Reed’s comeback in Game 7 of the 1970 Finals. It seems like everyone on the team wrote books so naturally the coach has written four, of which I read two: Defense! Defense! and Red on Red.

One of the books’ most attractive traits is Holzman’s frank commentary, using real players and teams to describe real systems and situations. The realism enhances the books, which contain many intriguing coaching ideas, such as:

Using Film to Study the Opponents: Holzman was one of the first coaches to review tapes when scouting. Knicks coaches held private film study sessions with individual players and optional team sessions before games, often screening game tape in the locker room as players dressed. This proved to be very influential, as the role of technology in sports has increased exponentially since.

Holzman also made use of a scouting network, similar to what Red Auerbach did with the Celtics, to evaluate players. At the time, many coaches did not devote much time to scouting, a field that has become an entire industry today.

Handling Pressure: Holzman adopted a casual attitude when dealing with officials, the media, and other influences in the Association. “Final is final,” he would say when he explained how he would deal with a tough loss or a bad call. It’s not that he abandoned his team on the court or didn’t reflect upon games afterwards but he had played enough basketball over the years to know not to dwell on one particular moment.

Teaching Players to Think: The Knicks were fortunate to have many smart players, like Bradley, Reed, Jerry Lucas, and Dave DeBusschere who put a great deal of thought into their games. The coaches encouraged this by allowing players to make suggestions that were honestly considered. For example, after Willis Reed suffered a hip injury in Game 5 of the 1970 Finals, Bill Bradley proposed that New York use a 1-3-1 set with him in the pivot (perhaps inspired by Princeton) to draw Wilt Chamberlain away from the basket. The Knicks came back to win that game and the series.

The Knicks also structured their offence to allow for opportunities to read and so that players could use their mental skills in two-man and three-man situations. As a result of the unique collection of basketball I.Q., the seven players from the rotation and the coach of the 1972-73 Association champions have been elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame.

A Note for Lakers' Fans

Irrespective of Kobe Bryant’s scoring average, the Los Angeles Lakers are in deep trouble because the team offence is completely gridlocked. The Triangle will not work without post entries and dribble penetration, which are two techniques that the Lakers are not currently practicing. The Lakers must establish themselves in those areas for the following reasons:

1. It will create opportunities for Luke Walton, Andrew Bynum, Brian Cook, and the rest of the bench to contribute that are not available in the current man-to-man offence. If the entire team is a threat to score, opponents cannot collapse on Kobe and Lamar Odom. Odom will also be more effective in a team offence because his torn labrum limits his one-on-one effectiveness.
2. Kobe is one of the best defenders in the Association but he cannot defend as well if he expends too much energy creating his own shot, especially in the second half. Generating easy chances in transition will help the impotent set offence.
3. Kobe and Odom will get better quality shots in penetrate & dish/kick and catch & shoot situations. Sam Mitchell believes that the shooting percentage for shots taken in the last ten seconds of the shot clock is thirty percent (similar to Phil Jackson’s view that buzzer beaters have a twenty-five percent or less chance to succeed), so the Lakers team shooting percentage and scoring rate will increase.

The Lakers will get smoked in the playoffs in five games in a series they could otherwise force to go the distance or win. If Kobe Bryant scores some fantastic figure, like sixty points, he can still carry the team to victory but it is becoming progressively more difficult for him to do this when scoring forty-something points.

Los Angeles still runs some nice cuts occasionally. They have the potential to improve because the players can make good decisions and have sharp court vision. They also have the talent to play good team defence although transition defence has been appalling lately. However, the team has lost seven out of the last nine games and nothing much has been going right.

There have been constant comparisons between the scoring feats of Kobe Bryant and Wilt Chamberlain. Aside when surrounded by smart players who helped run a team system, such as Jerry West with the Lakers or Billy Cunningham with the 76ers, Chamberlain never won. Kobe won’t either as long as he continues to go at it alone - at the expense of his teammates.

Touch of Evil

Apparently, Orson Welles’ Touch of Evil is an unappreciated masterpiece. I am not that sure. There are some masterful shots and excellent performances, but I found the plot to be a bit of a train wreck. It’s like watching the Los Angeles Lakers attempt to execute the Triangle these days, extremely skilled at times yet missing some basic fundamentals.

As usual, there was a dispute between Welles and the studio which led to the mangling of the original print. A DVD was released containing some of Welles’ requested changes, but it doesn’t surpass above average. Perhaps the film is an illustration of the importance of teamwork and how Welles would have gone much further had he been able to work well with others.

Touch of Evil also explores the battle between good and evil and how individuals from each side of the divide can be capable of acting like their counterparts, even if only briefly. A review described the film as partially a battle between the moralist and the pragmatist. Although some characters may act immorally, the actors’ performances still provoke the audience’s sympathy, an event that occurs to this day, even in real life.

Like Stanley Kubrick’s The Killing, Touch of Evil doesn’t match the its supposed potential. Both are excellent examples of the film noir genre but they demonstrate how superb ‘A’ talent doesn’t always succeed when it tries to make a great ‘B’ movie.

Reality Check

Stanley Kubrick died shortly after completing the final edit of Eyes Wide Shut, a modern adaptation of Arthur Schnitzler’s novella Traumnovelle. Both analyze the juxtaposition of dreams and reality, the conscious and the sub-conscious, differently. Schnitzler’s work lacks the sexuality that smolders throughout Kubrick’s film but the written word offers a medium to communicate all of the protagonist’s thoughts - expressed and repressed desires, future plans and regrets - accurately depicting how he is no different from any other person.

Eyes Wide Shut delves into what is real and what is not. Is Bill’s sequence of unsuccessful sexual adventures more real than Alice’s fantasies? Did any of the experiences actually occur? Bill (or Schnitzler’s Fridolin) says: “no dream is just a dream”; to some degree the film is a two and a half hour grey area.

Kubrick utilizes several common elements, such as the telephone or the doorbell, to interrupt the tension at critical times, as if to portray how the morning always disrupts dreams. Whatever manifests itself overnight, the real world always continues unabated.

There is the question about where does one reveal their true self, which neither work truly exposes. If one mismanages a six-point lead and calls two timeouts at inopportune times, does that make them likely to do so in the real world? Where can one draw the line? According to Kubrick and Schnitzler, such a line can’t exist. At least the two end-outs diagrammed will work in either subconscious or conscious thought.

Fridolin devotes extensive time to second thoughts and hypotheses that Bill does not. He is possibly a more realistic character as a result of that reflection. In Citizen Kane, Bernstein tells Thompson about he woman that he briefly glimpsed on a ferry sixty years previously, yet he has not gone more than a month since without thinking about her. So what the subconscious decides to keep and discard to often an arbitrary question that nobody can answer.

Little Things Make All the Difference

Recalling the time when Homer made a bookshelf out of four planks and six cinder blocks:

Marge: Homer, we have a perfectly good bookcase.
Homer: Yeah, but this is what they’re doing on campus. Besides, it isn’t costing us: I swiped the cinderblocks from a construction site.

Meanwhile, at the construction site:

Worker: Sir, six cinderblocks are missing.
Boss: There’ll be no hospital, then. I’ll tell the children.

Neither passing nor cutting are what they used to be and motion offences are suffering as a result. But there’s a nice bookcase next to the bench by the pick-up court.

Performance under Presure, Part II

Congratulations to the Raptors and their Association playoff berth. After Andrea Bargnani’s appendicitis, Jorge Garbajosa’s broken leg, and an underwhelming performance versus Kevin Durant’s next team, the Boston Celtics, Toronto regrouped and won the next two games, clinching a playoff berth. Many players shouldered the load and the team executed well under the pressure caused by the recent adversity.

Michael Ruffin, on the other hand, did not execute well under pressure. On Friday, Washington was leading by three points with seconds remaining. After Ruffin intercepted a sixty-foot pass by Anthony Parker, he simply needed to dribble out the clock and wait to be fouled. However, Ruffin tossed the ball into the air, directly to Morris Peterson, who made the game-tying shot at the buzzer.

Clearly, neither Ruffin nor the Wizards visualized the situation ahead of time in order to mentally prepare themselves. Peterson had prepared himself, practicing half-court and other trick shots at the end of practice each day (skills that can help win both H.O.R.S.E. and real games). As a coach, Eddie Jordan could have also done a better job of envisaging his substitutions for the end-of-game situation and communicating instructions to the Washington players.

Nevertheless, it is always a pleasure to watch athletes execute well under pressure. A similar - but more light-hearted - example would be the performances of WWE superstars at last night’s Wrestlemania. For the most part, the wrestlers laid out well-conceived matches and performed to their athletic potential. Ideas like mental training, planning, and visualization apply to all sorts of performances.