Why Not?

One can record a maximum break in snooker in less than five and a half minutes. So why not make 147 every time? Since the balls are always arranged identically, how did the first player in this clip botch the break so badly, without potting any balls, so that Ronnie O’Sullivan was able to easily run the table, averaging one shot every nine seconds?

Why does a curler slip pushing off the hack at the Brier and therefore compromise their release? How does a collegiate wrestler lose their first match against an unranked opponent when expected to win the national championship?

The key characteristic is the formation of good habits. Whether the situation occurs during the General Preparation phase or a Peak during the Main Season, an athlete’s mentality should be the same.

The Carleton Ravens never overwhelm a team with skill. Winners of six of the past seven Canadian National Championships, it seems logical that they would have a much higher talent level than their opposition but they rarely win in a rout and often put forth poor shooting performances. However, the Ravens’ defence is always consistent and carries them through tough games.

It is evident throughout the game - from warm-up to post-game, during all of the huddles - that they don’t find the circumstances out of the ordinary. Even after they won a tough National Semi-Final against Western on a buzzer beating shot, stars Aaron Doornekamp and Stu Turnbull still took the time to clean up their bench area, showing respect and responsibility.

Coaches should continuously promote Intensity and Quality in practice in order to simulate games. Athletes must always display this work ethic during workouts (individual or team). Coaches should instruct effective emotional and attentional control in addition to sport-specific physical performance factors. Athletes should spend time finding their Ideal Performance State before all competitions, from the N.C.A.A. Tournament to Intramural Playoff Games.

Coaches could call timeout and tell athletes to “calm down” but both groups have responsibility. Mike Krzyzewski, in his cursory work Beyond Basketball, talks of the importance of visualization for himself as a youth growing up in Chicago and for players at Duke. Some of the advice in that particular book may be incredibly obvious to anybody with a quantum of common sense but the anecdotes may inspire fans with higher aspirations.

For example, Krzyzewski relates how diligent Michael Jordan was regarding his individual workouts during the preparation for the 1992 Olympics. Although Jordan was the best player in the world, he was still respectful and allowed the college coach to work him out at game-like Intensity and Quality. Even the best must invest time to maintain their physical and mental levels so that they do not slip or stumble during a critical moment.

Performance under Pressure, Part V

Donovan Bailey said that while athletes participating in the 100m dash share genetics and other physical characteristics, it’s entirely mental when they arrive in the stadium for the final heat. Swimmers and other athletes would be remiss not to take the 1996 Olympic Champion’s advice. Self-confidence, technique, overcoming fear (of success and failure) are among the essential skills possessed by an Olympic Champion.

Michael Phelps won eight gold medals in a single Olympics. He is an amazing athlete. But Phelps also performs consistently and never wavers from his game plan. He’d only have six medals if the competition were as diligent. In the Men’s 4x100m Feeestyle relay, Alain Bernard had a relatively large lead going into the final stretch over Jason Lezak but swam too close to the lane divider, allowing the American to draft behind and out-touch him at the wall. In the Men’s 100m Butterfly, Serbian Milorad Cavic appeared to have a half-meter lead with two meters to swim but lifted his head at the wall and lost by 0.01 seconds. Phelps realized that he was behind and that he was out of sync with his normal stroke rhythm. He took a “chopped stroke” and barely won the event.

In the 1992 Men’s 100m Backstroke, Mark Tewksbury spent the preceding year visualizing his race in Barcelona. He studied the pool when it was under construction and planned every detail of his race months in advance. When he got within meters of the wall, he realized that he was out of sync with his normal stroke pattern and didn’t have enough time for a full stroke. Consequently, Tewksbury reached backwards and won the race by milliseconds. Both Phelps and Tewksbury focused on the mental aspect of swimming and narrowly won gold medals as a result.

Egregious mental errors have occurred in other sports too.

• Women’s Marathon: the field allowed one athlete, Constantina Tomescu-Dita to breakaway and lead more than half the race. The Romanian won by half a minute and it seemed as if the chase pack had forgotten that she was in the race.
• Women’s 400m Freestyle Swim: Katie Hoff led most of the race but decided to touch the wall with a flat palm. Great Britain’s Rebecca Adlington made a last outstretched lunge for the wall and won by 0.07 seconds.
• Women’s Freestyle Wrestling 63kg Bronze Medal Match: Martine Dugrenier was up a point with thirty seconds remaining. After she had taken the lead with a leg-lace takedown, she quickly gave up her back and side control to opponent Randi Millar, losing with seconds remaining.

Why are these athletes losing focus at critical moments? Tewksbury hypothesizes that the fear of success and reaching a life-long dream is as prevalent as the fear of failure. C.B.C. commentators Steve Armitage and Byron McDonald praised Phelps for dominating every element of the race. Tewksbury told anchor Ron McLean that Canada needs to have benchmarks for all aspects of the performance.

What makes up a gold medal swim in London 2012 and what are our improvement targets for each year? Nothing is too small to be measured (and Omega has shown that every millisecond can be timed) and nothing too intangible to be considered. If Canada wants to “Own the Podium”, they have to own themselves first and aim to own all the mental and physical aspect of the competition, like Phelps did whilst winning eight medals.

Clutch Performance

According to a study of collegiate basketball, the two statistics most correlated with winning are field goal percentage and free throws attempted. During Monday’s N.C.A.A. Final, Kansas made 53% of their shots, Memphis shot nineteen foul shots, and the Jayhawks won 75-68 in overtime. The game was close enough that a number of plays could have altered the outcome. Why did Kansas win?

A student said that the result wasn’t fair, that the Tigers only lost because Derrick Rose performed below his normal standards. The reason that Rose shot poorly and went scoreless for so long was the Jayhawks’ defensive pressure: Bill Self alternated between man-to-man with Brandon Rush on Rose, a trapping 2-3, and a box-and-1 (Mario Chalmers guarded Chris Douglas-Roberts). Team defence held Memphis to a dozen points below their average. The 2008 Title Game will become a legendary game because strategy neutralized superior individual talent, like Rick Majerus’ triangle-and-2 versus Arizona ten years ago.

A clutch performer is one who performs consistently during close games. A player who shoots fifty percent would be considered a clutch performer if they made one out of two shots when the game was on the line.

Kansas should be considered clutch performers because they performed as they did all year, for the most part. Down the stretch, Memphis’ defensive stats, such as points per possession, deflections, and stops, plummeted. Did the Tigers choke?

A subjective measure would be to evaluate technique. Irrespective of whether the shot went in, did they use the same technique as they did in previous games and practices. At the line, Memphis seemed uneasy and pulled away from the hoop. Likewise, Kansas appeared soft while boxing out in the final minutes and getting additional stops complicated the comeback attempt.

When Memphis was up 60-51 with two minutes remaining, they likely held a 95% chance or winning (or more). Tigers’ foul shooting - a blight all year – finally caught up to them as they made only three of seven shots down the stretch. But, considering the entire game, Memphis performed at their season average. The term clutch performance is so nebulous because results are totally different depending on the length of the time period considered.

In short, there isn’t any answer because sample size is too small. Mario Chalmers sent the game to overtime with a very difficult three point attempt that he might only make once for every five tries. Memphis used questionable clock management but since they played few close games they hadn’t had the chance to practice that skill (but they should have). And they should have practiced foul shots.

There’s a reason coaches insist that players work on that shot. I record every free throw taken in practice in order to evaluate players. Dean Smith believes that foul shooting is the one true individual stat in practice.

Individual Tigers didn’t work on this skill enough during the year and coach John Calipari erred by not making free throw shooting a point of emphasis until it improved beyond sixty percent. Kansas matched Memphis’ athleticism so the game came down to individual skills. Bill Self told his team that they’ll be reminded of this game for the rest of their lives and Memphis will remember their choices and lack of practice at the line.

The Game

Put in uniform at six or seven, by the time a boy reaches the NHL, he is a veteran of close to 1,000 games-30-minute games, later 32-, then 45, finally 60-minute games, played more than : twice a week, more than seventy times a year between late September and late March. It is more games from a younger age, over a longer season than ever before. But it is less hockey than ever before. For, every time a twelve-year-old boy plays a 30-minute game, sharing the ice with teammates, he plays only about ten minutes. And ten minutes a game, anticipated and prepared for all day, traveled to and from, dressed and undressed for, means ten minutes of hockey a day, more than two days a week, more than seventy days a hockey season. And every day that a twelve-year-old plays only ten minutes, he doesn’t play two hours on a backyard rink, or longer on school or playground rinks during weekends and holidays.

It all has to do with the way we look at free time. Constantly preoccupied with time and keeping ourselves busy (we have come to answer the ritual question “How are you?” with what we apparently equate with good health, “Busy”), we treat non-school, non-sleeping or non-eating time, unbudgeted free time, with suspicion and no little fear. For, while it may offer opportunity to learn and do new things, we worry that the time we once spent reading, kicking a ball, or mindlessly coddling a puck might be used destructively, in front of TV, or “getting into trouble” in endless ways. So we organize free time, scheduling it into lessons - ballet, piano, French - into organizations, teams, and clubs, fragmenting it into impossible-to-be-boring segments, creating in ourselves a mental metabolism geared to moving on, making free time distinctly unfree.

It is in free time that the special player develops, not in the competitive expedience of games, in hour-long practices once a week, in mechanical devotion to packaged, processed, coaching manual, hockey-school skills. For while skills are necessary, setting out as they do the limits of anything, more is needed to transform those skills into something special. Mostly it is time unencumbered, unhurried, time of a different quality, more time, time to find wrong answers to find a few that are right; time to find your own right answers; time for skills to be practiced to set higher limits, to settle and assimilate and become fully and completely yours, to organize and combine with other skills comfortably and easily in some uniquely personal way, then to be set loose, trusted, to find new instinctive directions to take, to create.

But without such time a player is like a student cramming for exams. His skills are like answers memorized by his body, specific, limited to what is expected, random and separate, with no overviews to organize and bring them together. And for those times when more is demanded, when new unexpected circumstances come up, when answers are asked for things you’ve never learned, when you must intuit and piece together what you already know to find new answers, memorizing isn’t enough. It’s the difference between knowledge and understanding, between a super-achiever and a wise old man. And it’s the difference between a modern suburban player and a player like Lafleur.

For a special player has spent time with his game. On backyard rinks, in local arenas, in time alone and with others, time without short-cuts, he has seen many things, he has done many things, he has experienced the game. He understands it. There is scope and culture in his game. He is not a born player. What he has is not a gift, random and otherworldly, and unearned. There is surely something in his genetic make-up that allows him to be great, but just as surely there are others like him who fall short. He is, instead, a natural.

“Muscle memory” is a phrase physiologists sometimes use. It means that for many movements we make, our muscles move with no message from the brain telling them to move, that stored in the muscles is a learned capacity to move a certain way, and, given stimulus from the spinal cord, they move that way. We see a note on a sheet of music, our fingers move; no thought, no direction, and because one step of the transaction is eliminated - the information-message loop through the brain - we move faster as well.

When first learning a game, a player thinks through every step of what he’s doing, needing to direct his body the way he wants it to go. With practice, with repetition, movements get memorized, speeding up, growing surer, gradually becoming part of the muscle’s memory. The great player, having seen and done more things, more different and personal things, has in his muscles the memory of more notes, more combinations and patterns of notes, played in more different ways. Faced with a situation, his body responds. Faced with something more, something new, it finds an answer he didn’t know was there. He invents the game.

- Ken Dryden, The Game

North American athletes play far too often, which is the reason why other countries have closed the gap in international competition, whether on the ice or the hardwood. European basketball clubs practice twice daily, improving individual moves and shooting skills. Hockey clubs emphasize quickness and passing in extensive development programmes. Plus fitness.

United States and Canadian sports organizations devote excessive time to playing and traveling. As Dryden alluded, muscle memory falls by the wayside when seated in a car or on the bench. Why should a high school player go from league game to club tournament - barely playing - when he could practice on his own and receive one-on-one attention? Skilled coaches do their best work in small groups.

La joie de vivre, ou la joie de jouer, est trés importante. Ken Dryden mentioned this in 1980 and it has proven itself to be true repeatedly: in the 1988, 1998, 2004, and 2006 Olympics for starters, as Europeans and South Americans have entered the Association, as skilled post play is replaced by mere size and athleticism.

Fundamentals remain paramount. An athlete cannot succeed without outstanding performance factors and exceptional skills. A student-athlete cannot land a scholarship without grades. A country may have won in the past but they must continually improve the entire sport system to win in the future. After all, John Wooden was correct when he said that “it’s what you learn after you know it all that counts.”

I Wrote this While Watching House on DVD

The Trailer Park Boys Movie featured a major new character: Sonny, owner of the nearby Gentlemen’s Club. The Simpsons Movie introduced Russ Cargill of the Environmental Protection Agency, who appeared far too frequently. These prominent characters could have been replaced easily (Cyrus and Ten-Gallon Hat Man are two possibilities) and should have been excised from the films because they fell flat in their roles (whether furthering the plot or attempting to make a joke.)

When asked to explain his team’s recent success on the road (five points in three games), Alexei Kovalev said that, “On the road, [the Montreal Canadiens] seem to play more relaxed and kind of play the game with nothing to lose. When we come back home, we try to overdue things. We try to do a little bit extra because family is in the building, and friends and all of our fans.”

The Habs return to the Bell Centre on Thursday to play the Lighting, a team they recently defeated 5-2 in Tampa. What can the Canadiens do to ensure a win and avoid disappointment?

Sport is fundamentally simple: the body repeats a number of actions. It becomes more complicated when the mind interferes, building mountains out of molehills. Certainly, we wouldn’t enjoy the game at the highest levels if it was played like a 6:00am house league game but the trick lies in resisting the temptation to harm ourselves; the opponent proves more than eager to complete that task. Whether at Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital or on the ice, one must focus on what one does best.

The Detroit Pistons would be foolish to abandon the Circle Play for the playoffs. Jamario Moon would be equally rash to think that he should match Ray Allen shot for shot. The University of Western Ontario seemed to run only one continuity set (baseline screens, deftly performed) to win Ryerson’s DeArmon Memorial Tournament.

Why do players and team want to make it more difficult for themselves? Everyone has the freedom to choose how they want to perform. It’s up to coaches to motivate players, creating needs and wants, so they perform optimally.

Guy Carbonneau, Montreal’s coach, should put his foot down (and make Kerry Price the number one goalie, Ken Dryden style) and make things simpler for his team, using video, practical examples in practice, or a frank talk. Kovalev’s comments are a cop-out, a mere excuse. If players truly feel that way, the coach isn’t doing his job.

Just Win Baby

Struggling to keep up with all the latest cheating news and unsure about how my coaching philosophy places all of this in context, I used Al Davis’ motto as a title. From Tim Donaghy to HGH to the New England Patriots, I’m not sure whether the rules should be black and white or shades or grey. How does one define bending the rules to gain an advantage and how is this different from outright rule-breaking by a coach or athlete? Is sport more like professional wrestling - where Hulk Hogan must overcome not only the Iron Shiek but his blatant cheating as well - than a true competition?

There has been no shortage of scandals in recent months (dubbed Cheatwave ’07 by ESPN.com). In order of severity:

Tim Donaghy

Obviously, this is the most serious example of cheating. Referees influencing the outcome or nature of games and players betting against their own teams should not be tolerated. Even those who are tempted to bet for their own teams or gamble on other sports because it can give organized crime leverage over a coach, player, or official.

I’m mildly surprised that the basketball officiating scandal had been limited to Tim Donaghy, who was involved with two of the five most badly officiated games that I watched this year, including a game in the Phoenix-San Antonio season that could have determined the championship. It would make a lot of sense for Association referees to become caught up in gambling; weak calls could be blamed on an interest in the game’s outcome instead of lack of ability, poor position, favoritism towards stars, home court advantage, politics, and the innumerable other factors required to create such inconsistency.

Due to the severity of gambling and the consequences, including threats and violence, infractions should be swiftly and strictly punished.

Performance Enhancing Drugs

One on hand, I believe that professional sport is for entertainment only and athletes should be allowed to do whatever they need to put on the best show. On the other hand, I don’t want sport to get to the point where athletes must endanger their health in order to compete. At some levels, I think that society doesn’t care to have pervasive cheating so it’s necessary to define the murky area of performance enhancing supplements, like steroids and H.G.H..

The scale of the B.A.L.C.O. scandal proves that this is no easy task. As science uncovers more ill effects of controlled substances, it seems more obvious that they should be banned, perhaps at the behest of a health committee comprised of athletes and doctors. Any restrictions on substances should also be standard across all sports, not unique to particular sports and countries.

Espionage in F1 Racing

McLaren-Mercedes’ F1 team was fined one hundred million dollars for attempting to photocopy some of Ferrari’s designs. This malicious attempt to cheat was punished harshly, with good reason. It’s known that auto racing teams often tamper with opposing staff members, poaching pit crew members and engineers in order to gain knowledge about their competitors but this is worse because it laws and rules were consciously broken.

Scouting, noting tendencies, and analyzing signals are part of the subterfuge that occurs in all sports. But like attempts to injure a competitor, teams should not be able to actively sabotage each other or tamper with another organizer in a way that unjustly rewards the team with greater resources.

Using Technology to Cheat in the N.F.L.

It’s tremendously difficult to identify everyone who cheats throughout sport and often the exercise involves splitting hairs: is stealing signals in the N.F.L. different from stealing signs in baseball? I think that it becomes different when technology is involved. I don’t think one thing should lead to another so that game preparation becomes more Spy vs. Spy than us vs. them.

Conceivably, a home team with more staff on hand or a large-market team with more money to spend could make use of video technology unavailable to the visiting team. Coaches covering their faces to prevent lip-reading or scouts in the stands with binoculars is a throwback to yesterday; when excessive technology is employed, it changes the nature of the game.

Questions to Ask

How do gamesmanship and sportsmanship co-exist? Some cases of cheating are clearly over the line and should be banned because they comprise the integrity of sport. Other examples are less clear-cut and difficult to define. I’d set the rules based on protecting players’ health and preventing the home team from having an undue advantage but there would be a fair amount of anything goes, so to speak.

Professional sport owns an auspicious history of players and coaches doing whatever it takes to get an edge: altering the field of play to suit the home team (As Buck Showalter said: “One of the best relationships you need to have is with your home groundskeeper. Whether it’s length of grass or the texture of the dirt, there are a lot of things teams try to do to accentuate their strengths and minimize their weaknesses.”), telephoning the visiting players late at night in their hotel room, making the opposing locker rooms tremendously uncomfortable, and more.

Many fans look back on “old-time” cheating with nostalgia. I think there is a place for this, as it rewards those who use their head and think creatively. Accurate knowledge of the rulebook from cover to cover is part of a coach’s responsibilities. Referee interpretations of different cases is part of the rulebook so when a player recognizes when an official isn’t watching their area and understands the freedoms that they have during these times, they are still playing within the rules.

No to gambling, pressuring players to compromise their health, and intending to injure an opponent. Likewise, situations that provide the home team an advantage should be eliminated. But in the other situations, it’s so difficult to nitpick and allow one action while preventing something similar. Rules should be fair and even-handed, not subjective.

Fundamentally, sport is a vehicle for self-actualization. Athletes and coaches play the game in order to make the most of themselves. People must also follow a set of morals that satisfies their own needs, most of all. But if someone is performing and winning by compromising principles like fairness and respect for the opponent, are they truly reaching their potential?

“A gold medal is a wonderful thing. But if you’re not enough without one, you’ll never be enough with one.”
- Irv Blitzer

Game of Shadows

Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams, authors of Game of Shadows, make a compelling case concerning the use of performance enhancing substances in sport. Designer steroids (such as the Clear and the Cream) or Human Growth Hormone have powered numerous athletic achievements, from baseball’s home run chases to the 2000 Olympics. After reading the book, it is difficult to take any sporting record seriously.

Where is the line? Where do vitamins or natural products like flaxseed oil end and controlled substances like steroids or H.G.H. begin? Lance Armstrong’s decision to devote his entire career to train for the Tour de France gives him an advantage over competitors who contest a full cycling season. How is that different from Barry Bonds’ choice to sculpt his body so he can maximize his ability to hit for power?

Sport has been plagued by a lack of consistency and fluctuating standards. According to the authors, Jason Giambi was a B.A.L.C.O. regular yet Bud Selig has announced that he will not be penalized because he admitted his transgressions. Steroids were not banned in baseball before 2003, so what grounds remain to sanction Bonds? Perjury, arrogance, and rudeness?

Ty Cobb, Cap Anson, and numerous friends of former Veterans’ Committee members are enshrined in the Hall of Fame. There is no reason to retroactively place an asterisk besides Bonds’ records (besides, he passed baseball’s drug testing programme and won two M.V.P. Awards in 2003 and 2004).

Drug testing could be an exact science yet some athletes have created the impression that the results are vague and imprecise. Also, uniformity is lacking because of differences across the globe, such as those between W.A.D.A. and the U.S. Track & Field. Sport requires standards: to clearly outline what is permitted and what is not and to enforce the rules.

Professional sport is unwilling to seriously do this. First of all, professional sport is for entertainment only (i.e. N.B.A. officiating). Secondly, early deaths in wrestling have established that although there is a severe cost to anabolic steroid use, athletes are still willing to knowingly cheat in order to chase fleeting fame.

Until the murky situation is clarified - and Game of Shadows suggests that it’s far more pervasive than most people think - it isn’t possible or fair to prosecute athletes for doing things that were previously within the rules. Perhaps fish oil will be banned tomorrow; what a high performance athlete eats is radically different a “lay-person’s diet” that there is hardly any connection.

Where is the line? How do we know what athletic accomplishments are legitimate and which were aided by other substances? Why is pine tar treated differently than H.G.H.? Why can Mark McGwire have an exhibit in Cooperstown while Joe Jackson cannot? I think that sport should reboot all of the rules and proceed under a system where anything goes or ban all cheating.

Identity, Choices, and Perspective

“No man can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which one may be true.”
- Nathaniel Hawthorne

Regrettably, I played on a summer league team that was absolutely blown out in the playoffs; fortunately, I was able to reflect on the outcome and develop some good rules for handling this situation in the future.

Establish and maintain a consistent identity: Once a coaching career is underway, every time one steps on the court they must determine beforehand whether they will play or coach that game. It is not possible to do both well and I don’t think it’s possible to have fun performing poorly, irrespective of the number of middling performances.

Select a role and define goals before beginning. Whether leader or part of the whole, execute responsibilities as best as possible.

Establish whether the team will be comprised of friends or players: It’s fun to run with friends just for laughs but it’s frustrating to play with teammates who hold different motivations. Once again, goals and responsibilities must be clearly defined and team objectives and obligations must be outlined collectively. The pursuit of glory and self-actualization can stress even the best relationships so prevent potential conflicts when choosing team members.

Establish a sense of perspective: Most of time, basketball is merely a game. Wishing for an entire guard rotation taller than 6-2 is vain because whilst that would be a boon when confronted by athletic teams, it’s not happening in a summer league.

It shouldn’t take an Ignmar Bergman film to understand that the hardwood is not paramount and that while the game is seductive, it should never wreak meaningful consequences, whether it is cross words among friends, clichéd aphorisms during the huddle, or stress after the game.

Comedian: “Aren’t there special rules for actors?”
Death: “No, not in this case.”
- The Seventh Seal

Performance under Pressure, Part III

The Association Playoffs have provided a number of interesting moments regarding how decision-making, self-actualization, creativity, and aggressiveness come to the surface on the basketball court and in life.

First of all, ESPN Page 2 is entirely correct to congratulate “the Golden State Warriors for making us watch the N.B.A. again.” The Warriors - led by Baron Davis and playing with a five-second shot clock - provided one of the few surprising moments in an Association that had been mundane and predictable for the past eight or nine years.

As Bill Simmons wrote, at least Golden State took chances. A number of the team’s acquisitions were plagued with injuries or off-court troubles but the players provided excellent skill, speed and athleticism, and experience. Don Nelson’s strategies defied conventional wisdom: the team chose to play with a small line-up at an aggressive tempo and multiple defensive alignments disrupted the opponent’s plans. John Hollinger commented that a key difference between Don Nelson and Sam Mitchell is Nelson’s willingness to trust veteran players and leave stars on the court despite foul trouble if the team needs them.

General Manager Chris Mullin rolled the dice and hit the jackpot with his biggest move: re-hiring Don Nelson. Mullin had assembled a team that could play with energy and tenacity but needed someone to provided that extra bit of aggressiveness and confidence on the court. Despite the proximity to the basketball season, Mullin replaced Coach Mike Montgomery with Don Nelson in late August. Mullin knew it was the right move and felt he had to take initiative, even if the team was disrupted in the short-term.

Gambling is inherently risky -- Golden State could have missed the playoffs, Stephen Jackson could have been incarcerated, Baron Davis could have injured his knee, and Don Nelson could have exploded. But they didn’t. By taking chances, the Warriors took control of their destiny and put the pressure on their opponents.

On the East Coast, the Toronto Raptors illustrated some truths about ball and life. Unlike the Golden State, they did not seize control of their series with New Jersey and there were a number of awful performances under pressure.

I think that the Raptors did not do a good job evaluating and focusing on their strengths. There was an opportunity to attack the Nets inside, with Chris Bosh’s drives from the high-post or the screen and roll game with Bosh and Andrea Bargnani. When Toronto trapped New Jersey’s ballscreens, it pressured the Nets and forced some bad decisions. On the whole, the Raptors made the series too easy for their opponents by not playing with enough aggressiveness and confidence.

This was clearly displayed on Toronto’s last two possessions of the game: a missed fade-away jumpshot and a stolen lob pass. The experienced player will drive to the basket and go to the line in crunch time: this is what Michael Jordan did over six championships and it’s what stars like Steve Nash, Kobe Bryant, and Tim Duncan do today. Chris Bosh’s made a poor decision to shoot a long jumpshot when he could have penetrated into the lane and gone to the line to increase Toronto’s lead.

Chris Bosh possesses a number of very good moves from the high post. His decisions to rely too much on a square-up jumper and the occasional Rocker Step are frustrating to watch because he is choosing to limit his game.

The last possession, which was stolen when Richard Jefferson dropped to collapse on Chris Bosh, was poorly constructed. Apparently, Jose Calderon felt that the pass was “six-inches” short from being successful. Perhaps, but the pass could have also been three or four feet closer to the basket with a different spin.

The play lacked dynamism: from a stationary position it was very difficult for Calderon to complete the lob pass to Bosh. Due to the pressure of the moment, most of the Toronto team was very static, as was customary during tense offensive possessions throughout the series. More dribble penetration and weak-side action would have provided addition distractions for New Jersey’s defence and given Calderon greater options as time wound down.

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.

Performance under Pressure, Part I

During Superbowl XLI, Rex Grossman performed poorly, throwing two interceptions and barely moving Chicago's offence. According to the media, Grossman was one of the worst Superbowl quarterbacks ever - and possibly one of the worst to play that position in the history of the league.

How bad was he?

Breaking down the reasons for Grossman's inauspicious performance generates a generic list: physical skill, knowledge of the game, composure under pressure, etc.. Like other major sporting events, performance under pressure on demand trumps all. During his career at Florida, Grossman demonstrated excellent physical tools at an elite collegiate program. He must still possess those qualities; otherwise Brian Griese would have been taking snaps for the Bears.

Early in the regular season, Grossman's agent attests to his tremendous confidence. Watching his body language in the Superbowl, it was obvious something had changed. Grossman had a QB Rating over 100 in September but only 73.2 in the postseason. Throughout the game, he made a number of decisions that were less than astute.

Why?

Ultimately, Rex Grossman is responsible for his performance. Obviously, he was an average or below average quarterback who strung together a series of poor games at the end of the season.

What can coaches do to prevent players from breaking down?

The media is so pervasive at the professional level it is uncertain whether any efforts could have constructed a positive environment for Rex Grossman but this is step one.

My friend Sherwyn Benn remarked that the strength of Carleton's four consecutive National Championships is that the teams play the same at the beginning of the game as they do in the conclusion. Experience in close games is critical because it enables players to realize that it is only sport and the worst case scenario is never that bad. Decisions and actions become habits and routines.

Use accurate measures of evaluations. Eventually, Grossman matched the public perception of his abilities. Statistics such as win-shares, value over replacement, and other numbers give players an accurate picture of their skills that they can live up to on the playing field.

Right is its own defence? Right…

At some point, athletes and teams need to make a stand. What represents all of the sacrifice and toil that got you to this point? Whatever it is, that is what you must work the hardest to defend. Is it the off-season where you will take your skill set to the next level and really hit the weight room hard that represents your desire to win? Is it the goal-line stand that represents all the parties that you skipped during the season because you had practice scheduled the next morning? Is it Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals that represents every time you played hockey since you were six years old?

For the Dallas Mavericks, that time is now. For the Miami Heat, it was Game 3. For the Carolina Hurricanes, it was last night’s game. Unfortunately, the Edmonton Oilers waited until the third period to step up and play for all that they had invested over the years.

Miami’s certainly slowed the game down. The Heat offence is still stagnant. Dwyane Wade is excellent but nobody else is moving without the ball (like a run I saw last night, except none of the players were Dywane Wade so it took thirty three minutes to play a game to eleven). PHX, San Antonio, Dallas, and the Los Angeles Clippers were much more exciting to watch. Game 5 was still tense, but the interest is gone and there wasn’t much that could be learned from it. The Mavericks still run some neat set pieces, due to the creativity of Del Harris and the recent improvement of Dirk Nowitzki.

Little Things, Part I

Gatorade produced a very nifty commercial highlighting the importance of executing the little things in key moments. Michael Jordan misses the jumpshot over Craig Ehlo, Derek Jeter doesn’t throw Jason Giambi out at home, and Joe Montana throws a pass off Dwight Clark’s fingers. The moral of the story: it’s the details that count; I agree entirely. Bret Hart is the best there was, the best there is, and the best there ever will be because he is the excellence of execution. Coaches should improve student-athletes by developing fundamental skills and teaching players how to work together on the court.

Furthermore, the altered videos were really cool. What if? But if things were different, they wouldn’t be the same.

Track and Field and the Bar

Congratulations to Tyler Christopher, who won bronze in the Men’s 400m, Canada’s only medalist at the World Championships. Mark Boswell offered an interesting quote regarding his narrow miss of the bronze medal in the men’s high jump, “The bar can take you out as easily as it can put you in.” Unfortunately, it seems that many other promising Canadian competitors must go back to the mental training drawing board.