20 Second Timeout

Part II of an Interview with Dr. Charles "Chic" Hess, Author of "Prof Blood and the Wonder Teams"

"Life comes to you in a moment...each moment of your life can be perceived by you only if you are equipped imaginatively, equipped to dramatize your own role in it--to see yourself as a protagonist confronted by adversary circumstances"--Jerzy Kosinski

The greatest basketball coach you've never heard of led Passaic (New Jersey) High School to 159 straight victories from 1919-1925. Ernest Blood--better known as Professor Blood or simply Prof--was an innovator who valued the pass over the dribble and who developed a feeder system in the lower grade levels so that his high school squad had a steady supply of enthusiastic, top level talent. Blood won seven state championships at Passaic from 1915-1925 and he could have enjoyed a much longer run of success there but he ran afoul of shortsighted school administrators who were apparently jealous of his popularity. Blood resigned his post at Passaic and then coached at St. Benedict's Preparatory School (in Newark, New Jersey) for 23 seasons, leading them to five prep school state titles. Blood also coached at Clarkson University and the U.S. Military Academy.

Blood was inducted in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1960 but his life story and accomplishments are not widely known. Enter Philadelphia native Dr. Charles "Chic" Hess, a veteran high school and junior college coach who first learned about Blood by reading about the 159 game winning streak in little filler blurbs in the local newspapers. Hess had always wanted to know more about the fantastically successful coach with the eye-catching name, so when he began working on his doctorate in his forties he also started assembling information about Blood's life and times. This turned into a 16 year project that culminated with Hess writing a 455 page book titled "Prof Blood and the Wonder Teams: The True Story of Basketball's First Great Coach." Published in 2003 and currently available for $29.95 plus $5 shipping and handling, Hess' biography of Blood is truly a labor of love, a thoroughly detailed account of Passaic's epic winning streak and the behind the scenes school politics that ultimately ended Blood's time at the school.

Dr. Hess is a very successful coach in his own right. His 1978 Lebanon (Pennsylvania) high school squad, anchored by future NBA first round draft pick Sam Bowie, made it to the 1978 Class AAA State Finals. Hess won three coach of the year awards in Pennsylvania, captured two NAIA District 29 Coach of the Year awards for his work at Brigham Young University-Hawaii and then earned the 1991 NABC Coach of the Year Award at Arizona Western College (NJCAA).

You can read Part I of my interview with Dr. Hess here.

Friedman: "In the book, you point out that Prof Blood very much emphasized the importance of passing and that he discouraged excessive dribbling. I have a big interest in the NBA, so I am curious to hear you compare Prof Blood’s philosophy to the philosophies of two coaches in particular: Paul Westhead, the ‘guru of go’ who coached in college and the NBA, and then also Mike D’Antoni, who has employed the ‘seven seconds or less’ philosophy in Phoenix and now with the Knicks. How would you compare Prof Blood’s ideas about passing and not dribbling too much with what you know about the philosophies of those two coaches?"

Hess: "I’m much more familiar with Paul Westhead, because he’s from Philadelphia too. It comes down to talent. You want to play a style of play (that fits your talent), whether you’re totally in the entertainment business or you’re really just teaching kids. Paul got to be in the entertainment business and the NBA is the entertainment business—people come to the games to be entertained. If you have the right talent, there is nothing wrong with doing that. It’s fun. Is it Grinnell College in Iowa that scores 100+ points per game almost every year? They just put it up, put it up, put it up. It’s amazing to watch them play and it’s fun and entertaining. He recruits kids for that system.

There was a time in basketball that was called the ‘dribble game.’ Before the development of helping defense, a good dribbler could beat his defender and get all the way to the basket. Then, when helping defense developed it was pretty hard for a dribbler to get all the way to the basket. Now, they reward the three point shot. What’s it called? Dribble-drive motion offense."

Friedman: "Right, in Memphis with John Calipari."

Hess: "Yeah. You dribble in, you penetrate and if the defense helps out then you kick the ball out to a three point shooter. The game has evolved. But, back then, Prof Blood said that the ball would move quicker than the defensive players could move and if you move that ball quickly enough then you are going to get very good shots. It’s a team game, everyone is going to be touching the ball and everyone has to be able to handle the ball; you can’t hide a player. They’re all involved. I just like that better. Hey, I’ve been in the game long enough—if I had the players would I ever think of doing what Paul Westhead did? Yeah, what the hell, it would be fun. Give it a try. There is more than one way to skin a cat but you have to look at how much talent you have available. How many players do you have? You may look at your bench and not have one kid who can play; all your good players may be on the court. So, then you can’t substitute a lot.

I believe in the pass—pass the ball, move the ball, hit the high post, kick it outside. The ball is being moved all around. People aren’t catching the ball and dribbling and catching and dribbling—move the ball, move the ball. I believed in that before I read about Prof and then reading about him just made me more set in my ways. I’d rather have a kid save his dribble and catch and pass the ball right away then do anything else but then whoever is open, take the shot. That is why we are passing the ball: to get someone an open shot. That is why we work all year round on shooting the ball, so that when you get an open shot you will hit it. As Hubie Brown says, shooting covers up a multitude of sins."

Friedman: "You seem to be making a distinction between Prof Blood’s philosophy and Paul Westhead’s philosophy but I’m not sure that I understand the distinction that you are making. You seem to be saying that there was some kind of difference between what Prof Blood was doing and what Coach Westhead was doing but from my perspective—and maybe I’m wrong or maybe I’m not understanding something—it seems like what they advocated is similar. The main difference that I see is that in Prof Blood’s era there was a jump ball after each made basket, so there was not the same kind of non-stop fast break that Westhead uses. That has more to do with a rules difference than with a difference in philosophy, because Westhead’s philosophy is to advance the ball up the court as quickly as possible and the first guy who is open should shoot. He is not going to tell anybody not to shoot; I interviewed him a while ago and he told me that he would never discourage a player from shooting because he did not want to mess with his confidence. He would always encourage players to advance the ball up the court and then shoot the first open shot. To me, it seems like there is a certain parallel between that idea and my understanding of your explanation of what Prof Blood’s teams were doing: pass the ball, pass the ball, pass the ball and when you have an open shot then shoot it with confidence. Maybe I’m misunderstanding your answer but your answer seemed to be that if you have the personnel then you can use Westhead’s system, so if there is a distinction in your mind between what Coach Westhead did and what Prof Blood did then please explain it to me so that I can understand it better."

Hess: "Let me try. Paul got fired at La Salle right before he moved out west. At La Salle, he used to have one guy cherry picking underneath the basket while the other four guys played defense. He was an innovator. He tried different things. He was entertaining and it was fun to watch. He got a couple good Philadelphia players (to go to Loyola Marymount), Hank Gathers from Dobbins (high school in Philadelphia) and who was the other player?"

Friedman: "Bo Kimble. Hank Gathers and Bo Kimble were his two key players at Loyola Marymount."

Hess: "I think that they were both from Philadelphia, public school kids there."

Friedman: "Yes."

Hess: "He turned it into a sideshow. I studied his fast break and I even still have all his notes about how he ran it numbers-wise, who was in what position and what they did, that ball got down the court and the kid on the wing or slightly in the corner shot the ball right away with other people crashing the boards. If he couldn’t shoot it right away then the ball went somewhere else and he shot it if he could. He wanted a shot in seven seconds."

Friedman: "Similar to D’Antoni."

Hess: "Yeah. He wanted the shot taken right away. Prof Blood wanted to get twice as many shots up as the other team. He worked on shooting and he figured that his team would shoot better than the opposing teams but he knew that the quality of the shot was dependent on the quality of the passes. Instead of dribbling the ball, he believed in passing the ball rapidly, no matter how many passes it would take—three, four, five quick passes, six, seven or eight if you had to, but if it is done quickly you are going to get a shot. Of course, obviously then you have to crash the boards and get second shots but those kids were firing away at the basket. The number of shots that they took in some games, I wondered how did they take 75 shots in a high school game? But they did it and it was a sight to be seen. I talked to old people and they used to say that when they watched this they knew that they were seeing the future of basketball. There are obviously some similarities (between Blood and Westhead) but because of the differences in era and the way that the game was evolving and the courts that they used—hey, Paul Westhead’s basketball did not catch on, everyone is not doing it, although the (shot) clock has almost forced it. He (Westhead) was adapting a good method (to take advantage of the shot clock and the three point shot) and he had the players to do it. Look what he pulled off and if they were on TV people tuned in to watch because they were extremely entertaining. They filled up that gym there in L.A. and there hasn’t been anything like that there since then.”

Friedman: "Yes and he did the same kind of thing with the Nuggets, obviously with much less success—but, as he said to me, he didn’t have the players. He won a WNBA championship in Phoenix with basically the same approach. He’s called the 'guru of go.' When I read your book about Prof Blood, it seemed to me that if Prof Blood were alive today then he would be doing something like what D’Antoni is doing or what Westhead did. There might be some fine points that would be changed—you seem to be decrying what you consider to be a sideshow aspect of what Westhead did, that maybe he took things to far or that his approach was maybe a little bit too extreme."

Hess: "The reason that I say 'sideshow' is that I know what he did at La Salle. How many coaches would ever have one guy stand underneath the basket at the offensive end and never leave to keep the other team off balance while they’re on offense, because if they miss then they have to hurry to get someone back on defense? He used to do things to disrupt other teams. He wasn’t as successful and I don’t know all the politics behind it, but he eventually got fired (at La Salle); that’s no slight and I don’t mean it as such, because what coach in the business hasn’t been fired? It’s part of the business. He is entertaining and there are obviously some similarities and you are probably right, if Prof Blood were coaching today he probably would be doing something to stay ahead of the curve of what is going on."

Friedman: "When I was reading your book—and when anyone reads a book or goes through any life experience, you relate it to your own life experience and your own knowledge—I made analogies to my experiences and what I’ve seen and I thought that Prof Blood seems like Coach D’Antoni and Coach Westhead. All of the things that you wrote about Prof Blood’s emphasis on passing the ball and getting shots up sound just like the way that D’Antoni and Westhead coach. I’ve interviewed both of those coaches. Also, you mentioned in the book how much Prof Blood instilled confidence in his players and that is very much a D’Antoni approach or a Westhead approach. As you know, there are some coaches who are critical—obviously, that is an important aspect of coaching and every coach has to be critical at some point if the players mess up--but there are certain coaches who are constantly involved in building up their players’ confidence. Westhead and D’Antoni definitely fall more on that side of the spectrum than, say, Bobby Knight. You can be a great coach the other way but there are a couple different approaches you can take and you don’t often see Westhead or D’Antoni screaming at their players or berating them. They are always telling their players, ‘Keep shooting. I want you to shoot the ball’ and that sort of thing.

Denver Coach George Karl has this phrase that he uses—and I’ve heard other coaches use it, too: ball stopper. He does not want his players to be ball stoppers. He constantly says to his players that he wants them to shoot, pass or drive as soon as they catch the ball. Do not stop the ball. He does not want them to stop the ball. He almost literally would rather that they take a bad shot than hold the ball—he doesn’t want them to take a bad shot, but, given a choice, he’d prefer that they take a bad shot right after they catch the ball as opposed to holding the ball. Do you see some similarity between that mentality and Prof Blood’s emphasis on the pass and on quick hitting action?"

Hess: "I think you’re hitting the nail right on the head. Yes. Prof had different jargon—his press was called 'offensive defense.'"

Friedman: "That was going to be my next question."

Hess: "I think that was exactly what they did—pass, pass, pass, pass and as soon as the first guy was open he either shot it or took it to the basket. Shots were going up and it was quick, quick, quick. As John Wooden said, 'Be quick but don’t hurry.' The ball would be moving quickly. I wasn’t familiar with that term—'ball stopper'--but I’ve had great respect for Coach Karl throughout his career. That makes an awful lot of sense and that is what Prof’s team was doing."

Friedman: "I’ve heard other coaches use that phrase since I heard Coach Karl use it, so I’m not sure where it originates. I don’t know if he created it; for all I know, maybe he learned it from Dean Smith somewhere along the line with that North Carolina coaching tree. The first time I heard him say it, they had this show—I think that it was on NBA TV—during which they miked up Denver’s practice. One of the players caught the ball, held it, dribbled and was not really doing anything and Coach Karl blew his whistle, stopped the practice and he said, ‘Don’t be a ball stopper. When you catch the ball, shoot it, pass it, drive it.’

You and I talked a little bit about Iverson and this also relates to Carmelo Anthony, who is guilty of this. At one point in time, Coach Karl was coaching two players who are very talented but who are both ball stoppers. They both are guys who get the ball, they massage it, they are looking around—because they are one on one players. They are very good one on one players but Coach Karl was pulling out what little hair he has left when those guys did that because that does not fit in with his approach."

Hess: "I understand completely what you are saying and as a coach that would drive me nuts. It really would. I’ve had some outstanding players, some who I was able to get through to and some who I just could not run an offense with them; they’d get the ball and then it’s their time and the offense goes to heck because, as you said, they start massaging the ball and they think about doing their thing and our thing has just gone out the window."

Friedman: "The thing that is interesting to me in terms of watching different coaches and their philosophies is that what Phil Jackson has been able to do very successfully with the Bulls and the Lakers is that he had Jordan and now he has Kobe, fantastic players who do things that could be considered 'ball stopping' at some points. He puts in the Triangle and somehow he finds a happy medium between running the Triangle to get everyone involved while also having a certain degree of toleration, understanding the necessity that in certain situations those guys will isolate and go one on one and do some of that. Jackson found some kind of compromise position. A cynic could say that it is easy to find a compromise position when you have arguably the best player in the game in either of those eras but not every coach would be able to adjust to that and find some happy medium there.

You mentioned 'offensive defense.' That is an interesting phrase in your book and I would like for you to expound on that and explain how it relates to the modern game. What does that approach mean and how could it be used under today’s rules?"

Hess: "As the game has evolved, Prof was not known for his defense. He was known for his offense. His teams were going to shoot the ball well and they were going to shoot it frequently. That’s a given. After pass-pass-pass the shot was going to go up and everything was going to be done quickly. Well, to get more shots, as soon as they lost possession of the ball they would start playing defense right away. They would be on them full court. In 1936, the rules changed and they started taking the ball out of bounds after a made free throw, which eventually led to taking the ball out of bounds after every made shot, eliminating the center jump (which used to be held after each made field goal). Of course, there were a lot of people who argued that the human body was not capable of running non-stop that way; that is what the medical profession and even the coaches thought, until they tried it and they found out that the human body was much more capable than they thought.

I mentioned in the book that Frank Keaney of the University of Rhode Island—or Rhode Island State College as it was called at the time—had a former Passaic student—Bill Mokray—as the manager of the team. Sure enough, Frank Keaney started doing a lot of the things that Prof was doing: pressing full court and putting the ball up rapidly. They were famous for the two points a minute teams that scored more points than any team in the country because they were shooting so much. I thought that it was a real coincidence that they were doing this and they had a former Passaic High School student who had seen all of Prof’s games and who I think probably influenced Keaney to do that full court style of basketball where more points are being scored, that wide open style; that was uncharacteristic of East Coast basketball, especially the St. John’s Wonder Five that they had in the early 1930s. Prof Blood’s idea was passing the ball quickly until you got an open shot and then pressing on defense."

Friedman: "So the idea is that you put a lot of pressure on the opposing team by how quickly you are shooting and how many shots you get up and then when you don’t have the ball you are primarily trapping and being aggressive and trying to get the ball back to put up more shots."

Hess: "You are making conditioning an aspect of the game. If you are in better condition than your opponent, take advantage of it. Make them build up an oxygen debt. Make them hurry. If they have to hurry, they won’t be as efficient; if they’re tired, they won’t be as efficient. So, get them playing at a different pace than they’re used to. Coaches do this today but of course many of the teams are in superior condition—except for the high schools. I’m seeing some of the high schools out here—Hawaii is not known for basketball. I’m reading in the paper right now that coaches are talking about how the football players are coming out for basketball and they’re not in shape yet. At St. Anthony’s, where Bobby Hurley is coaching, the kids are in shape in October. They’re always in shape and they’re always ready to play. Here it’s a little different and conditioning can be a factor in winning games."

Friedman: "If you have that approach, then you are going to make sure that your players are conditioned to do it and, like you said, if the other teams are not training that way then your conditioning becomes an advantage and the other team will not only be physically fatigued but they will also become mentally fatigued and make mistakes. That is where, in the totality, I see a comparison between Prof Blood and Westhead and D’Antoni and Karl—all three of those guys are known for coaching teams that play at a fast tempo. They are not necessarily known for having teams that play great defense, although Karl had a good defensive team in Seattle but in Denver that is something that has been questioned a little bit. All three of them are known for coaching teams that get up a lot of shots, are well conditioned, try to outrun opposing teams and, as you said, make conditioning a real advantage for their teams and a disadvantage for opposing teams."

Hess: "I think that what you are seeing and what you are saying is that the game has evolved and you mentioned some of the great coaches that we have today and what they do. There is a similarity to what Prof Blood was doing 70, 80 years ago. This is a fact. Before those coaches came along, there were other coaches—like Clair Bee and Nat Holman: those guys were the pioneers and that’s what Prof Blood was. He was a pioneer who started doing different things that caught on. Clair Bee and others came to watch his (Prof Blood’s) teams play—college coaches came around to see his teams play. During an after banquet speech, Clair Bee mentioned Prof Blood. The same thing with Nat Holman, who referred to Prof Blood being the best coach of his era, for sure. They learned from him and then it branches out. We all have our mentors. Naismith wasn’t a basketball guy. He only played the game twice. He invented the game, but basically that was it. Other people took it and refined it. It’s almost like there’s nothing new. This dribble-drive motion offense is really nothing new. Other people have become famous because of the stage that they were on but they learned what they did from someone else."

Friedman: "Coach Westhead told me that he did not invent a lot of the principles that he used in his offense. He borrowed a lot of things from Sonny Allen, who coached at Old Dominion. Like you said, there is a whole tradition or legacy that gets passed on from one generation to the next. Calipari borrowed the dribble-drive motion offense from some other coach (Vance Walberg, a high school and community college coach in California) and I’m sure that coach got it from somewhere else and so on down the line.

You’ve addressed this a little bit in terms of talking about the feeder system but I noticed that Prof Blood’s teams won a lot of blowouts. How much of the dominance of those teams—not just how many games in a row that they won but the large victory margins—was a result of his coaching strategies and techniques and how much simply had to do his teams having more talent than the opposing teams did? How would you assess that?"

Hess: "There is no doubt that he had more talent than most of the teams that he played against but Prof understood what it took to win games. He would shake the bushes, look through the school and get the kids with athletic ability to come out for the team. I remember that when I was in college, one professor said to me, 'If you want to be a winner as a coach, find the natural athletes.' I remember feeling a little indignant about that, because I am only an average athlete and I know that I was probably an overachiever (as a player) with the ability that I was given. I was thinking that I would work with kids like myself and teach them how to play—instill a love of the game so they can play and get better, become good shooters and know how to score. Prof understood this and he would look for kids who had athletic ability. Of course, he motivated them and they played. Not only that, he knew that you needed to control the center tap (because at that time there was a jump ball after every made basket), so he always looked for tall kids. He would go into the elementary schools and start identifying who the tall kids were and making sure that he exposed them to the game so that they would become smitten with the love of the game and want to play. He was very successful in doing that and always having some big kids and that was a decided advantage, getting the center tap.

As you know, by the rules at that time he could not coach the kids from the bench during the game; you had to wait until timeouts and halftime to talk to them. From everything I’ve researched, I visualize him as a complete package. He understood the psychology of the game and how athletes think. He understood the game of basketball and he could see things that were going on out on the court and make adjustments; during more than a handful of games during the streak, he had to do that. As you know, he often put his second and third teams in and they were also coached to be able to do different things. Obviously, if you are in a lot of close games then you will lose some of them. The ball will not bounce your way every time and you will inevitably lose a game. People are going to catch up to you. I tried to theorize what would have happened if he had stayed there. Well, eventually he would have lost and losses would have come more often but he had something going on there that I think that he could have won 99% of the next 150 games if he had been able to be there that much longer. He would have continued to win with maybe an occasional loss and it would have taken another 10-15 years for the rest of the world to start to catch up with him if someone cared to try to build a (comparable) program somewhere else. I thought that he was a complete package."

Part III of my interview with Dr. Hess will look more closely at his coaching career, including the time that he spent mentoring future first round draft pick Sam Bowie.

Labels: Dr. Charles "Chic" Hess, George Karl, Mike D'Antoni, Passaic High School, Paul Westhead, Prof Blood

posted by David Friedman @ 2:56 AM

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Paul Westhead: Never Slowing Down

Paul Westhead, sometimes called the "guru of go" because of his love for fast break basketball, is the only person who has coached a championship team in the NBA (1980 Lakers) and the WNBA (2007 Mercury). I spoke with Westhead, who is currently an assistant coach with the Seattle SuperSonics, prior to Seattle's 95-79 loss at Cleveland, after which I posted some of his thoughts about the WNBA and the development of Seattle rookie Kevin Durant.

Westhead coached for nine years at LaSalle before becoming an assistant coach with the L.A. Lakers. After Coach Jack McKinney suffered a serious head injury, Westhead took over and guided the team to the 1980 title. Later, Westhead turned Loyola Marymount into a national power and made a brief return to the NBA in Denver before turning his fast break attack loose in the WNBA as his Phoenix Mercury set scoring records and won the 2007 championship. You can read all about Coach Westhead's career in my HoopsHype.com article about him (10/12/15 edit: the link to HoopsHype.com no longer works, so I have posted the original article below):

No professional basketball coach is a bigger believer in fast break basketball than Paul Westhead. "I know what all the pundits say: everyone says that you can run for a while but when you get to the playoffs that you have to slow down and that strong, beat 'em up defensive teams always win," Westhead says. "I never believed that and I still don't. My only advice is if you are a speed team that gets into the playoffs, play faster--that's what you do, so crank it up another notch, rather than leveling it off and playing the way that everyone else thinks that you are supposed to play."

Westhead is known for his out of the box thinking but that was not his mindset at the start of his coaching career. "I came in as a 30 year old Division I head coach at LaSalle. I played for Jack Ramsay at St. Joe's," Westhead recalls. "We were all taught to be fundamentally sound and I probably was more of a defensive minded guy than an offensive minded one. In the early 1970s, two things happened. One, I went to Puerto Rico and coached. I would pick up a team and I observed that they were going up and down the court and making on the fly 22 foot jump shots. I said to myself that it takes my guys six passes and five good screens to shoot that open 22 foot shot--and then my guys miss! These guys are running down the court, catching the ball and shooting an open 22 foot shot without any problem."

Westhead adds, "That said to me that if they can play fast and score, why do we have to do all this hard work on offensive schemes? Within a year, I met up with Sonny Allen, who had won a Division II championship at Old Dominion University, and he showed me his fast break system. I put that together with what I had seen in Puerto Rico. When I was leaving, he said, 'Coach, you have to be a little bit crazy to do this' and I said, 'I don't have any problem with that.'"

Westhead led the LaSalle Explorers to a 142-105 record in nine seasons, including two trips to the NCAA tournament and one NIT berth. He became an assistant to LA Lakers Coach Jack McKinney in 1979 but was named the head coach just 14 games into the 1979-80 season after McKinney suffered a serious head injury as a result of a bicycle accident.

The Lakers went 60-22--including 50-18 with Westhead at the helm--and then they won the 1980 NBA Finals four games to two over Julius Erving's Philadelphia 76ers. Game six of that series will always be remembered for the heroics of Magic Johnson, who jumped center for the injured Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, played guard, forward and center and had 42 points, 15 rebounds and seven assists in a 123-107 victory.

Johnson suffered a knee injury that caused him to miss 45 games in the 1980-81 season. The Lakers still finished second in the Pacific Division but they lost two games to one to Houston in a first round mini-series, suffering both defeats at home. The Lakers started out 7-4 in 1981-82 but owner Jerry Buss fired Westhead and replaced him with assistant coach Pat Riley, who guided the team to a championship that season and three more titles over the next six years.

"Yeah, that was difficult," Westhead says of his sudden dismissal. "I don't think that was so much about pace or style of play. Even though I was an experienced basketball coach--I had been in college for a dozen years, nine as a head coach--and I knew the game, I knew how to coach basketball, I didn't understand the professional game. I didn't understand the intricacies of not just how professional athletes like to be treated but how you have to project to them and the only way that you find that out is by experience."

"I don't think it was necessarily my fault or their fault but that I just didn't understand it that well. It involved players being paid, players and their agents, owners and general managers and how they want to deal with players because of trade possibilities--that is a whole new world to a college coach who recruits and brings in new players and then the others graduate. I learned a lot from looking back at that experience so that when I went back into the NBA I was more prepared to deal with those issues."

Johnson publicly expressed displeasure with the team and had asked to be traded just prior to Westhead's firing, so it is commonly assumed that Johnson orchestrated Westhead's ouster. "I think that was an easy one for one (connection to make) when that happened," Westhead says. "I don't think that Magic was responsible for that. I think that there were a bunch of other things that were spinning around." Westhead speaks without rancor about his brief time as Lakers coach: "I will say about my Lakers experience that up until a few months ago it was my one and only championship, so I am happy for the Lakers experience."

Westhead's next stint as a NBA coach was even briefer, as he guided the Chicago Bulls to a 28-54 record in 1982-83. After that, he returned to the college game, coaching at Loyola-Marymount from 1985-90. He quickly turned the team into a powerhouse by employing a non-stop fast break offense combined with a relentless full court pressing defense. From 1988-1990, Westhead's LMU teams went 27-3, 20-10 and 23-5 respectively, earning NCAA tournament berths each year.

LMU's Hank Gathers led the NCAA in scoring and rebounding (32.7 ppg, 13.7 rpg) in 1989 and Bo Kimble led the NCAA in scoring in 1990 (35.3 ppg). Tragically, Gathers collapsed and died during a game near the end of the 1990 season. LMU dedicated the rest of that season to his memory, and Kimble shot the first free throw of each NCAA tournament game left handed to honor Gathers. LMU defeated defending champion Michigan and made it to the Elite Eight before falling to UNLV, who went on to win the 1990 national title.

The LMU years provided some of Westhead's fondest basketball memories, foremost among them being what he calls "the overall thrill of watching a team that knew that they could play as fast as the wind and defend full court for 40-plus minutes--they would show up in the toughest situations and have smiles on their faces because they could look at the other team and say, 'I don't know if we're going to win tonight, but you're going to be tired.' They knew that the pace was dictated by them--by our team. Any time that you can coach a team that you know--not that you're hoping but you know--that the game is going to be played your way, win or lose, that is fun."

Westhead says that those LMU teams completely bought into his system more than any other team he has ever coached: "No question. They bought in and then what happens once you get it is the next season with the new players that you bring in is that they buy in or they're pushed aside: 'This is the way we play. When you come here, you play this way.' I never had to say a word. You need players to buy in, whether you are talking about guards, forwards or centers. For me, I need midrange players who can run and who can shoot--a player who can play the forward position, who can play inside or outside. You need players who are committed to run. I have always had players--when I have had good fast break teams--who on other teams would be outside perimeter players but when playing for me they thrived going inside. Because of the speed of the game, they can get inside before defenses lock down. If you go slowly then you need a terrific 6-10 post player because he is going to be double teamed and triple teamed. If you go fast, you can have a 6-3 player playing inside because he will beat the thrust of the defense."

Speaking of defense, critics snipe that Westhead's system ignores that part of the game, citing what happened after Westhead's success at LMU paved the way for him to return to the NBA as a head coach, this time in Denver. His 1990-91 Nuggets averaged 119.9 ppg, the most points an NBA team scored since Doug Moe's run and gun 1984-85 Denver team put up 120.0 ppg--but while Moe's Nuggets gave up 117.6 ppg, Westhead's squad surrendered 130.8 ppg, shattering the all-time record, and they won just 20 games.

"The team that I had, the guys played about as hard and well as they could," Westhead says. "It was one of those transition teams where all of the established great players had just left or retired--Alex English, Fat Lever, they all left prior to my arrival. We had a young nucleus on the team that really probably wasn't experienced enough to win at any pace. If we would have played at a slow pace, the differential probably would have been that we scored 70 and gave up 80."

The results of Westhead's second season in Denver support that analysis. The Nuggets drafted defensive stopper Dikembe Mutombo, who made the All-Star team and finished fifth in the league in blocked shots. Westhead pulled back the reins and Denver scored just 99.7 ppg but the Nuggets only improved to 24 wins and Westhead was fired. "Ultimately, to win--fast or slow--you need to have a talent level on your roster that is a cut above at least half of the teams," Westhead concludes. "You have to give yourself a chance. Ultimately, there is no disputing talent."

In the past decade and a half, Westhead has literally traveled around the coaching world, working as a head coach in Japan, in the new ABA and also for four years at George Mason University. He also was an assistant coach for Golden State and Orlando. Westhead took his fast break style to the WNBA in 2006 when the Phoenix Mercury hired him. Perhaps for the first time since his LMU days, Westhead had a team that really bought in to what he was teaching. The 2006 Mercury smashed the WNBA single-season scoring record by averaging 87.1 ppg. In 2007, they broke the record again by scoring 89.0 ppg. True to his philosophy, rather than slowing the game down in the postseason the Mercury sped things up, scoring 95.8 ppg in the playoffs en route to the franchise's first championship.

Westhead very much enjoyed coaching in the WNBA and would have continued doing it if not for the fact that his friend P.J. Carlesimo became Seattle's head coach and offered him a job as an assistant coach, which Westhead accepted. Carlesimo has called Westhead the best assistant coach in the NBA and he believes that Westhead deserves another shot at being an NBA head coach.

*****************************************************************************

Here are some "DVD Extras" from Coach Westhead that do not appear in either the earlier post or the HoopsHype.com article:

Who better to ask about Golden State's upset victory over Dallas in last year's playoffs than a staunch believer that a fast breaking team can win an NBA title? I posed this question to Coach Westhead: "When I watched the Dallas-Golden State series, I felt that Dallas made a mistake by initially changing their starting lineup and trying to prove that they could win a slow down game. I thought that it backfired. The two games that they won, if you look at the scores, they won the faster paced games and Golden State actually won the games when Dallas tried to slow it down. Golden State was playing close to the way that you talk about, trying to run all the time. Dallas, I thought, had a lot of grind it out, 23.5 second possessions in which they didn't accomplish anything--they'd miss a shot or turn it over--and then Golden State would get the rebound, push it up the floor and Baron Davis or Stephen Jackson could get in the paint and score before the defense set up. Did you pay attention to that series and do you agree with what I am saying?"

Coach Westhead sidestepped the issue of whether Dallas made strategic errors but offered this reply: "I saw that series more as a fan. I say 'fan' because I enjoyed watching that series. I thought that it was good for basketball. I didn't really sit down and evaluate the chess game in terms of who outwitted whom or who outplayed whom. I just thought that it was a great series for the game of basketball because I like that kind of pace. Other than that, I would compliment both teams. I thought that they played a great series."


In almost any form of endeavor--from sports to business to war--it is a big advantage to dictate to one's opponent the way that a battle will be fought: in boxing, it is said that "styles make fights," meaning that when two fighters have contrasting styles it is interesting--and decisive to the outcome--to see which fighter imposes his style on the match; a similar confrontation happens in chess when an attacking, middlegame virtuoso faces a player who prefers to trade pieces and steer toward an endgame struggle. Controlling the pace of the game is a very important tool in basketball, as Coach Westhead explains:

Labels: Kevin Durant, L.A. Lakers, Loyola Marymount, Paul Westhead, Seattle Supersonics

posted by David Friedman @ 3:48 AM

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Cleveland Romps: Cavs Smash Sonics, 95-79

LeBron James had 24 points, eight rebounds, three assists and two steals as Cleveland cruised to a 95-79 home victory versus Seattle. The Cavaliers have a season-high tying four game winning streak, have won six out of seven games for the first time this season and improved to 4-0 in 2008. The Cavaliers maintained control throughout most of the game and Cleveland led 81-62 by the 8:36 mark of the fourth quarter, enabling James to sit out the remainder of the game so that he will be well rested for the second half of the back to back, which takes place in Atlanta. James received strong support from Daniel Gibson (17 points, 5-8 three point shooting) and Anderson Varejao (14 points, nine rebounds, a game-high plus/minus rating of +16). Zydrunas Ilgauskas and Drew Gooden struggled offensively--each shot 1-6 from the field--but gathered nine and six rebounds respectively. Larry Hughes had nine points, four rebounds, two assists, three steals and the same plus/minus rating as James (+13) but that did not stop the home fans from booing lustily almost every time that he missed a shot (Hughes shot 4-11 from the field). Hughes' field goal percentage (a career-low .336 so far this season) has become a hot button topic in Cleveland but the reality regarding him is quite simple: (1) he has never been a great shooter (.410 career field goal percentage) and (2) the Cavaliers perform better when he is healthy and in the starting lineup, even when he does not shoot well. Hughes has been healthy during the current winning streak that has propelled Cleveland back into the Eastern Conference playoff race. Hughes has missed 14 games this season and the Cavs went 7-7 in those contests (they also lost the two games before he went on the injured list when he tried to play but was clearly not 100%). The Cavaliers were 6-8 last year when Hughes did not play--and 43-25 in the remaining games. Hughes may not be as good as Cavaliers' fans had hoped for when the team signed him but there is no doubt that he works hard at both ends of the court and that the team is much stronger when he is in the lineup. Fans pay their money for tickets and have the right to boo or cheer at their discretion--but it is hard to understand what positive result fans expect to happen from their relentless booing of their team's starting point guard. Kevin Durant led Seattle with a game-high 24 points and he shot 10-20 from the field, well above his normal shooting percentage. Three of his missed shots were blocked--no one else in the game had more than one shot blocked--and his floor game is still somewhat limited (six rebounds--which is good--but only one assist, no steals, one blocked shot and four turnovers). Wally Szczerbiak (15 points) was the only other Sonic who scored in double figures.

Both teams started out the game poorly, littering the court with missed shots and turnovers. Neither team scored until Jeff Green's layup gave Seattle a 2-0 lead at the 10:43 mark of the first quarter. An Earl Watson jumper soon put the Sonics up 4-0 but that proved to be Seattle's largest advantage of the game--and a short lived one at that. Varejao's dunk with 3:26 remaining gave the Cavs their first double digit lead (20-9) and the rout was pretty much on after that, although Seattle did make a couple token runs. James' fast break dunk at the 4:03 mark in the second quarter gave the Cavs their biggest first half lead, 39-23. Seattle cut that margin to 45-33 by halftime; the 33 points represent a season-low for a Cleveland opponent. James (14 points, 7-10 field goal shooting) and Durant (12 points, 6-13 field goal shooting) were the only double figure scorers.

Cleveland pulled away right after the third quarter began and soon led by 20 points, 55-35. As usually happens in the NBA in such games, the losing team made a run. Durant twice drove to the hoop and converted layups, two of the better moves that I have seen him make this season. He was fouled on the second score and made the free throw to cut the lead to 55-40. Then Szczerbiak drilled two three pointers and split a pair of free throws in a 1:13 stretch to make the score 58-49, Cleveland. After a Cleveland miss, Watson drove to the hoop with a chance to cut the lead to seven but what ensued instead was a disaster for Seattle. Watson missed the shot, James scored a fast break layup and then Gibson buried a three pointer after stealing the inbounds pass. Seattle turned the ball over again on the next possession and Gibson's layup made the score 65-49, Cleveland; as Seattle Coach P.J. Carlesimo put it after the game, "You can't have a worse segment." The Sonics never got closer than 14 points the rest of the game.

Cleveland Coach Mike Brown was understandably pleased with his team's performance: "I thought we did a nice job defensively throughout most of the game, and we obviously had a nice lift from our bench. I thought there were times when we really moved the ball well from one side of the floor to the other. We limited our turnovers tonight and stayed focused for most of the game."

James is glad that the team's defensive focus has returned: "That's four in a row, six out of our last seven because we've decided to start playing defense again--and we're undefeated in 2008. We just need to keep it going." James likes being on the court with a shooter like Gibson because that forces opposing defenses into a lose-lose situation: "Either let me go one on one or you help and hopefully you can close out on the best shooter in the league. I wouldn't leave him open; he's shooting lights out."

In his postgame standup, Carlesimo said, "What has plagued us a lot this year is turnovers for breakaway layups. Some of the turnovers were just horrible. Some of them were created by good, aggressive play by Cleveland but a number of them were just guys not catching the ball or guys dribbling the ball of their foot or guys making very ill advised passes...We didn't do a good job against either 'Boobie' (Gibson) or Anderson. Anderson was aggressive and really did a good job and hurt us and we didn't locate 'Boobie.' The way he's shooting the ball, to lose track of him is not good. Those are two things defensively that we did not do very well."

However, Carlesimo also mentioned an underlying problem in addition to the turnovers and missed defensive assignments: "It's easy to say turnovers more than anything else (led to the loss) but we didn't match the aggression--for some people. I thought that some people competed and I thought that other people didn't play aggressively enough. When we took the ball to the basket we needed one more dribble to really attack it or on plays when two guys had a chance to get a rebound we have to come up with a few more of those. They played better than we did, they had more individuals play better and they certainly took better care of the basketball."

Carlesimo would like to see his players be more willing to meet the challenge of playing against All-Star players and not just accept that the All-Stars are automatically superior. "Not saying that we competed over the edge for 48 minutes but compared to Washington (where the Sonics lost, 108-86, on Sunday), particularly the fourth quarter, it was much better. I just mean that in some individual matchups we are a little accepting. I mean, if you want to enter a game and say, 'Hey this is LeBron James or this is Caron Butler and that's a tough matchup, I can't compete with him,' that's one thing; if you go after him and are more aggressive but get beat that's something else. I think that we have been a little too compliant lately. That, to me, is different. The fourth quarter against Washington was a disgrace. I didn't think tonight was that bad but I did think that we are too compliant in some of our matchups."

Durant sprained his left ankle and did not return to action after leaving the game at the 7:22 mark of the fourth quarter but after the game he indicated that he does not expect to miss any games as a result of the injury. Standing next to him in the locker room, one really gets a sense of just how young he is; his boyish face still has some acne and with his jersey off his lack of upper body musculature is even more glaringly apparent than it is during games. Durant will surely add weight simply by growing up and completing his physical maturation and he can accelerate that process to some degree by lifting weights but he has narrow shoulders and I question how much bulk his frame can really hold. A generation ago, Ralph Sampson tried everything imaginable to put on weight but the 7-4 center could barely get up to 240 pounds and by the end of a long, draining season he was usually 15 pounds lighter than that. The 6-9 Durant will face a similar uphill battle.

Durant has a very pleasant demeanor, earnest and soft spoken. It is obvious that opposing defenses load up on him because Seattle lacks a consistent, credible second offensive option but Durant is too smart and mature to be baited into saying anything that could sound derogatory about his teammates. When a reporter asked Durant about the team's lack of scoring threats, Durant replied, "I wouldn't say that we don't have another scorer. Guys are producing. I mean, in this league we just can't hit shots. I can't hit shots. I think that we are getting great looks and guys can score on this team. I think that we're pretty balanced, to be honest with you. We have four guys (averaging) in double figures. I wouldn't say that there is not a second scoring option or anything like that."

Next, someone asked Durant why Seattle seems to be able to hang around in games to a point before almost inevitably fading. Durant answered, "If I knew what was going on--I wish I could tell you and that we could capitalize on some things. Tonight, we turned the ball over--that was one thing. I don't really know. It's frustrating. Losing 25 games (out of the first 34), that is not something I envisioned doing coming into the league. It's frustrating."

*****************************
Notes From Courtside:

Prior to the game, I spoke with Sonics assistant coach Paul Westhead, the only person who has coached both an NBA championship team (Lakers, 1980) and a WNBA championship team (Mercury, 2007). We talked at length about his coaching career, which includes stops not only in the NBA and WNBA but also the NCAA as well; those quotes will appear in an article that I am writing about Coach Westhead but I also had the opportunity to discuss some other subjects with him.

It is sometimes said--even by as august a person as John Wooden--that the women's game is more fundamentally sound than the men's game. Rick Barry once told me that the only statistic that is "true and legitimate" is free throw percentage: assists are subject to a scorekeeper's whim, players can pad their rebounding totals by tapping at the ball and field goal percentage does not indicate a player's shooting range. Since putting the ball in the basket is the ultimate fundamental, in August 2005 I looked at the year by year free throw percentages for the NBA and WNBA. I found out that, contrary to popular belief, the men had a small but consistent advantage. Coach Westhead is certainly uniquely qualified to talk about the state of fundamentals in both leagues, so--without mentioning those numbers--I asked him whether or not he believes that the women play a more fundamentally sound game. He replied, "I don't think that there is anything sweeping that I can say about the men's game versus the women's game. I would say that they are very similar more than different. They are the best players in the world; the players in both leagues are very skilled and very talented. You just simply have to get the right group of women (to win a championship), like I had, and you can look out and say that the San Antonio Spurs have the right group of men that are fundamentally sound and play great basketball and win championships. I don't think that there is anything categorical but I would say, as a compliment to the women, that they are much better than people who have not seen them think. They are talented and skilled and they play the team game. They know how to play basketball."

After talking a little bit more about the differences between the women's and men's games, Westhead said, "I will say that the one thing that bears noting is that they sure shoot free throws a lot better than the men." I immediately replied that this is what everyone seems to think but that my study from two years ago showed that this is not the case. Westhead was surprised by this but he told me that in his brief time in the WNBA that many people told him that the level of play had improved dramatically from year one to now; he mentioned that his team led the league in free throw percentage last year (.817) and wondered if the overall numbers from last year would tell a different story than my 2005 research did. Sure enough, when I looked it up, the WNBA's free throw percentage in 2007 (.775) was higher than the NBA's free throw percentage in 2006-07 (.752); the WNBA also posted a marginally better free throw percentage in 2006 (.747) than the NBA did in 2005-06 (.745). In the years that I examined originally, the NBA had the edge in every season except for the lockout abbreviated 1999 campaign. The WNBA's overall free throw percentage was .713 in 1997, the league's inaugural year, while the NBA's free throw percentage in 1996-97 was .738. I think that these numbers show two things: (1) It was a misnomer for people to say years ago that the WNBA had better free throw shooters or was more fundamentally sound; (2) as Coach Westhead suggested, the level of play in the WNBA has increased significantly in the past decade or so.

I also asked Coach Westhead about Kevin Durant's development so far, particularly regarding his field goal percentage. I'll simply reprint the entire portion of the transcript that covers that subject:

Friedman: “Kevin Durant is known as a very good shooter and he has a good free throw percentage. We know that the shooting touch is there and everyone saw that in college. His field goal percentage this year is hovering pretty consistently around 40%. What is the reason for that?”

Westhead: “I think that the easy reason for that is that teams in their scouting reports are saying that the Sonics need Kevin Durant to score to win. So, you’re our best defender—stick him. They not only put their best defender on him but any time that he gets close to another offensive player, on a pick and roll or something—trap him, double him, stunt him. He’s getting high quality defensive coverage as a 19 year old who just arrived in the league. That’s not the easiest thing to endure. In a season or two or three, the best defenders probably won’t pull his shooting percentage down. He’ll have arrived and be able to shoot through that. But I think that it is marvelous in 30-plus games that this 19 year old is performing how he is. I think he’s off to a terrific start. I’m amazed that even though he is young looking and 19 that he has a mature game, that he does not get overwhelmed by this league.”

Friedman: “As a coaching staff, how do you feel about his shot selection?”

Westhead: “You’re asking the wrong guy—and the reason I say that is, my players, from good teams or bad teams, will say to you that I never saw a bad shot by a player on my team. They can’t take a bad shot.”

Friedman: “Because you believe in taking quick shots to put pressure on the defense?”

Westhead: “I believe that I want to give them the freedom to create what they think are good shots and once you start stipulating that I want you to shoot from here but not there and I want you to shoot this but not that then you start putting things in their minds that they have to make hard decisions about at a moment when they should be focusing on the basket.”

Friedman: “That’s a great relief for a player at any level.”

Westhead: “Exactly. If you let a player take 15 or 20 shots, he might take what the world might say are a couple bad shots but he doesn’t want to take bad shots. He’s not going to go from three bad shots to eight bad shots because you don’t say anything to him. He’ll eliminate those bad shots--or at least cut down on them--on his own.”

Friedman: “So you think that the good players will figure that out without someone hammering on them and yanking them from the game and yelling at them and all of that?”

Westhead: “Absolutely. Therefore, in Kevin’s case, I think that it is a particular compliment to P.J. (Carlesimo) that he monitors him very well and gives him a lot of rope but if things break down or he has a problem he will sit him down and let him rest a little bit to get refocused and then get him going again."

***

When Cleveland reserve guard Shannon Brown came on to the court a couple hours before the game to shoot around, he glanced into the stands and saw that the cover of the game day program had a very familiar face on it: his own. He seemed genuinely surprised--and happy--and said to me, "Who's that on the cover?" I handed him a copy so that he could take a closer look. Later on I saw him in one of the back corridors and asked him if he had kept the program and he said that he had. James and Durant have been on so many covers that they probably are numb to that experience by now but it is cool to see a second year player so thrilled by a relatively simple trapping of the NBA life.

***

The Cavaliers' overhead scoreboard has numerous bells and whistles and can literally shoot out flames but something inside of it went haywire before the game, so it had to be lowered to ground level to be checked out. Whenever the scoreboard ascends or descends the movement is accompanied by a sound that is akin to the warning beep issued by a truck that is backing up--but several times louder. Whatever the problem was, it never got completely fixed, because the part that should have showed the Cavaliers' score on one of the scoreboard's four sides was completely dark throughout the game.

Labels: Cleveland Cavaliers, Daniel Gibson, Kevin Durant, Larry Hughes, LeBron James, Paul Westhead, Seattle Supersonics

posted by David Friedman @ 9:34 AM

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