Mental Toughness
As an analyst, it's always interesting to me to look at what seperates the men from the boys and the winners from the losers in basketball.
In today's NBA, the teams with more men than boys usually win since the salary cap rules have pushed alot of teams toward a rebuilding youth mode that takes several years to give good results.
The expeience but also the shared experiences of the Spur's players has been a recipe for success and the same can be said of Phoenix, Utah,
Dallas, Detroit, Cleveland and all teams that have kept thier core together around the same coach for continuity.
With Duncan injured, the Spurs will need to use their full reservoir of experience along with a large dose of their habitual mental toughness which is another key to winning at any level.
Seeing how Parker and Ginobili have worked to improve their outside shooting but also their ability to keep getting up after being knocked down gives the team hope in Tim's absence.
We've all played in games where nothing seemsto go right, shots rim out, rebounds all fall in opponents hands, players get hurt and turnovers accumulate.
In these trying circumstances, unity and solidarity can keep you from getting too far behind and if you stick with the game mentally sometimes things will turn for the better before the final buzzer!
Of course losses happen even to the best teams and their capacity to learn and rebound from losses sets the groundwork for future success.
Besides, winning games where the team played poorly thanks to guts and savvy is even more rewarding and satisfying than an easy blowout!
David Blatt, the european coach of the year without a doubt, pointed out after Russia's win in Spain that the key for his talented bunch was mental toughness which was not often one of their qualities in past quarter-final games.
This time his team didn't crack, give up and become too individualistic when falling behind early, the way they had in the recent past.
Blatt prefers the international game without the NBA's defensive 3 second rule and overuse of isolation plays because he feels it's richer tactically and collectively using more ball movement and swinging of the ball along with drive and kicks and a priority put on good outside shooting.
He, as well as Jasikevicius, enjoys watching the 7 or 8 successful NBA teams that offer this european type play but is quickly bored by the weaker and often younger teams that tend to force bad shots and abuse one on one situations, not really knowing what they want to do or where they want to go with the ball which leads to alot of defeats and ugly games!
If you are a young coach, take a page from the Spur's manuel and convince your team to stick together and to the game plan, through thick and thin, offensively and defensively.
Know your role while working patiently to create good shots because as George Karl says, good teams take good shots, it's as simple as that sometimes!
As a footnote I'd like to recommend reading the Blatt interview in the French mag, REVERSE (see www.basketsession.com), and also please surf to eddyhalftime.com our new interactive site continuing the spirit of our NBA live game halftime show produced by Xavier Vaution!
