Boston Globe Sports: The Celtics

[Tony Pinto <bagaco@worldnet.att.net>]

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>  Another time, another place: Situation has
>  changed for Pitino
> 
>  By Peter May, Globe Staff, 05/15/97
> 
>  The NBA Experience. Rick Pitino has it,
>  sort of. He has been a head coach in the
>  NBA, an assistant coach in the NBA, and now
>  he is a coach/president in the NBA. He
>  already knows, you can be sure, that the
>  NBA is different now than when he last
>  patrolled its sidelines.
> 
>  When Pitino first became an NBA head coach
>  in 1987 with the Knicks, there were only 23
>  teams. There were only two referees in a
>  game. The average team scored 108 points a
>  game. The Celtics were good. Pat Riley was
>  still a human being. Michael Jordan led the
>  league in scoring. Some things never
>  change.
> 
>  Pitino was not even the Knicks' first
>  choice. Or, for that matter, the second.
>  The Knicks wanted Don Nelson to take over,
>  but he instead went west to work with the
>  Warriors after a falling out with new
>  Milwaukee owner Herb Kohl. They then
>  romanced Boston assistant Jimmy Rodgers,
>  but the Celtics violated a time-honored NBA
>  tradition of allowing an assistant to move
>  up by holding the Knicks to a first-round
>  draft pick as ransom, er, compensation. New
>  York said no thanks.
> 
>  Pitino was hot at the time, having just
>  taken Providence to the Final Four. He
>  wanted things settled by May 1, but the
>  Knicks moved slower than he wanted. So he
>  signed a five-year deal to stay at
>  Providence and vowed he would honor the
>  contract; then, in July, he accepted an
>  offer to coach the Knicks. Maybe it's
>  fitting that the second time around, he
>  first heard of the Knicks' renewed interest
>  while he was in the dentist's chair.
> 
>  Now he's back for a second go-around, eight
>  years later. Six expansion teams have
>  diluted the NBA talent pool. Most teams fly
>  in luxurious, private planes, not
>  commercial jets, and practice in
>  clandestine solitude. Things have changed
>  with at least two notable exceptions:
>  Jordan is still the scoring leader and
>  everyone expects Pitino to be the same
>  thing he always has been: a winner.
> 
>  ``In my opinion,'' said Pacers point guard
>  Mark Jackson, who broke into the NBA with
>  Pitino, ``he is the best coach in the game.
>  He is a workaholic. A perfectionist. He
>  never quits. And that attitude rubs off on
>  the players.''
> 
>  The news was not so overwhelmingly positive
>  10 years ago, when Pitino took over the
>  Knicks. He wanted to bring his pressing,
>  trapping style to the NBA and virtually
>  everyone felt it could not work over 82
>  games. It's a style described by one of
>  Pitino's former assistants, Gordon Chiesa,
>  as ``mother-in-law basketball'' - constant
>  pressure and harassment.
> 
>  He'd have crazy drills, such as making a
>  group of players make 85 layups in a
>  two-minute span. He promised they would be
>  the best conditioned team in the league and
>  that opponents would hate it when they
>  played the Knicks.
> 
>  ``I'd break everything into 10-minute
>  segments,'' Pitino said. ``After a few of
>  them, I'd ask Patrick [Ewing] how he was
>  feeling.''
> 
>  There was doubt from the beginning that the
>  Pitino system would work. The Knicks made
>  the mistake of hiring Pitino and Al Bianchi
>  as general manager in separate moves with
>  no regard for whether the two might
>  co-exist. They did, barely.
> 
>  Pitino also inherited a personnel imbalance
>  that he wanted rectified as quickly as
>  possible while Bianchi waited for the best
>  deal. Bill Cartwright wanted to be traded
>  because it was clear that Ewing was the
>  starting center. Cartwright stuck around,
>  but others didn't. Two months into the
>  season, 11 of the 18 players profiled in
>  the Knicks' media guide were no longer with
>  the team.
> 
>  Pitino's first year with the Knicks started
>  with predictably rocky results: 0-5, 1-7,
>  10-19, 14-28. But the Knicks came together
>  after the All-Star Game, won 24 of their
>  last 40 games, and improved by 14 wins,
>  posting a 38-44 record. The team
>  established itself as a good team at home
>  (29-12) and went into Indiana for its final
>  game needing a win to make the playoffs.
>  The Knicks got it.
> 
>  ``I can still remember it to this day,''
>  said Brendan Malone, then an assistant
>  under Pitino. ``Kenny Walker blocked Steve
>  Stipanovich at the buzzer and the entire
>  locker room scene was one of euphoria.''
> 
>  Adds Jackson, ``It's still one of my best
>  memories in the league.''
> 
>  Pitino didn't have much to work with that
>  season. He had a rookie [Jackson] at point
>  guard. He had, unlike his predecessors, a
>  healthy Ewing at center. Among his forwards
>  were Pat Cummings, Walker, Sidney Green,
>  and Johnny Newman. Gerald Wilkins,
>  Dominique's little brother, survived an
>  earful to become a very productive player
>  under Pitino.
> 
>  ``Rick did an awful lot for my career,''
>  Wilkins said. ``He has no problem getting
>  you to work. He knows the game and he don't
>  take no crap. He knows how to get you
>  motivated, to tell you you're good, even if
>  you're not as good as he's telling you. A
>  lot of players are told what they can't do.
>  Rick does both.''
> 
>  Wilkins said that first year was rough for
>  him. Pitino occasionally didn't like
>  Wilkins's shot selection (it must run in
>  the family) and was constantly on Wilkins
>  to improve.
> 
>  ``All year long, Rick is on me for
>  something, but I tried not to complain,''
>  he said. ``He made a lot of changes in my
>  game. Then, one time at the end of the
>  year, out of the blue, he comes out and
>  praises me in front of everyone. I said,
>  `What? Are you talking about me?' But
>  that's how he was. He still is one of my
>  all-time favorite coaches and I've had a
>  lot.''
> 
>  The Celtics eliminated the Knicks in four
>  games in the first round of the 1988
>  playoffs. Then, Bianchi went out and
>  acquired Charles Oakley for Cartwright and
>  added Kiki Vandeweghe via another trade in
>  midseason. But he also made a curious draft
>  selection in Rod Strickland, starting a
>  point guard controversy that never had to
>  be.
> 
>  Nevertheless, the Knicks built on their
>  success from the previous season and won 52
>  games. With Larry Bird out for the season,
>  the 52 wins was enough to capture the
>  Atlantic Division title by six games. The
>  Knicks swept the 76ers in the first round,
>  but then were eliminated by the
>  up-and-coming Bulls in six games in the
>  second round. By that time, it was apparent
>  Pitino was on the way out, unable to exist
>  with Bianchi or resist the chance to
>  rebuild the University of Kentucky program.
> 
>  ``We all had a feeling that it would
>  happen, but we were hoping it wouldn't,''
>  Jackson said. ``We all knew what was going
>  on with the situation with the GM. The
>  beauty of it for him today is that he now
>  has full authority. It hurt us not having a
>  GM believing in what the coach was doing.''
> 
>  Bianchi did not return calls seeking his
>  comment.
> 
>  Soon after the Chicago defeat, Kentucky had
>  its man. Over the past eight years, Pitino
>  has, by his own count, been approached by
>  no fewer than 13 NBA teams. The Celtics
>  came this time, promising him a chance to
>  rebuild and giving him the control and the
>  money he wants and feels he needs.
> 
>  ``He is the king of the underdog,'' Malone
>  said. ``He has the ability to get people to
>  play above their heads and he will do that
>  for the Celtics. He's a perfect fit for the
>  Celtics; it's the ideal marriage. He will
>  win.''
> 
>  This story ran on page d4 of the Boston
>  Globe on 05/15/97.
>  © Copyright 1997 Globe Newspaper Company.
> 
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