RE: Westphal

["Berry, Mark S" <berrym@BATTELLE.ORG>]

I have a theory about the death of the fast break. Teams began to see the
opponent's fast break as the ultimate back-breaker, and they started making
the commitment to transition defense. Sounds simple, but what it meant was
pulling players back from their offensive rebounding duties and having them
sprint back on defense as soon as a shot goes up. Watch the game today and
you almost never see good fast breaks off of missed shots. Today's breaks
come off of turnovers. The philosophy makes sense, because a fast break
almost always ends up with an opponent's basket, whereas an offensive
rebound translates to a basket of your own probably closer to 50 percent of
the time.

I don't have any facts or numbers to back this up. Just an observation.

Mark

-----Original Message-----
From: Hironaka [mailto:j.hironaka@unesco.org]
Sent: Tuesday, November 28, 2000 5:26 AM
To: Simon Kean; Celtics@igtc.com
Subject: Re:Westphal


Simon Kean wrote:

> Damn, always thought Westphal was a decent coach too. Had some great years
> in Phoenix. Don't think he is the problem in Seattle. They were an average
> team before he got there. Biggest problem is that Vin Baker can't decide
> which he wants to put in his mouth first - the beer or the donuts.
>
> Only slight I can remember on Westphal from his Phoenix days, was that he
> was a little too leniant on Barkley in practises. Seems to be a great
> players coach though. Tough luck

    I don't know if this is a fair statement or not, but I guess I'm under
the
impression that Westphal didn't really put much emphasis on defense or coach
it
particularly well. I'm still intrigued by Rick Carlisle as an option, if
Bird is
part of the ownership group. He's young and smart, and if Bird liked him
enough
to name him his assistant in Indiana then there must be a lot of respect
there
(after all, Carlisle was an 11th man his entire brief career with Boston).
It's
not like Bird would likely hang out with other benchwarmers like Duerod,
Kite or
Thirdkill unless he really thought these guys had impressive basketball
minds.
In Bird I trust. He's not going to fall for any slick-talkers.

    p.s. Westphal made some incredible shots you just hardly see anymore in
that
triple OT game in 1996 (like °360 jumpshots and layup-style bankshots from
10
feet away). It is what I imagine Jerry West must have been like in his
prime, or
what it must have felt like to be Danny Ainge in that BYU-UCLA game. And yes
Dorine is right about the Celtics fastbreak. The Bird era was nice, but
there is
no comparison in terms of precision to Cowens/JoJo/Havlicek/Silas (and I'm
sure
those who came before). At first it looks almost primitive and mechanical,
because it is so repetitive and lacking in variation and much less
above-the-rim. It seems almost scripted (the defense is a step slow each
time),
like you're watching the game footage from a Hollywood movie or reruns of
the
"White Shadow".

    I'm not at all sure, but maybe the league really has gotten bigger,
better
and more sophisticated on defense. For example, I often wonder why Pat Riley
can't try to recreate the 1980s Lakers fastbreak in today's NBA.  I despise
the
"greasy one" more than any other NBA personality out there, but he's one
heck of
a versatile and formidable coach (unlike Poultrino). He can teach defense
for
one thing, and he's made a lot of journeymen into better basketball players
in
all facets (especially on defense) than they likely would have been without
his
teaching/coaching. Look out for Weatherspoon tonight for example. This guy
was a
Larry Brown reject. Based on his body type (short and squat), he has no
business
averaging over 10.6 rebounds plus blocks per game.

-------