NBA can't get a break: Few can claim running game

["Stephen Beauregard" <sb@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

NBA can't get a break: Few can claim running game
By Mark Murphy/NBA Notes
Sunday, November 2, 2003

This matter of making a pledge to run more is nothing new.

     Back during the opening of training camp for the 1989-90 season,
first-year Celtics coach Chris Ford said his new team was going to get out on
the break.

     No one found this more amusing than Larry Bird, leader of the team that,
more than any other, epitomized the NBA's halfcourt, walk-it-up ethic.

     And Bird didn't waste much time in snorting at his new coach and former
teammate's desire to change the Celtics' dinosaur-like pace.

     Ford, not one to take guff from anyone, buried the proverbial hatchet in
Bird's forehead during a stormy confrontation at the start of the team's first
closed practice the next day.

     But Bird was right in the end - the Celtics walked more than they ran
that season.

     Just as so many others who had hoped to speed up the game have stumbled
in their attempts to change over the years.

     The common refrain you usually hear this time of year is very much like
Bird's on media day, 1989: ``Ah, they always say that.''

     NBA teams, college teams, idealistic high school coaches after a visit to
the Basketball Hall of Fame. They all want to goose the pace. They all want
easy baskets.

     But at the sport's top level, exactly how many make good on their pledge?

     In the NBA, just how many teams, exactly, execute a legitimate fast break
from one game to the next?

     ``Dallas does, and New Jersey is a great up-tempo team,'' said Celtics
coach Jim O'Brien. ``Orlando can get out on the break, and Sacramento can push
it.''

     Four teams? Is that all?

     The Lakers got slower, not faster, with the additions of Karl Malone and
Gary Payton. Showtime still counts in L.A. only if you're talking about
dinosaur races.

     Elsewhere?

     ``We're trying to run, but it's not happening right away,'' said Detroit
coach Larry Brown. ``I've always felt that Boston was a team that could run,
but when you're trying to do it yourself, it helps if you see another team
committed to running. Then you get to see if your own team has the same
mindset.''

     Enter the Celtics this season with such a goal as the result of a change
in philosophy by O'Brien and director of basketball operations Danny Ainge.

     Antoine Walker [news], whose own preseason comments were Bird-like in
their cynicism toward pushing the ball, is gone.

     So, presumably, is the prime obstruction to the Celtics becoming a better
running team.

     But the desire to run isn't enough, and Brown points his finger at NBA
rules that - he believes - still make it more logical to run an isolation
offense than a break.

     ``You really can't run because of the rules,'' he said. ``Our game sucks
with the way people are allowed to stand around and isolate. That's why there
are so few good offensive rebounding teams anymore. Everyone takes one shot
and immediately drops back.

     ``When I was in Philadelphia, we tried to run on every play, but it's
very tough.''

     That's tough, not impossible.

     As such, O'Brien and Co. took the first important step by drafting the
fleet Marcus Banks [news] last June to play point guard. Now, the rookie
clearly has some ongoing basketball issues.

     He has a scorer's mentality instead of that of a playmaker, and big,
physical guards give him a problem. But the kid can also push the ball. That's
a good starting point.

     ``It's tough for teams to sustain a tempo against defenses in this
league,'' said O'Brien, who like Brown, pointed to the de-emphasis on
offensive rebounding as a major culprit.

     ``No team sends more than two people to the glass now,'' he said.
``You're dealing with three guys, four guys getting back.''

     O'Brien obviously knows of what he speaks. The Celtics finished dead last
in offensive rebounding last season.

     ``Teams instead are trying to run opportunistically, off turnovers and
long rebounds,'' he said, pointing to one of Banks' main strengths - defensive
disruption on the ball. ``But teams can get more tempo through defense.

     ``New Jersey's outlet passes are great. Dallas does a great job of
getting the ball quickly to Steve Nash.

     ``But in simple matters of defense, teams are not allowing transition to
happen. So we're trying to get the ball (in the point guard's) hands as
quickly as possible, without the defense having a chance to set up. We think
we have point guards who can really advance the ball, or reverse it to the
point where the defense really has to move some distance to get to the guy
with the ball.

     ``But over the last couple of years with changes in the defensive rules,
it's now more difficult to get the ball into the low post, and because of that
everyone is looking for a way to get easier baskets. Everyone is going to say
that they're trying to get fast break baskets, but it's a matter of trying to
sustain that mindset.''

     C's looking long term

      For all of the talk about the actual principals involved in the
land-moving Celtics/Mavericks trade, the long-term benefit for the Celtics has
barely been scratched.

     Chris Mills, the injured former Mav whose $6.8 million salary the Celtics
will pay for this season, will go off the books along with his money next
season, leaving the Celtics with approximately a $5 million mid-level
exception.

     Though Ainge was unable to snag either Malone or Juwon Howard with a
mid-level offer last summer, that exception could come up quite large during
next summer's free agent frenzy.

     Little wonder that this trade has more long-term than immediate
prospects.

     It won't bag them next summer's big name - Kobe Bryant - but it should
land a player of notable impact.

     ``This could be huge,'' said Ainge. ``But most of all, the mid-level
exception gives us the flexibility. I'm not going to spend it on just anyone.

     ``Sometimes it can be a curse, too, but we're going to be a lot more in
the market because of this. If Jiri (Welsch), Kedrick Brown [news] and the
other guys develop in the meantime, then we'll really have something going
into next summer.

     ``This isn't a knock on Antoine, but for players like Kedrick and Marcus,
more movement of the ball this year is going to be important in their
development. If everyone develops, then maybe we won't need that mid-level
exception. Maybe it will leave us more money to re-sign Eric (Williams) or
Mark Blount.''

     James earns attention

     For a moment, look past the fact that ESPN and Nike are already both
marketing LeBron James to the point of nausea.

     As if on cue, the recent prom king has knocked down some numbers that
already tie him to legend.

     It may actually be fitting - and not overkill - that Springfield's
Basketball Hall of Fame is about to put his high school jersey on display.

     Consider the level that James reached with the totals from his first two
games last week.

     Following his 21-point, five-assist performance during a Thursday night
loss to the Suns, he ranked third in the league in assists (8.5), 11th in
scoring (23.0), first in made baskets (20), third in total minutes (83), ninth
in total rebounds (18) for a hearty point guard average of nine boards per
game, second in steals (5.0), and a whopping third in total efficiency points
at 55.0.

     Alas, there is a learning curve as well.

     By the end of his second game, James was also third in the league in
total turnovers with nine, though you can put an asterisk next to that one.

     At least the rookie is willing to take chances.

     Miller stays put

     Reggie Miller is one of the few - especially in this fickle age - who can
claim true loyalty to one franchise.

     His decision to re-sign with Indiana last summer now has the guard at the
start of his 17th season as a Pacer.

     And that distinction pushes Miller ahead of some particularly impressive
names.

     The Celtics' John Havlicek and golden oldie Dolph Schayes (Syracuse) had
been tied with Miller for second on the all-time NBA list with 16 years of
service to one team.

     But Miller, now in second by himself, still has quite a ways to go to
reach the top.

     John Stockton retired last season with the record - 19 seasons of service
with the Utah Jazz. Teammate Malone had been in second place with 17 seasons
as a member of the Jazz, but invalidated his stake with this season's move to
the Lakers.

     Served him right, too.
Thanks,

Steve
sb@xxxxxxxxxxxx