Bird Watching (33 page)
Game 7 went the way I expected. Both teams played with the kind of urgency you would expect in a game that big. Someone said it was the biggest game in the history of the Pacers franchise. It was hard to disagree with that. Michael had already publicly guaranteed his team would win, but that didn’t faze me. Of course he did that. I would have done the same thing.
In many ways, all our old problems came back to haunt us in Game 7. We got into early foul trouble. We missed a lot of key free throws. But the most unbelievable statistic of all was we were outrebounded on the offensive glass 24–4. We were the worst offensive rebounding team in the league during the regular season, but that kind of margin was pathetic. You look at the film and it really turns your stomach. In spite of all that, we were playing great defense, and we were in a position to win it. In fact, midway through the fourth quarter we were up three when Derrick McKey knocked the ball loose from Jordan and forced a jump ball between Rik and Michael. Obviously, this was a tip we should have won.
When the jump ball was called between Rik and Michael, I remember wondering if Michael would do what I used to do when I thought I couldn’t win a tip, which was jump into the guy a little bit. We went through jump ball situations a few times, but we don’t spend a lot of time on it. We did spend a lot of time on out-of-bounds plays, shots with maybe two or three seconds to go, but when I was standing there watching that whole thing unfold, I said to myself, “Damn, we didn’t spend enough time on jump balls.” Because in the end, the season really did come down to that. I knew Rik would get the tip, but the way they were lined up I didn’t think that he could jump and tip it back over his head, because I had never—ever—seen Rik Smits do that. If he’s going to tip it, he almost always tips it forward, and when I looked forward, there was Scottie Pippen and Reggie. And Reggie was sort of on the side and a little bit behind Scottie, and I started thinking right then, “There’s no way we’re going to win this tip.” I knew it was a turning point of the game right there.
The worst part is Dick Harter said, right when they were lining up, “I think we should get a time-out right here.” Initially I looked and I sort of thought, “Well, Rik will get the tip,” and then I’m thinking, “Well, the way they’re lined up, we’ll get a layup off it.” But as soon as that thought was finished, that’s when I realized about Rik and how he never tipped it back, and by then I was putting my hands up to signal time-out, but the ball was already up in the air, and boom! It was over. It was too late. Smits tipped it forward, Pippen intercepted it and tossed it over to Jordan for a jumper. Michael missed it, but Pippen got the rebound and found Steve Kerr for a three-pointer. So now, instead of us going up by five, the game is tied. There was still six minutes or so left in the game, but that one sequence cost us the game, and I was sick about it, because it was my fault. I just felt so bad for the team. I wanted to beat the Bulls so bad for these guys. I was so ticked off at myself for blowing that jump ball, and then I had to go in that locker room after it was over and look at our older guys and know they were five minutes away from the Finals, and they would have to wait a whole year to get their chance again. Horrible.
After the game I didn’t feel like talking to anybody. I couldn’t believe we had come so close and ended up losing anyway. I felt the same way I felt in that very first game against New Jersey: I walked off thinking we should have won the game. Because the game was televised on NBC, Jim Gray was waiting outside our locker room, and he wanted me to come out and talk to him. My initial reaction was to say no. I had no interest in saying anything to that guy. But Brian McIntyre, the vice president of public relations for the NBA, came in and asked me if I would mind doing it for him, as a favor. Brian is a great guy, so I said yes. I don’t even remember very much of what Jim Gray asked me. I do know the last thing he said was, “Do you think Chicago can beat Utah for the championship?” I looked right at him and I told him, “I don’t really care.”
Because I didn’t.
On the NBA Today
I
tried not to let one lousy jump ball ruin my first season in coaching, but it’s been a hard thing to shake. I watched the tape a couple of days after it was over, and it breaks your heart. I don’t ever need to watch it again. That game will be in my mind forever.
I know people are surprised that I did so well coaching. I wasn’t surprised. I wouldn’t have done it if I didn’t think I could succeed. The one thing I always felt was that I was a leader, and with the career that I had, if I picked the right team and the right players, they would listen to me. And that’s what happened. I’ve got a group of guys that respect me, and if I have something to say, I say it, then I get out of there. I don’t need to elaborate on it for two or three minutes. It’s funny. I’ll give them a talk before the game, after the game, in the huddle, whatever, and all eyes are focused on me. You watch other coaches talking, and you’ll see one guy wiping his leg or fixing his socks. I picked this team because I knew this group would give me the respect you need to get the job done. After one season, I can’t tell you how much I’ve respected them in return.
I will say this: I learned more about the game of basketball in one season of coaching than in all my years as a player. As a player, everything I did was based on reaction. And once I learned the fundamentals, I could see how to improve my game by practicing. In coaching, I learned through other people, whether it’s the coaches or the players. You have to learn about time-outs, and substitution patterns … there are so many things going on, and you have to make these spur-of-the-moment decisions. Yes, you have to do that as a player, but it’s more reaction. As a player, you are worried about taking care of your responsibilities within the game. As a coach, your responsibility is the entire game, including the five guys you put on the court.
The best example I can give is that jump ball in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Finals. It was a major, major mistake. I knew it when it was happening. I knew I messed up as a coach. The difference is, if I saw the same thing as a player, and I didn’t like how we were lined up, I would have grabbed my teammate and put him where he should be, and I’d yell at the other guys and get them to their proper spots. But coaching on the sidelines, you don’t have that kind of input, or control, over the game.
I can’t say coaching gives you the same thrill as a player, but it’s pretty close. There are some monotonous parts of the job—I forgot, for instance, how much I hated the travel—but I really do like the action. I like the games, and I love the practices. I know I’m not what you would call a typical NBA coach, but I’m not trying to be. I’m not really interested in whether I fit in or not.
I’m not ever going to be part of the Fraternity, as I call them. There’s a group of coaches out there who all look out for each other, and hire one another when one of them gets fired. They’re the ones who are gossiping about this guy and that guy. I’m just not into that, and I think it ticked people off. I don’t really care. There were a lot of coaches that wanted to see the Pacers get beat so bad, because I’m not part of their Fraternity. They all like Rick and Dick, because they’ve been around, but they don’t feel the same way about me. The worst thing for the Fraternity is a guy like me coming in, an ex-player, and succeeding without going through the ranks. Not to mention that I came in and hired just two assistants. I understand that. But I’m not a schmoozer. If that is what it takes, count me out.
I’m sure my take on this league is a little different from some of these old-school coaches. To me, one of the funniest things that happened was how everybody got all worked up about how long the players were wearing their shorts. The league actually fined teams because their guys had their shorts below their knees. If these guys can play, I could care less. They can wear whatever they want, as long as they come to play.
There is a difference from when I played, though. No question about it. A young kid comes into the league all fired up, and after about five years he’s horrible. How does that happen? How do you let it happen? I always loved playing. But I loved working out in the summer almost as much. I enjoyed trying to get better. But that’s where the change comes in. To me, the NBA has become the MTV league. The All-Star game started a lot of it. Before, the game was the show. Now, the show is the stuff all around the game. There’s more hype than there is game, and the sport can’t possibly live up to that. It’s not if you win, or how you play, but how you look when you play, or where you play. Then there’s all the loud music in the middle of the game, and the bands, and the acts, and the cheerleaders. It’s almost like theater.
I started noticing a major change during the 1986 All-Star game in Dallas. It was supposed to be a basketball game, but they had the music cranked up like some kind of video. It was more like a dance than a game. It was the first year of the three-point contest, and even though I won my share of them, I didn’t like it. I felt the three-point shot took away from the way the game should be played. And then there was the slam dunk contest. That had turned into some kind of rap contest. I knew what they were doing. They were trying to satisfy the young people and the corporate fans, who want to be entertained. I guess they had identified the future of their league. I can understand all the marketing. That’s how we all make money. I always felt they did a fantastic job of promoting the league, but somewhere along the way it got bigger and bigger, and then the NBA went corporate. Like in Boston Garden. In my later years I’d look up in the stands and see a bunch of people in suits and ties. Those aren’t my type of people. What I loved was when you looked up during the playoffs, and it was June, and it was hot and sticky, it was eighty-five degrees, and everybody was up there in tank tops and shorts. Those are basketball fans. But they’re gone now. They can’t afford the tickets, because the salaries are so out of whack, and the prices keep going up. So then it carries over to the players. They get used to a certain standard. If you asked them to have roommates on the road, like we used to have, they’d be horrified. They fly chartered planes. It’s just a whole different ball game now.
That doesn’t mean it’s all terrible. There are still guys who work their butts off, who want to be the best. I wish they would stay in school longer, because I think they would be more mature and would have better fundamentals, but some of these kids come out early because they want to provide for their families. Think about it. If you know by going pro you’ll get millions of dollars to make sure your mom has someplace safe to live, or your brothers or sisters will have nice clothes and something to eat at every meal, that’s a hard thing. I had a chance to leave school early for the pros, but I promised my mom I’d graduate from school, so that’s what I did. I have never regretted that decision. If I had gone, Indiana State never would have gone to the championship game, and Magic and I wouldn’t have had all that history.
People ask me all the time who I think will be the next superstar, now that Michael has retired. To me, the next great player is Shaquille O’Neal. He’s big and he’s strong, and he uses his muscles to get away with certain things that make him almost impossible to stop. I truly believe his time is going to come. I don’t know him at all, but I’ve got him marked down for four or five championships. He’s sort of like Michael was early on. He hasn’t figured it out yet, but he will. People harp on how he should be a more dominant rebounder, but rebounds can be a misleading stat, depending on what kind of system you are playing in. Personally, I think Shaquille is a great re-bounder.
Kobe Bryant is an interesting young player. He could be very good. It all depends. You look at all these guys, and as talented as they are, it still is going to take them about four years. It takes time to become great. You can’t hurry that along. Your body is not made to get beaten up and banged all the time, and that’s an adjustment. You need time to mature and to understand what you are after. There’s been added pressure on Kobe because he came out of high school to such a good team, but he’s got a presence. He just needs to be reeled in a little bit.
It’s hard not to like Tim Duncan and his game. I can remember coming back from the Atlanta summer league, and people were saying Duncan had looked awful. I was laughing, saying, “Yeah, right.” How ridiculous is that? I didn’t know he’d get 20 and 30 points in the playoffs, but don’t even try and tell me that kid can’t play basketball. He has a chance to be a great one too.
I know the Celtics were worried about paying Antoine Walker, but he was worth keeping for one reason alone: he rebounds, and he can dribble down the court. That’s major. There aren’t too many guys anymore who know how to rebound and push it out. The high school kid we drafted in 1998, Al Harrington, has that skill. He doesn’t have a lot of range, but we can work on that. Same with Walker. His shot selection is pretty suspect, but he’s still young. He’ll figure it out.
It’s funny, but Kenny Anderson, who Boston traded for in 1998, has always been one of my favorites. A kid with his talent, it’s too bad he’s not healthy every night. We had a chance to trade for him just before the 1998 deadline, but I didn’t like their asking price. They wanted Mark Jackson, and I wasn’t about to give him up.
There are a couple of other point guards I really like. One of my favorite guys I love to watch play is Rod Strickland. He can score anytime he wants to. I’m convinced of that. He can also get the ball to anybody. I think I would have a hard time coaching him, though, because from what I understand, he’s always late. I wouldn’t put up with that. The other thing is he evidently doesn’t like to practice. That doesn’t mesh with me either. I think practice is key if you plan on winning anything significant. The other kid I like is Allen Iverson. He’s a basketball player. He just gets out there and plays, and I love that. I know he’s a little undisciplined, but you take a guy like him and you can tell him forever what he can and can’t do, or what he should and shouldn’t do. Or you can set up a few parameters and say, “Do your thing, but stick to these couple of guidelines.” If he still doesn’t do it, you put it all on tape and you sit him down and show him what you mean. He’s such a talent, he’s worth the effort. He’s a fun player, and he makes people around him better. A lot of the older NBA stars jumped on him because he said some things about how he doesn’t have to respect anyone on the court. Like I’ve said before, what’s wrong with that? The only difference between Allen Iverson and me, or Magic when he was on top, is Iverson is saying a lot of the things we were just thinking.