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Karl: Bucks stop here Milwaukee coach still teaching during playoffs
Posted: Thursday April 27, 2000 09:03 PM
ST. FRANCIS, Wis. (AP) -- George Karl has coined a phrase to describe his Milwaukee Bucks. "They're my sometimes team," Karl says. In other words, sometimes they play to their incredible potential -- and sometimes they look as if they've never been coached. After 83 games and seven months of daily contact,Karl said he still doesn't know a lot about this incarnation of the Bucks. The team faces the Indiana Pacers tonight in the second game of their first-round series. Though his team has taxed his patience and his own faith in his abilities, Karl calls this season one of his most constructive as a coach. "I'm not saying this has been my best year, but I got to do a lot more coaching than I did in the last while," Karl said. "That's something you enjoy when you haven't been doing it for a while. It's been a return to my roots, so to speak." When Seattle fired Karl in 1998, the SuperSonics were a finely tuned machine. They won 55 games or more in six consecutive seasons, but a lack of playoff success and a fight with team management doomed him. In his first two years in Milwaukee, he has thrilled fans and owner U.S. Sen. Herb Kohl by taking the Bucks to the playoffs twice. The once-proud franchise endured seven years out of the postseason during the coaching tenures of Mike Dunleavy and Chris Ford. Even though the Bucks almost missed the playoffs, Karl insists the team exceeded his expectations. While he knows expectations for next season will be higher, he has already declared the current one a success. "We're all proud of what we've done this year, but we need to win in the playoffs to make it all worth it," Glenn Robinson said. "Coach has got us to this point, and we hope we can pay him back by taking it further." As a defense-minded coach, Karl is in an unusual situation with the offensively talented Bucks. The team's stars are all standout jump-shooters and mediocre defenders, and their talents are particularly unsuited to play Karl's brand of basketball. In fact, it took the Bucks until the season's final 15 games to begin to grasp the defensive scheme Karl and assistant Terry Stotts employed to great effect in Seattle. The system, which depends heavily on double-teaming and intelligent decisions on switches, helped make Gary Payton a defensive star. But the younger Bucks spent almost the entire season befuddled by the system. Even earlier this week, Karl stopped a practice scrimmage to chastise Ray Allen for missing a switch, saying, "You've been messing that up all season long, Ray!" But with 15 games left in the season and the Bucks three games out of a playoff spot, things suddenly kicked into gear. Milwaukee went 11-4 to close the season and streaked past Orlando for the East's final playoff spot. Milwaukee held its opponents to 96.1 points per game -- a number that would have been much lower without two high-scoring overtime games -- and gave a greatly increased effort on defense. Some Bucks say it was because they finally figured out Karl's defense, though Karl isn't sure. "I don't think our system isn't as complicated as it's made out to be," he said. "Defense is about your heart more than your talent. I don't know if we've always displayed that heart this year." Karl thinks the Bucks finally started to play defense because they realized a trip to the playoffs hinged on it. He doesn't know why he was unable to motivate them to do it earlier. "Like I said, they're the sometimes team," he said.
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