 |
| |
|
 |
 |
A different world Postseason basketball takes on new personalityPosted: Thursday April 18, 2002 1:40 AM
Playoff basketball is a lot different from the regular-season version. One big issue is that you see the same team over and over, so you concentrate, you look at film, and you break down the individual players and the team's tendencies. It's very important that the coach get his team focused and get the players focused on the club they're playing. Preparation is crucial to a playoff series. The game also has a tendency to slow down in the postseason, mainly because coaches have a tendency to over-coach and not trust their players so much, as each play is so big. So the point guard becomes a bigger factor and the one-on-one players are looked to more often as the clock runs down. Because of those changes in the game, it's hard for teams that like to run to carry that style into the playoffs. But the teams that are successful are the ones that maintain the style that got them there. So teams like Dallas, Sacramento and New Jersey have to try to maintain that during the playoffs and not change. New Jersey has Jason Kidd, and Dallas has Steve Nash, so Byron Scott and Don Nelson won't change a thing, and Sacramento has a bunch of players who just play that way. That's why the best playoff series in this entire postseason would be Dallas vs. Sacramento, which could happen in the second round. The fact that those teams would have to play each other in the second round is also a plus for the Lakers, because those two teams are the only ones with a shot at knocking off the defending champs. Since they would meet in the second round, the Lakers will only have to face one of them.
Kevin Loughery is a former NBA player and head coach. He appears each Sunday on CNN/SI's This Week in the NBA.
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||
