Sloan says his players need to do homework
By Tim Buckley
Deseret Morning News
http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,635166152,00.html
PORTLAND — Jerry Sloan can picture the competition as if they had just played last night, from their totally predictable tendencies to the most subtle.
Jerry West.
"Jerry West was a great, great player, but he did use his right hand exclusively," the Jazz coach said. "He'd give you two dribbles to his left, then you'd jump over there, and then he's got you going right to where he wants you to be."
Lenny Wilkens.
"Lenny Wilkens was a left-handed player," Sloan said. "He would always draw you over there, then you'd get over on that side too far and he'd take two dribbles to his right, and then you'd really jump to try to get back to him, and now you're (in trouble)."
Pistol Pete Maravich.
"I could tell you right now: Pete Maravich would . . . come up the right side of the floor, two dribbles across halfcourt and he's (using) the left hand."
Sloan, whose 6-10 Jazz visit Portland tonight, could go on and on.
He wishes all of his players today could do the same about their own competition, but reality is that most cannot.
"Unless you've been in the league for a little while and played against guys over and over again," forward Matt Harpring said, "it's kind of hard to figure that out."
"Jerry's old-fashioned," center Greg Ostertag added. "That's just the way he studied the game. I don't think guys nowadays, younger guys, study the game the way he did."
But it shouldn't be that way, Sloan suggests.
Back in the day, the ol' Chicago Bull and his contemporaries learned the hard way.
Trial and error, mostly.
If they had a film session, Ostertag imagines it going something like this: "Hold on, the &%*$#$& tape broke."
Today, thanks to modern technology, things are oh-so-different.
"We didn't have all the electronic stuff they have today, which makes it a lot easier," Sloan said.
"You can go upstairs (at the Jazz's practice facility) and ask Smitty (Richard Smith, the team's scouting services director), 'I need for you to put me something together about Tim Duncan,' for instance. 'I need 20 plays of Tim Duncan moves,' " Ostertag added. "They'd have it. They didn't have it back then. Now, we can run it back, stop it, cut it, dub it and all that."
Heading upstairs, however, requires taking an initiative many players do not.
Ostertag, for one, admits such is the case.
"Guys don't take advantage of that," he said.
And it drives Sloan batty, whether it's Ostertag or whoever that fails to do his homework.
"Those are things I tell our players," the Jazz coach said. "But, you know, it takes a lot of work to try to sit and watch those things."
Some of today's players do keep books on their opponents — mostly in their minds.
Tim Duncan: "I can tell you, for the most part," Ostertag said, "every time Tim Duncan gets the ball against me he's gonna face and either try to shoot a bank shot on the wing, or drive to the middle hard, or drive to his right hard on me."
Shaquille O'Neal: "I know Shaq, when he gets the ball on the block against me," Ostertag said, "he's going to make two pounds to the middle hard for a jump hook, or, if I overplay that, he's gonna quick-spin to the baseline."
Sloan, though, contends that many today don't know nearly as much as they should.
When Indiana's Jermaine O'Neal helped beat the Jazz with a 21-point effort just last Tuesday, Sloan suggests, it could have been prevented if he were defended better.
"Jermaine O'Neal has been left-handed probably all his life," Sloan said. "He still was able to get back to his strengths.
"I've seen this all my life. If a guy is left-handed, they (his defenders) think they better jump over there and get on his left hand and play him. Then as soon as he goes right, you jump over there and take that away from him."
O'Neal goes back to his left, his strength, and boom, he hits 21.
Hand over.
Said Sloan: "The way I was taught, and the way I've always seen from guys that have success,'Let him have his right hand, and see if he can make a mistake with it.' "
Doing that, though, requires knowing one's competition better than perhaps even one's own self.
Asked if he has any players on his current roster who can do just that, Sloan didn't waste a second before responding.
"I lost two of them," he said.
The reference, of course, was to now-retired John Stockton and Karl Malone. Sloan calls them "students of the game."
"Karl Malone," he said, "could tell you almost every player on the other team, not just the guy he guarded."
"Karl never had a scouting report," Ostertag added. "Karl knew everybody, just from playing, just from being around long enough. I think as you get older you know without really thinking about it."
Sloan, though, wishes he had more players who spent as much time studying as they do not thinking.
"In order for us to get better," he said, "we need to have guys focused in those areas."
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Says a lot about JO though.
By Tim Buckley
Deseret Morning News
http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,635166152,00.html
PORTLAND — Jerry Sloan can picture the competition as if they had just played last night, from their totally predictable tendencies to the most subtle.
Jerry West.
"Jerry West was a great, great player, but he did use his right hand exclusively," the Jazz coach said. "He'd give you two dribbles to his left, then you'd jump over there, and then he's got you going right to where he wants you to be."
Lenny Wilkens.
"Lenny Wilkens was a left-handed player," Sloan said. "He would always draw you over there, then you'd get over on that side too far and he'd take two dribbles to his right, and then you'd really jump to try to get back to him, and now you're (in trouble)."
Pistol Pete Maravich.
"I could tell you right now: Pete Maravich would . . . come up the right side of the floor, two dribbles across halfcourt and he's (using) the left hand."
Sloan, whose 6-10 Jazz visit Portland tonight, could go on and on.
He wishes all of his players today could do the same about their own competition, but reality is that most cannot.
"Unless you've been in the league for a little while and played against guys over and over again," forward Matt Harpring said, "it's kind of hard to figure that out."
"Jerry's old-fashioned," center Greg Ostertag added. "That's just the way he studied the game. I don't think guys nowadays, younger guys, study the game the way he did."
But it shouldn't be that way, Sloan suggests.
Back in the day, the ol' Chicago Bull and his contemporaries learned the hard way.
Trial and error, mostly.
If they had a film session, Ostertag imagines it going something like this: "Hold on, the &%*$#$& tape broke."
Today, thanks to modern technology, things are oh-so-different.
"We didn't have all the electronic stuff they have today, which makes it a lot easier," Sloan said.
"You can go upstairs (at the Jazz's practice facility) and ask Smitty (Richard Smith, the team's scouting services director), 'I need for you to put me something together about Tim Duncan,' for instance. 'I need 20 plays of Tim Duncan moves,' " Ostertag added. "They'd have it. They didn't have it back then. Now, we can run it back, stop it, cut it, dub it and all that."
Heading upstairs, however, requires taking an initiative many players do not.
Ostertag, for one, admits such is the case.
"Guys don't take advantage of that," he said.
And it drives Sloan batty, whether it's Ostertag or whoever that fails to do his homework.
"Those are things I tell our players," the Jazz coach said. "But, you know, it takes a lot of work to try to sit and watch those things."
Some of today's players do keep books on their opponents — mostly in their minds.
Tim Duncan: "I can tell you, for the most part," Ostertag said, "every time Tim Duncan gets the ball against me he's gonna face and either try to shoot a bank shot on the wing, or drive to the middle hard, or drive to his right hard on me."
Shaquille O'Neal: "I know Shaq, when he gets the ball on the block against me," Ostertag said, "he's going to make two pounds to the middle hard for a jump hook, or, if I overplay that, he's gonna quick-spin to the baseline."
Sloan, though, contends that many today don't know nearly as much as they should.
When Indiana's Jermaine O'Neal helped beat the Jazz with a 21-point effort just last Tuesday, Sloan suggests, it could have been prevented if he were defended better.
"Jermaine O'Neal has been left-handed probably all his life," Sloan said. "He still was able to get back to his strengths.
"I've seen this all my life. If a guy is left-handed, they (his defenders) think they better jump over there and get on his left hand and play him. Then as soon as he goes right, you jump over there and take that away from him."
O'Neal goes back to his left, his strength, and boom, he hits 21.
Hand over.
Said Sloan: "The way I was taught, and the way I've always seen from guys that have success,'Let him have his right hand, and see if he can make a mistake with it.' "
Doing that, though, requires knowing one's competition better than perhaps even one's own self.
Asked if he has any players on his current roster who can do just that, Sloan didn't waste a second before responding.
"I lost two of them," he said.
The reference, of course, was to now-retired John Stockton and Karl Malone. Sloan calls them "students of the game."
"Karl Malone," he said, "could tell you almost every player on the other team, not just the guy he guarded."
"Karl never had a scouting report," Ostertag added. "Karl knew everybody, just from playing, just from being around long enough. I think as you get older you know without really thinking about it."
Sloan, though, wishes he had more players who spent as much time studying as they do not thinking.
"In order for us to get better," he said, "we need to have guys focused in those areas."
------
Says a lot about JO though.
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