Congrats. Russell is my vote here again. Here's a pretty cool quote from his first autobiography "Go Up For Glory":
And you must play the best kind of basketball possible.
In my case that was defense. Auerbach told me at the start not to think about shooting. “Your game is to get me the ball. You get the ball and throw it up there for the shooters. We’ll count rebounds as baskets for you.”
So we started counting rebounds. We drew great crowds and we were rolling and everywhere we went the gauntlet was cast down and challenge was made. I was pushed. I pushed back. I was shoved. I shoved back. I started a little book on players, a mental thing. Who has to shoot right-handed? Who is only a shooter and a ball-hog and won’t pass? Can I psych them?
The Celtics never really have had any particularly different plays. We work off a basic pattern of about seven which, with options, can amount to about thirty. For codes we sometimes use fingers or just a stray word as we pass a man by. If we saw that Cousy was loose, I might say “New York” to him, or he might say it to me and we would know that this would be a play where he was to cut from his man and move to the left for an open shot from the flank.
We began to learn to work together and we began to learn more and more about defense.
Auerbach was an innovator. He would let the athletes run their own plays. As time went on other teams tried time and again to set up different patterns to break up the threat off the boards. They would almost always overplay on me, thus shaking someone else loose and we would exploit it time and again.
At that same time, there was the constant recurrent battling with the old pros. The league has changed a lot since. But in those days you either fought, or they ran you right out of the league. I was not exactly passive. I gave as good as I got.
I had one big edge going—the blocked shot.
To this moment, I could not teach anyone the practical application of the blocked shot. It must first be understood that according to the old school this is fundamentally poor defense. Auerbach recognized it for what it was. Properly applied it was as much psychological as actual.
You must learn just when a player is going to shoot; what type of shot he has, and where you have to be to block it. You have to know exactly where you are on the floor at all times. And you have to develop by repetition until it becomes almost second nature. I call it “canned thinking.” It is right there when I want it.
Let’s face it. You can only block a shot ten or twenty percent of the time. I don’t know at what given moment that percentage will come true. Neither does the shooter.
A sixth sense is developed for it and a quick move at the same time knowing just what the habits of the opponent are. Your man develops these habits over the years and so you have to learn to make them do what you want them to do; make them switch from their accustomed habit into something new where they are instinctively uncomfortable. If you can do that, then you have them halfway beaten. If the guy likes to go left, then make him go right. If he likes the foul line shot, then make him go two feet further back.
To categorize it, look at defense on this basis:
(1) Learn the other man’s habits. Then make him go exactly opposite to what he likes to do.
(2) When he gets to a position where he is away from his best shot, even if it’s only a foot, make him commit himself and shoot and count on the law of averages being on your side.
(3) If you’re successful, just smile at him as though you can do it every time.
I believe this is called “applied psychology”…or practical psychology.
Now, if there are three guys or two coming at you on a fast break, you must work on the same basic system.
The first thing, make them slow up and stop. The second is make them throw a bad, hurried pass. The third is make them commit on a bad shot. The fourth is—block the ball.
If you can ever find anyone who can do all that with regularity, quit work and start your own basketball team.
Seriously, let’s say that is happening and the middle man has the ball. Now, I want the right hand man to take the shot, because I know he’s a little out of position. So I move towards the player with the ball and give him enough fake motion to make him stop and look and at the same time I move towards the left so that he thinks the man on the right is free. Then as soon as he is committed I am already turning and moving to the man on the right to hurry his shot and am in position to block it. They are committed. If nothing worse, I get the rebound and I turn back again to throw the ball up court.
For years, the Celtics used the fast break, but to me the best team we ever had was in 1964-65, when we were so strong on defense. Let’s face it. We are all former All-Americans in the NBA. The emphasis has been on scoring throughout our careers. But, if I score twelve points and my man who normally averages, scores eighteen, then I am giving away six points and I am a failure. That is how I look at it and it’s also how the Celtics, under the coaching of Auerbach, have always looked at it.
Defense must be learned over many years. You can never play in the NBA unless you learn it. Many is the kid who came in and left after training camp because he just couldn’t comprehend how to do it.
Things like learning never to cross your legs when running—a very natural tendency—but instead to glide like a crab. Or taking abnormal steps and running backwards. And learning how to guard your man and keep him from the ball, or else so harried that he can’t do anything with it.
Rebounding is different. Here, in the snake pit, you must have position. Three-quarters of all rebounds are taken below the rim, so you have to learn the precise moment to go for the ball. After all, in a league of giants, anyone can go above the rim.
You have to learn how to give a second effort as well. Many rebounds are caught after six or seven tries. I have always practiced—fortunately, I don’t need it any more—jumping continually at the backboard until I could go up to the rim thirty-five times without stopping. If you build your timing and your lefts like that over the years you have an edge.
It takes strong legs and strong hands, because you have to fight over the ball. I still remember the time when one of our strongest men, Gene Conley, decided to fight Chamberlain for the ball. He grabbed it and hung on and chamberlain just lifted him and the ball right up towards the rim.
The superstars—the Baylors, Pettits, Robertsons, Wests—will conversely rep trying to make you do what they want. That is where the concentration comes in on defense. If they can get you into their position you are dead. They’ll kill you ever time. So, you must stay between the man and the ball and keep him from getting it. If he does get it, you must harass him and worry him so that he will get rid of it in a hurry and be out of position.
There are other elements. Sometimes, I will let a man get away with some thing in two or three games. Then, I’ll just move in on him.
There he is fat-catting, figuring that he has me beat. He figures he’s the guy that’s going to run Russell out of the league. Nobody runs me out, baby. I’ll leave when I get good and ready, and I just move in and give him a “Wilson-burger” which is the name we developed for stuffing a ball back down their throat.
