And, just like that, “they’re not gonna rook us” enters the NBA’s all-time
lexicon.
Memphis’ first-year coach, David Fizdale, surely wasn’t looking to say something
memorable when he sat down following the Grizzlies’ Game 2 loss to the San
Antonio Spurs last week. He was an angry, frustrated coach, whose team had
battled all game long, gotten close, but come up short in the end. And Fizdale
blamed the game’s referees for much of that shortness: his team had shot 15 free
throws total, while the Spurs’ Kawhi Leonard got to the foul line 19 times by
himself.
Worse, to Fizdale, the Grizzlies weren’t rewarded for their aggressive inside
play.
“First half we shot 19 shots in the paint and we had six free throws,” Fizdale
said. “They shot 11 times in the paint and had 23 free throws. Not a numbers
guy, but that doesn’t seem to add up. We don’t get the respect that these guys
deserve, because Mike Conley doesn’t go crazy, he has class, and he just plays
the game, but I’m not gonna let them treat us that way.
“I know Pop’s got pedigree,” Fizdale continued, and Game 2 was, to be precise,
Popovich’s 254th postseason game — and Fizdale’s second. “And I’m a young
rookie. But they’re not gonna rook us. That’s unacceptable. That’s
unprofessional. My guys dug in that game and earned the right to be in that
game. And they did not even give us a chance. Take that for data!”
And, just like that, he was gone.
Fizdale was soon relieved of $30,000 for his statements, but his point was made.
And the Grizzlies and their inspired crowd came roaring back to tie the series
at two after an epic overtime win Saturday.
No matter how the series turns out, though, Fizdale is immortal, his anger
distilled into a catchphrase that will live on among the all-time remembered
phrases in NBA history.
To make this list, a phrase or utterance must be unique, it must be to the
point, it must be understandable and it must have resonance that extends well
beyond the specific circumstances under which it was said. A brief but by no
means exhaustive list of such immortal lines would include:
“The ship be sinking.” (Micheal Ray Richardson, 1982, during his New York
Knicks’ late-season collapse.)
“Never underestimate the heart of a champion!” (Rudy Tomjanovich, in 1995, after
the Rockets won their second straight NBA title.)
“I’m Back.” (Michael Jordan fax announcing his return to the NBA, 1995.)
“Anything is possible!” (KG, post-Finals championship, 2008).
And, of course … “we’re talking about … practice”.
But Rick Pitino was in no laughing mood after his Boston Celtics lost a buzzer
beater to the Toronto Raptors in 2000, when asked how he planned to keep his
players’ spirits up.
“Larry Bird is not walking through that door, fans,” he said. “Kevin McHale is
not walking through that door. And Robert Parish is not walking through that
door. And if you expect them to walk through that door, they’re gonna be gray
and old. What we are is young, exciting, hard-working, and going to improve.”
(Postcript: they didn’t — at least not enough for Pitino to keep his job.)
And there was Phil Jackson, in his final presser as coach of the Los Angeles
Lakers in 2011, after being swept by Dallas in the Western Conference
semifinals. The Mavericks’ coach, Rick Carlisle, had opined that Jackson —
who’d insisted he’d never coach again — would return to the sidelines “after
meditating and smoking peyote in Montana.” The great L.A. sports anchor Jim Hill
then asked Jackson about it.
“Well, first of all, you don’t smoke peyote, that’s one thing,” Jackson said, to
guffaws from the Fourth Estate.
Coaches whose words live on are even more special.
Almost always being older than their players, they are supposed to be the ones
who bring a calm, reasoned approach to postgame remarks, having gone through
years and years of such news conferences, knowing how to work the media and
being able to think on their feet. And they almost always do.
But when they don’t … it’s magical!
“You do it to show your team, hey, we’re fighting; we’re not dead,” Rockets
coach Mike D’Antoni said Friday. “And then rally the troops back home. That’s
the good side of it. The bad side of it is, you’ve got to pay a lot of money
(after). And the NBA’s right. There’s always two flips to it. But, obviously,
something worked. Was it worth $30,000? Everybody’s got to make that personal
choice.”
Occasionally the moments are funny. Hall of Fame Coach Dick Motta was, in 1978,
coaching the Washington Bullets, then up 3-1 over the heavily favored
Philadelphia 76ers in the Eastern Conference finals. A reporter, jumping the
gun, was said to have asked Motta how it felt to be in The Finals? Motta, noting
his team had not yet reached The Finals, uttered the line, “the opera ain’t over
until the fat lady sings.” He’d heard that line a few weeks earlier, uttered by
San Antonio sportswriter and TV anchor Dan Cook during the Spurs’ semifinal
series with the Bullets, and repurposed it. (Motta recalled the circumstances in
a Q&A some years ago.)
Jackson was the best ever at using playoff news conferences to drive home points
of emphasis to the referees — the ones working the next game — by crushing the
refs who’d worked the last game. While with the Chicago Bulls, he sparred with
Pat Riley, who was then coaching the New York Knicks. No wallflower himself,
Riley said during a Chicago-New York playoff series that Michael Jordan got all
the calls; Jackson responded by saying that Patrick Ewing traveled every time he
touched the ball.
After Reggie Miller blatantly pushed off of Jordan in Game 4 of the Eastern
Conference finals in 1998, clearing himself to hit a game-winning 3-pointer,
Jackson said the final moments were “Munich, ’72, revisited,” referring to the
controversial (and, many in the United States still believe, illegal)
last-second victory by the Soviet Union over the U.S. men’s team in the gold
medal game.
In 2002, when his Lakers met the Sacramento Kings in the Western Conference
finals, Jackson went all in. He engaged in seemingly daily rants about the
Kings’ big men flopping against Shaquille O’Neal. After Game 2 of the series,
when Shaq got three charging fouls against him, Jackson basically questioned the
manhood of the refs working the game, which was in Sacramento.
“You’ve got to give some latitude to referees being in an environment like
that,” Jackson said. “It’s always a question, as to what type of a group you
send to a situation like Sacramento, where it’s a bandbox, where there are
intense pressures. I’m sure we’re going to see a stronger crew in L.A.”
Jackson was only following the time-honored tradition of the man many believed
was, until Jackson won 11 titles as a coach, the greatest ever to work the
sidelines — Hall of Fame Coach Red Auerbach, whose Boston Celtics won 11 titles
in 13 seasons. Auerbach received multiple fines over his years for his caustic
remarks to and about officials to the media, and was suspended for three games
in 1961 after being ejected in consecutive games.
The intent in all of this, of course — from Auerbach to Jackson to Fizdale —
is to plant a seed in the minds of the next group of referees, to have them
think twice before blowing the whistle, to put doubt and/or suggestions in their
heads. But if it is understandable from the coaches’ point of view, it
nonetheless feeds a narrative that all too many fans buy into easily — that the
officials are incompetent and/or cheating. The cheating, of course, only is
against their favored team, never for it.
There is an element of kabuki theatre in what the coaches say, too, but that
nuance is almost always lost on fans. And the Jacksonian rants took their toll.
Even if fans didn’t think the refs were cheating, they’d find secret
co-conspirators in the form of the broadcast networks, whose unyielding desires
to have longer playoff series clearly were passed down from the league to its
officials.
But with rare exceptions, Commissioner David Stern, who ruled with authority in
all matters involving his league, often had a lighter touch toward coaches who
fulminated postgame. The league didn’t want to overreact, knowing the pressure
that all coaches face in the playoffs, even as it knew the corrosive effect of
the constant carping.
As the game continued to focus on the talents of the players, and their
reputations continued to grow in the 1980s and ’90s, the league didn’t want to
draw attention away from the floor by issuing large fines and suspensions on
coaches. Stern’s successor, Adam Silver, has addressed the issue more subtly,
increasing transparency in how the league monitors its refs’ performance through
tools like the Last Two Minute report, and through making its Replay Center
referee and supervisor feeds available in every arena.
And, sometimes, we have to allow that coaches just lose it, and are genuinely
angry.
“In college,” Oklahoma City’s Billy Donovan said Thursday. “It happened in
college. Like Fiz, I had to pay for it, too.”
Playoff games are also different because the two teams know so much about one
another, leading to a lot more contact as players anticipate what their
opponents are going to do, and try to beat them to their favorite spots on the
floor.
“All the coaches do is sit around and watch tape,” Donovan said. “The players
know everybody’s plays and what they’re running. They know what’s coming. And
you’re trying to get every possible little advantage you can. And sometimes for
the officials, it’s really, really hard to officiate the games, and they try to
do their best job.”
There’s a reason the time between the end of a game and when the media can speak
with coaches and players is specifically called the “cooling off” period. Every
professional sport requires a physical and mental sacrifice that almost no human
is capable of giving. Having achieved that, these highly competitive people are
then put in conflict against one another, on a public stage, for several hours.
Emotions are scraped raw — especially in the playoffs, the culmination of
months, something years, of work and dedication. And then, just a few minutes
after being at that apogee, we ask the participants to summarize their emotions
and experiences. Most do it very well. Fizdale does it very well.
Most of the time.
“Your adrenaline is out of control,” D’Antoni said. “Either bad or good. Even
after wins. You’re tired and your emotions are raw. It has happened in the past
and it will happen again, because that’s just human nature.”
And, it plays well back home.
Fizdale is already a hero in Memphis (literally; look at this headline). He got
a standing ovation at FedEx Forum when he came out for Game 3 Thursday.
T-shirts, of course, quickly followed. And the Grizzlies shot 24 free throws in
Saturday’s win to San Antonio’s 17.
Meanwhile, the Bulls’ Fred Hoiberg thinks Isaiah Thomas carries the ball every
time down the floor.
Take that for data.
Longtime NBA reporter, columnist and Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Famer
David Aldridge is an analyst for TNT. You can e-mail him here, find his archive
here and follow him on Twitter.
The views on this page do not necessarily reflect the views of the NBA, its
clubs or Turner Broadcasting.
