It certainly was a highlight to attend practice and talk to all the coaches. I fish with retired Memphis Grizzly coach Barry Hecker and mentioned to him that I would like to attend a practice a while ago…he calls on Monday and says, We’re in on Tuesday
Many of the players/ coaches came up and talked with us. Spent most of our time talking to Terry LaComb and Quincy Lewis. Just some quick observations.
Coach Rose showed up after stretches, Nick Emery is a team captain and ran the warm ups. Terry Nastif runs the offense and worked with 3 deferent squads (keeping the blue team, starters intact).
Quincy worked the defense and a great deal on pic and roll and iso plays. NBA coach took notes and gripped every time our defense allowed a player come down the middle. Really worked the big men defending guards one on one driving from the top of the key…NBA Coach really liked that.
Yeoli Childs’ ankle is really sore, worked the bike, 50/50 he plays at Portland. Dastrup ran with the Blue team, NBA Coach," Why have we not seen that guy, he’s got some game". Go figure.
Offense, Terry worked high pics with guards setting the pics. NBA coach gripes that a big man has to set the pic so that the defense has to run their big out, makes for tons of rebound opportunities and easy dunks. All of our bigs catch and dribble once to collect themselves, NBA calls it a big no-no, need to catch and shoot.
Beo did not look for his shot “ever” while on live action, NBA Coach pointed that out without any of my input. Frampton was aggressive and made numerous shots, too bad he was injured for so long, he would be helping a great deal right now.
NBA Coach, after practice, discusses with Quincy defenses allowing guys coming down the middle (allows the offense to throw the ball anywhere vs. forcing the offense towards the sideline, acts as a sixth man). I don’t know how much will it helps but it is being talked about so we will see. NBA coach pointed out that defenses that are reactionary always get beat vs. denying that first pass and making an offense do something other then what they want to do.
Got to shoot some with Mika. NBA coach worked Mika on footwork.
Practice was loose, the entire team has good comradery but NBA coach was shocked at how quiet it was, he is used to a lot of talk out there. Rose did not say 10 words all practice and it may be that the team takes after his quiet demeanor.
As far a Portland goes. Both Dastrup and Emery did not play last time, I expect both of them to play a big role in this game. For Portland, 6’8 Taylor had 20 points…Center Borreno had 10 rebounds on 12 total minutes. Those things can’t/wont happen in this game.
BYU has far more the fire power, just play solid defense and be patient on offense, make possession value a priority.