“The outdated eye within the sky don’t lie.”
It’s a line Jacque Vaughn’s faculty coach used throughout his youthful taking part in days, one Vaughn used to clarify why he regularly makes use of an iPad to instruct his gamers throughout timeouts in-game.
One of many starkest variations between Vaughn and his predecessor Steve Nash as Nets head coach is the usage of timeouts. The place Nash would typically let one bungled play snowball into an prolonged run for the opponent, Vaughn calls a timeout instantly if the blunder is obvious sufficient.
And he’s utilizing an iPad in these instances to point out gamers precisely the place they go unsuitable, giving them a chance to speak by way of performs and make changes earlier than stepping again into the court docket.
“We didn’t have that beforehand,” mentioned Vaughn. “In order that communication, whether or not it was a clip guys needed to see at halftime that we talked by way of, I believe that’s the place the belief is rising: to have the ability to talk, to have the ability to ask questions, have a bit of psychological security the place you may ask and never be reprimanded and we attempt to determine this factor out collectively.”
The iPad has change into considered one of Vaughn’s teaching quirks, so much like Kenny Atkinson’s indicators from the sidelines earlier than the Nets dismissed him in Yr 1 of the Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving period. The gadget is useful as a result of, like his outdated coach mentioned, “the outdated eye within the sky don’t lie,” and gamers can’t argue if Vaughn factors out their errors in 4K.
“Guys clearly be taught in several methods — and after they see it on the iPad, it’s the reality,” Vaughn mentioned after the workforce’s 112-100 win over the Wizards on Monday, Brooklyn’s fourth win in a row and eighth in its final 9. “So we’ll really huddle round, pull the clip, be capable to visually see [the play], how we will get higher from it, what really occurred [and] not what you thought occurred, and never hurtful or dangerous emotions. We’re all simply attempting to determine it out.”
The Nets have clearly responded to Vaughn’s teaching type. After beginning 2-5 beneath Nash, the Nets are solely a half-game behind the Cleveland Cavaliers for the Japanese Convention’s No. 3 seed. The Nets have received 11 of their final 13 video games and are 15-7 since Vaughn stepped in as Nash’s alternative.
A lot of the workforce’s success is credited to Vaughn demanding everybody who performs minutes performs them laborious.
”Jacque’s made it very clear that when you’re not taking part in laborious sufficient, he’s gonna let you already know about it,” mentioned Irving.
The Nets have a protracted strategy to go. Their wins have come principally in opposition to center of the pack competitors and so they have struggled in opposition to groups thought-about reputable championship contenders. It’s all a part of the method for a Nets workforce angling to play its greatest basketball on the finish of the season.
“To start with we wish to be a linked group on each ends of the ground, and a number of these performs that you simply make, typically you simply gotta be there to guard your teammates,” mentioned Durant. “So as soon as we had that in our minds that any individual will get beat we’ve got to be there, any individual might need made a mistake on a swap or a again door minimize, we nonetheless gotta be there and I believe we been preaching that and the hustle performs include that and all people’s shopping for into it.
“That’s the hardest a part of the sport to be trustworthy, is to proceed to persistently do that each single night time, and that’s what the good groups do: They dial it up each night time. Even when the offense isn’t working, you may nonetheless be a linked group on the defensive facet. So we’re constructing somethings, and we’ve gotta proceed to maintain wonderful tuning.”
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