Raptors learn to bank on accountability
Everyone on same page

Bruce Arthur
National Post

Tuesday, October 21, 2003

TORONTO - Vince Carter screwed up, just for a second. Next thing
anyone knew, New Jersey Nets sharpshooter Kerry Kittles had let an
open three-pointer go. And on the Toronto Raptors bench, in front of
which this mistake was occurring, new Raptors coach Kevin O'Neill did
not explode, because Carter had already accepted responsibility for
the mistake.

"He knew the moment it left Kittles' hand," said O'Neill after
practice yesterday at the Air Canada Centre. "I mean, he knew. These
guys understand what we want to do defensively, and what their
responsibilities are."

But in Saturday's exhibition loss to the Nets, how did O'Neill know
his star player knew?

"He said 'My fault' before the ball left Kittles' hand," said
O'Neill, clearly pleased he knew. "He just ran by and said 'My
fault.' It's understood."

Last season, when the Toronto Raptors wandered lost through the
wastelands of a 24-58 year, accountability was probably shorthand for
how much money guys had in the bank. It has been noted before, but
times appear to have changed.

"Accountability is huge, because that's the way you have success,"
said veteran forward Michael Curry, who will be one of the team's
leaders in the locker room. "No one likes to be called out, or no one
likes to make mistakes. But if you have a system in which you have
accountability -- and it's not just defensively, it's offensively
also -- it's not always about makes and misses.

"It's about being in the right spot, making the extra pass, setting
the pick when you're supposed to -- when you have accountability, and
you don't do something, you know you didn't do it, and everybody on
the team knows."

Last season, when a Toronto Raptor would throw up an ill-timed,
errant three-pointer, or chase a pick-and-roll the wrong way, then-
coach Lenny Wilkens would often look exasperated, but his players
would keep playing.

Now, with a deeper bench and a tougher boss, errors will be rewarded
with time on the pine. In Friday's win over the Denver Nuggets,
forward Jerome Moiso had seven points and a team-high seven rebounds
by halftime, but due to several missed defensive assignments, he
barely played after intermission.

"Hopefully it starts by the coach holding to his words, where if you
don't follow what you're supposed to do, you don't play," Curry
said. "That's the big thing. That's all a coach controls is who he
puts on the court, and how he wants the team to play. He doesn't
control people's contracts, he doesn't control other issues."

One thing that O'Neill does control is that the roles on this team
have mostly been established. Curry is the situational starter,
Carter the star, Lamond Murray -- the scorer off the bench, Milt
Palacio -- the change-of-pace point guard, Chris Bosh -- the electric
bench forward. Everybody knows what to expect and therefore, what is
expected of them.

"It's nice when you know what your job description is," said forward
Murray, who is often the team's second offensive option, after
Carter, despite coming off the bench. "You know what you've got to go
out there and do every night, instead of being mixed up every night --
one night you start, one night you come off the bench, one night you
get 15 shots, next night you get no shots. Then it's helter skelter,
and the team suffers. So if you know what to expect, you can prepare
for it and perform better."

"[O'Neill's] got everybody on the same page," said point guard Alvin
Williams. "It looks like everybody's happy to play for him."

And internally, in film sessions and practice and games, O'Neill has
been pleased with the veteran leaders -- "Alvin and Antonio [Davis]
and Vince and Mike Curry, they're good veterans -- who help police
the squad. Screw up on this team, and you will hear about it and be
expected to do better.

"Accountability is pretty simple," Curry said. "It's almost like
rules of society. You speed, you get a ticket

***

To live and die by the system

Kevin O'Neill, the new head coach in Toronto, stresses defence. His
players will ignore the system at their own risk

By MICHAEL GRANGE
Wednesday, October 29, 2003 - Page S1

It was a meaningless exhibition game; except in Kevin O'Neill's
world, every moment counts.

Just ask Jerome Moiso, a free agent and first-year Toronto Raptor. He
was enjoying his best showing as a Raptor in the first half of a game
against the visiting Denver Nuggets, showing glimpses of the active
rebounder and slashing scorer the club hopes he can become.

But he found himself watching the second half from the bench.

His transgression? A missed a defensive assignment -- in this case
trapping the ball handler against the sideline when his man went to
set a screen. The dribbler escaped and went on to score an easy
basket.

The penalty? A seat on the bench.

Welcome to the National Basketball Association, Kevin O'Neill style,
where excuses are welcome as sour milk, details are sacred and
surprises are for the other team.

The Raptors will start their ninth season tonight against the New
Jersey Nets at the Air Canada Centre, and O'Neill's job is to stop
the team's slide to nowhere.

He was hired in part because he's the opposite of what came before,
which was the never-ruffled, grandfatherly approach of Lenny Wilkens.

"Listen, we won 24 games last year," said the Raptors' president and
chief executive officer, Richard Peddie. "The record speaks for
itself, we didn't get the job done. Injuries contributed to that, but
[lack of] fitness contributes to injuries, and it was [general
manager Glen Grunwald's] and my assessment that we could be in better
shape and we could be better prepared. We were looking for someone
who was really hard-working, who was going to hold players
accountable and who was going to engage them.

"We were looking for a different style of coach, and he fit."

How the rookie head coach will manage in his first NBA season is
unknown, but what is known is that O'Neill will live and die by his
system. It allows no compromise, no deviation from the plan, and is
bolstered by an all-day, everyday, work week that helps explain how
he rose through the ranks from coaching high-school basketball after
graduating from McGill University to a head job in the NBA.

"Preparation puts you in position to be successful," O'Neill said of
his penchant for long hours. "I would feel terrible if I went into a
game and didn't know all the other team's plays by heart. If I can
tell our guys a screen and roll is coming before it comes, that gives
them a chance to be successful."

Already, during the course of seven exhibition games, the Raptors
showed an improved defensive intensity, allowing an average of only
80.8 points a game, the second best average in the league. The
Raptors were 19th in points allowed last season, while the Detroit
Pistons, for whom O'Neill was an assistant coach in charge of defence
the two previous seasons, ranked first.

Years of stalking the sidelines and watching game film have allowed
O'Neill to boil down defensive basketball to something he calls
the "the dirty 30," essentially everything you need to know about
playing defence against the best basketball players in the world, but
would never have thought to ask.

"Whatever play someone runs, it's going to incorporate certain
things," said Michael Curry, the veteran forward whom O'Neill brought
with him from Detroit to help preach his message. "You're going to
have pin-downs, post-ups, back-picks, cross-picks, pick-and-
roll . . . all plays have some of those, and what we do is use our
principles to decide how we're going to play those situations. We
don't prepare for specific plays, we play our principles."

It's a conservative approach that doesn't necessarily yield gaudy
statistics. In O'Neill's world, steals and blocked shots are nice,
but not if they are as the result of ill-advised gambles. Instead, he
wants his team to play the percentages, do the same thing time after
time, and, over a long season, the results will be felt by degree.

"If you stay solid and make guys shoot contested shots, then each
quarter the team's shooting percentage generally drops," Curry said.

It's the kind of defensive approach that makes Jerome Williams, a
hustling player who chases the ball, a potential liability because
the system works best when all five players know what the others are
doing. A starter much of last year, Williams has yet to work his way
into O'Neill's rotation.

Conversely, it can make Vince Carter, often maligned for his defence,
an asset because it doesn't require him to stop the ball but takes
advantage of his ability to cover ground, tip shots and deflect
passes.

"Everyone in this league can, and likely will, get beat 1-on-1,"
Curry said. "Our whole defensive system is built on help, and ours is
built not just on double-teams and leaving another guy open, but
having guys be able to help and then recover back to his man, and
Vince can really do that because he can really cover a lot of ground."

O'Neill has found a willing audience if the sweaty T-shirts and
number of players lingering around for extra work after practice are
any indication, and he has the advantage of inheriting a team with
nowhere to go but up.

"I think I know the game," he said. "I try to simplify the game, I
have a way the game should be played and I design the way the game
should be played around players' talents."

And those who don't have O'Neill's system figured out when the ball
goes up tonight? They can find a seat.