Young Clippers play old-school defense

Sporting News, The, Dec 31, 2001 by Sean Deveney

It was just a few weeks before the start of this season, and Clippers coach Alvin Gentry was getting comfortable with his roster. Looking at his team, he saw some terrific athletes, some versatile offensive players, a young group of acrobats capable of scoring 110 points per night in hold-onto-your-hat fashion. There would be much running and dunking, he could see that. But he also could see there would not be much defense, and he was going to have to get used to that.

"If we are going to run, shoot it quickly and force teams to shoot it quickly, you're probably going to give up a lot of points that way," Gentry said at the time. "But that's the way we are going to have to try to play. That's the kind of team we have, if you look at our players. Obviously, we would like to be better defensively, but everybody's philosophy is to score 100 and give up 70. That's not realistic in the NBA. It's not realistic with us."

Gentry, obviously, is well-versed in Clippers history. In his first season as the team's coach last year, Gentry was able to get his team to play better defense, but traditionally, the Clippers rank among the worst defensive teams in the league. The Clippers were 28th in defense two years ago and 27th the two years before that. They ranked in the bottom third of the league in defense every season since 1993-94, when they were dead last, giving up 108.7 points per game.

In November, 13 games into the season, the Clippers seemed to be drifting back to those defenseless ways. The team was scoring points, as Gentry expected, but it was not keeping up offensively. The Clippers were 5-8 and giving up too many easy shots and open looks. They were allowing opponents to score 99.8 points per game. That's when Gentry and his staff made a slight adjustment.

"We kind of went backwards," Gentry says. "With the new rules, some teams are taking their defenses and making them more complicated. We had not been playing

zones, and it did not make sense to go that way, not with the athletes on our team. We took our defense and made it a little more simple."

Essentially, they eliminated all gimmicks, even simple double-teams. Gentry decided his best coaching move was to do less coaching. The defensive game plan has become this: Pick a guy, stick with him and don't let him score.

After that 5-8 start, the Clippers won nine of their next 12 and held opponents to 87.8 points per game in that stretch. That boosted them to 12th in the NBA in defense. They rank second in opponents' field-goal percentage and fourth in blocked shots.

"What is best about this is that everyone is held accountable," Gentry says. "Your guy scores, it's your fault. I know that does not sound like I am doing much coaching, but it has worked out best for us. The guys respond to that, they want to know what they are supposed to be doing.

"Before, there was a lot of uncertainty when we would rotate. Teams would catch us in the middle of a defensive rotation and get a pretty good shot on us. We'd try to run a guy out at a shooter too late. The players would be saying, `I was rotating to this guy, so it's not my fault.' So we figured, `Hey, let's just get rid of the rotations.'"

One reason the Clippers are able to simplify the defense is the presence of power forward Elton Brand. In the early part of the season, the team was double-teaming in the post often, something that was necessary last season, when the power forward spot was manned by Sean Rooks, Cherokee Parks and Brian Skinner. Considering the strength of power forwards in the Western Conference, the Clippers needed all the help they could get in defending the position. That meant center Michael Olowokandi had to defend a center while keeping an eye on power forwards, and it meant the Clippers had to run smaller players into the post to help, leaving perimeter shooters with open opportunities.

But Brand has earned his coaches' confidence in the post. Gentry is not afraid to match him against the likes of Tim Duncan, Rasheed Wallace and Chris Webber, one-on-one. That frees Olowokandi to be more of a presence in the paint, blocking shots and deterring penetration. Though his offensive numbers are mundane, Olowokandi has been an important part of the Clippers' defensive turnaround, averaging 2.1 blocks and 7.7 rebounds.

"This is the NBA, and we know that the NBA is marketed on offense," Olowokandi says. "You don't see a lot of stats on defense out there, and when you look at the big screens in arenas, you usually don't see defense. If you look at our team, we have a lot of good offensive players, but you can't win with just offense. So I just tried to bring the team some defense."

It has worked. Last week, trailing by 11 in Phoenix as the third quarter wound down, the Clippers began pressing the Suns, man-to-man, of course. Los Angeles went on to win the game with, of all things, defense. Surprised? So is Gentry.

"This is not at all what I was expecting," he says. "I knew there was a chance we could play good defense in spurts, but I thought we would have to win with our scoring, by keeping the tempo high and putting up a lot of shots. But this, the way we are playing, I can get used to this."