Motivation Stories, Three-Point Shot Drills, and Opportunistic Cutting

Do 'rah, rah' speeches before games change anything? What personal or professional conversations changed the game for you? 

Screenshot from MasterClass, Coach Krzyzewski

Coach K talks about addressing Olympians in the US - LeBron, Kobe, the best players in the world. He explains that on August 24, 2008, they'll be playing for the Gold Medal. You'll put your right hand over your heart during the Anthem and think about the one person who did the most to get you here. He said that tears came to some players' eyes when the moment arrived on August 24th in Beijing. 

I spent three months as a fourth year medical student in 1980, doing rotations at National Naval Medical Center, Bethesda. I accompanied fellows (advanced trainees) practicing medicine and got 'specialty' experience in Hematology-Oncology and Gastroenterology. I went to "Morning Report" daily and subspecialty patient conferences. Inside baseball...

The Chief of Medicine, Leon Georges "The Shark" summoned me to his office. I'm a nobody, incidental to the process. I walk in to an all-white (deck, bulkheads, overhead) office and meet the 6'7" Captain Georges. I have no idea what I've done. Captain Georges explains that he has "high expectations for my performance" next summer as an intern. "When you start here..." I explain that I had applied to Portsmouth Naval Hospital in Virginia. "When you start here..." That was motivation for expectations and the unexpected ten years at Bethesda.

As a freshman, I was groomed to be a defensive player. Final game of the season, Coach Kelley tells me I'm covering a kid who's averaging sixteen points a game. "Deny him the ball, deny him the drive." I'm on him like a cheap suit, a ball of sweat by the end of the game. He scored two points. I have no memory of whether I scored. 

Sophomore year, we won a sophomore game in the afternoon and get hammered in the evening JV game. 90-45 or something like that. We get pressed and run on and we're dead. The coach makes us run for the entire next practice...laps, sprints, laps. No basketballs. Bad coaching. Demotivating. Motivators connect and improve. Conditioning and punishment differ. Remember the good and the bad. 

Before senior season started, Coach approached me saying, "you're going to start this season...because you earned it." 

After a horrible overtime, home, two-point loss to the defending State Champions, Coach Lane held a postgame 'conversation' for 45 minutes. He reamed us out, not for losing, but for not believing. "The only reason you lost was that it said LEXINGTON on their shirts. We will never lose to them again." Palpable doubt stung far more than defeat. We played them twice more that season, crushing them 70-52 on the road. 

I had never started a varsity game before our senior season. I played thirty-six minutes in the Sectional Final...against LEXINGTON.  

He wasn't wrong. You are only as capable and as good as you believe you are. 

As a middle school assistant, I had overseen a rout where our opponent destroyed us. Worse, we quit physically and emotionally. The head coach asked me to address the girls. I said calmly, "You let yourselves get pushed around without responding. That's unacceptable. How you play the game is how you live your lives." 

Six months later one of the girls came up to me, saying, "that 'how you live your lives' really got to me." 

Share messages that resonate. THINK. We never know when a message might change someone's future. Nothing empowers more than, "I believe in you." 

Lagniappe. Make more threes. 

Lagniappe 2. Cut opportunistically. Celtics set up in a "horns-like set" and Smart enters the ball to Brown. Tatum sets a backscreen for Smart and releases to the basket for an urgent cut. Watch how the defense gets confused and Tatum opens. Screening is opportunity.