An NBA basketball coach can control only so many things — his team’s preparation, who matches up with whom defensively, how long his players will practice the next day.
In all probability, Bulls coach Scott Skiles long ago abandoned any illusions he may have had that he can fully control how his team will play on any given day and how his players’ minds will process the victories and defeats.
But in Game 5 of the Eastern Conference semifinals against Detroit, he clearly enjoyed how mind and body worked together for his team in a rousing victory in a hostile arena.
“There’s a line where you have to be passionate and emotional out there but yet not let your emotions rule you at the same time,” Skiles said Wednesday. “We’re still learning that, and [Tuesday] night was a night we had that under control. We were ready, we were excited to play but yet not so excited we were throwing it all over the gym or nervous. We were in the right frame of mind.”
Emotionally, both teams have been all over the proverbial map in this best-of-seven series. After the Bulls lost Game 1, Skiles said partial fault could be applied to the fact that “everybody tells our guys how great they are” following the opening-round sweep of the defending world champion Miami Heat.
Earlier this week, Ben Gordon referred to the bandwagon effect sure to take hold after the team’s wins. And all series long there has been the continuing debate over which team is under the most pressure.
Gordon once again tried to shift the rather cumbersome burden of pressure onto the potentially sagging shoulders of the Pistons, saying history (no NBA team ever has come back to win a best-of-seven series after being down 3-0) is against the Bulls.
As for the bandwagon theory (see: Us Against the World), Gordon says he was not necessarily passing judgment either way.
“I just said it was typical of sports,” he said. “When things are going wrong, automatically people jump on or jump off a bandwagon. That really doesn’t surprise us much. We’ve been used to it our whole lives as athletes.”
Both the Bulls and Pistons also have pulled out the ever-popular “it’s-all-in-our-control” card, perhaps to bolster sagging confidence.
“You give credit to the Pistons, but a lot of the stuff that happened was we just weren’t playing our type of basketball,” Gordon said. “I think when we realized that, we got more confidence in knowing we haven’t played anywhere near our style of basketball, and once we do that, we can be successful. I think that has been the difference the last two games.”
Luol Deng gave the Pistons a similar out after their consecutive losses.
“They might have relaxed a little bit,” he said, “[but] that’s human nature. I think after we beat the world champs, we relaxed a little bit.”
The Bulls certainly looked confident and loose Wednesday in practice. Conveniently forgetting the morguelike atmosphere the day after the Game 3 collapse, they turned it into another mental edge.
“Even when we were down 3-0, the atmosphere is the exact same as it is now,” Gordon said. “This team does a good job of staying even-keeled.”
Conceding the difficulty in guaranteeing that approach, Skiles nevertheless preaches it.
“We talk about it almost every day, especially with our young guys,” he said. “For instance, as soon as we swept Miami, within a day and a half, [I] had messages and e-mails and people who would like tickets. It can turn into something if you’re not mentally ready to handle those kind of situations. So we’re always talking to our guys about the proper way to handle them.”
The proper way, he tells his team, its pretty simple.
“Real high-level professional people in any sport, they’re just immune to all of this,” Skiles said. “Nobody likes to be criticized, but they’re kind of immune to the criticism. Everybody likes to be praised, but they’re kind of immune to the praise. They go about their business.”
With each playoff game, that credo becomes obvious to his players.
“It’s never as bad as it is and never as good as you think it is,” Kirk Hinrich said. “Just try to focus on the task at hand.”
True enough but by now, Hinrich is smart enough to also know when to avoid excuses.
“I don’t think that [focus] was a problem [the first three games],” he said. “We just didn’t play well. I don’t know if there was some outside reason for that but the fact is, we just didn’t come to play.”
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misaacson@tribune.com
