Posts tagged ‘Lakers’

Great Pistons teams such as the 88 through 90, ‘04 and 05′ teams have been tough, gritty, hardworking, no superstar type teams who thrive as the underdog.  They shocked the world back in ‘04. The Pistons; A team of so called journeymen and misfits, destroyed the star studded Lakers; The team with at least 4 Hall of Fame players.  People were saying Detroit would get swept, annihilated, killed.

Well the journeymen responded.  Outplaying the Lakers in 5 games, they did not trash talk and act big headed.  Instead they used adversity they faced as motivation.

I knew the Pistons would not win in ‘05.  Players thought they have arrived and expected to win.  There was no real motivation.

Fast forward to ‘08 and you have an interesting situation.  The Pistons are not expected to win, maybe not even expected to advance to the Eastern Conference Finals.  I love it.

Everyone is thinking about Boston and Los Angeles.  People know that Spurs won’t go away either.  Nobody is talking about the Pistons in the sense of “they are going to win”.  So Detroit are underdogs once again and I think with some fine tuning the Pistons could get back rolling and beating so called “better” teams.

But, the fine tuning is the problem. Back in ‘04, Detroit had Larry Brown.

A great coach who knew how to motivate; He constantly reminded the team they were 8 point underdogs, how the Lakers had many superstars, how Phil Jackson was going to outsmart them.  Players responded. Period. It worked, you can’t argue that.

In 2008, we are stuck with a coach who is about as inspiring as a wet towel.

He is doing quite the opposite to what Brown did.  He tells his players how great they are, and not to go all out in the regular season because we’ll have a tough Eastern Conference Finals.

Sorry Flip, you have taken away everything Detroit stands for.  Heart, hustle, emotion, teamwork, dedication and DEFENSE.  With the way Flip is coaching, I don’t think we are sure to get to the Eastern Conference Finals.

What inspired me to write this was:

1. Me hating on Flip to my friends.

2. A discussion in Sports Studies class we had about Self-Motivation.

Can the players self-motivate?  I sure hope so, it’s the only way they will win.   Because you know Flip can’t do it.  If you think about it, there is no greater time to be motivated as a player.

Everyone is ignoring, dismissing and writing you off.  Everyone is saying your too old or too young.  People are hating on your coach (myself included).

If the players realize this and use it as motivation, then true Motor City basketball will return; Hard, tough, gritty, un-selfish, team orientated defensive basketball.  That coupled with great ball movement and offensive rebounding from the bench and were good to go against anybody.

If they players can do this at the right time and not just turn it up for 1 out of every 2 games.  If they play consistently, look out for Detroit to do some real damage in the Playoffs.

And Fire Flip!

Conor Faulkner

Sheffield, England “Steel City”