Bill Russell’s Latest Blog Entry

On the Warriors and Advice for Amare
Posted by Bill Russell on May 14, 2007, 2:45 p.m. ET

What The Warriors Need To Do
Now down 3-1 to Utah, the Warriors are in a bit of trouble, but like I said last time, when you are in distress, you don’t try to figure out what went wrong, you sit down and figure out what you do when you are playing at your best and then go out and try to do that. Who you’re playing is irrelevant. What you have to try to do is take control of the next game, similar to what we did in ’68 when we were down 3-1 to the defending NBA champions Philadelphia 76ers, the same team that had won a record 67 regular-season games the season before. We ended up winning the next three games of the series, two of them on the road in Philadelphia. As the player-coach of that team, I made sure the guys focused on the next game in front of them, that was it. I didn’t have any doubts that we could come back and win that series.

The Derek Fisher Factor

What guys like Derek do, they help create a comfort zone for the other players. We saw it in Game 2 when he was able to focus enough to play well and ended up making the big shot in overtime despite the health concerns with his daughter. As a result, Deron Williams doesn’t have to feel as responsible to carry the load. I wouldn’t call it a choke, but a lot of times guys get overwhelmed by the responsibility. When Fisher was out, Williams might have felt that he had to pick up the slack. He did when he scored 31 points. That is one of the psychological problems of being a good teammate, you have to think about how you help your team win. Williams is one of the key elements to the Jazz’ success. Boozer has performed so far as expected, but Williams contribution might be what puts them over the top in this series.

Rebounding: It’s Not All About Height

By averaging 25 points and 14 rebounds against the Warriors thus far, Carlos Boozer, who is 6-9, has been receiving a lot of national attention for his play, particularly for doing what he’s done as a perceived “undersized” frontcourt player. In my opinion, though, once you get past 6-9, it doesn’t make any difference what size you are, you can play with anybody. Like I was telling some people last week, when I was in college, with a running jump I could touch the top of the backboard because I was one of the world’s best high jumpers. But most rebounds are taken below the height of the rim. So if I jump up and touch the top of the backboard, there are no rebounds up there. In fact, when I was at my best, if I had to outjump somebody to get a rebound, that was the last line of defense. In other words, I was under duress. I hoped to never let it get to that where I had to outjump a guy. Rebounding is positioning and timing. That is why Bill Laimbeer and Paul Silas were both quite good at rebounding even though neither one could jump very high.

Amare Stoudemire’s Spurs Comments

A lot was written recently regarding Amare’s comments about the Spurs being a dirty team. Now, I don’t know what his reasoning was behind those comments without talking to him but I do know that some guys say things as a personal motivator. When I was playing, I never said anything about the other team, pro or con, because I didn’t care what they did. That was Red’s philosophy as well. I knew what I was going to do. The only time I would talk about the other team, if at all, was in our locker room to my teammates.

Sound off in the Boston Celtics Forums!