When you lose a game, you wonder how you're going to come out of it

After 24 years as an NBA head coach, including 21 with the same team, Jerry Sloan still worries about getting a pink slip.

"I expect to get fired every day. I don't think that'll happen, especially now. I don't know – I guess I quit worrying about it, quit thinking about it as much as I did. I worry about it, but I don't go to bed at night and wake up in the middle of the night.

I wake up in the middle of the night over the players. Not about my job, like I used to. But as far as the team's concerned, you're always concerned because you lose a game and you wonder how you're going to come out of it. You may not come back out of it like you expected. (Players) may quit on you. They may do this. They may do that. I've seen so many things like that happen, and it's really frightening."

Keys to offensive efficiency

John Schuhmann has a good article over on NBA.com about the offensive efficiency of the Utah Jazz, who scored "115.6 points per 100 possessions" last season.

Schuhmann credits that efficiency to Jerry Sloan's system. According to his article:

At every NBA game, you will find several advance scouts (employed by other teams) sitting courtside, watching the coaches call plays and charting the ensuing action on the floor. That information is passed on to the scouts' own employer. This allows defenses, upon hearing the play call, to (figuratively) cheat defensively and take away what the offense is trying to do.

Sloan wants his opponent to hear his play calls.

The Jazz run a lot of their offense out of a one-four set, where the point guard brings the ball up, the two bigs are at the elbows, and the two wings are in line with the bigs, near the sidelines. There are plays where the first pass goes to the wings and there are plays where the first pass goes to a big.

And with each of those plays, there are a myriad of options that can be run on the fly, depending on how the defense is playing. So, if the defense hears Sloan make the call and overplays to where they think the ball is going, the Jazz will just counter it and get an open shot elsewhere.

"If you think you've stopped one thing," says new acquisition Brevin Knight, "we've got something else to go to that's off that same play."

Jazz guard Ronnie Price (above with Coach Sloan) says the structure allows players to "know where everyone's going to be on the court, so you know where to get guys the ball, and you know where guys are supposed to be. It's just making reads and common-sense basketball reads that you're taught to make when you're a little kid. It's just that we pretty much do it every time down the court.""

According to Coach Sloan: "They just can't go out on their own because nobody has any idea of what's going on when they do that. That makes it difficult for everybody."

Kyle Korver says spacing is a key the Utah's offensive success, explaining that the Jazz "run a lot of motion sets, not a lot of one-on-one, a lot of screens, a lot of cutting, a lot of movement. I'm not necessarily getting wide-open shot after wide-open shot, but I help create spacing, I keep the middle open, and that's where we're really trying to attack all the time. You need to have the people to space the floor for that to work, and that's where I come in."

Carlos Boozer boils it down to two elements:

"We have to set screens and we have to pass the ball. Basically, if you're willing to set screens and pass the ball, [the system] can work for anybody."

Holding every player to the same standard

Sixers forward Donyell Marshall, now in his 15th NBA season, had some nice things to say recently about Jerry Sloan, for whom he played from 2000-02:


"He taught me how to play. He taught me how to approach the game, how to eat and sleep; they were my best years, probably with my best numbers all-around. He challenges you; he helps to bring out your best. He taught me how to practice.

I've told our guys, Jerry doesn't double-team the ball. They asked me why, and I said he says: 'I like to see who's getting his butt kicked. When you double-team, one can blame the other. When you play straight up, you know right away.'

My first year there, I was coming from a team where you knew the superstars got treated a little better, and now I was playing with two who were basically in the Hall of Fame already [in Karl Malone and John Stockton].

My first month, we had a game where in the first 2, 3 minutes John and Karl weren't focused. Jerry called timeout, subbed them out, said, 'You're supposed to be our bleeping captains. If you can't come out and play right, sit your butts down until you can figure it out.'

The subs came in and played well. John and Karl came back in and played well, and I said to myself 'If he can do that to them, what can he do to me?' It makes the 15th man feel good to know they're not getting special treatment. And it makes everyone play harder."