The black masks protecting Clippers coach Tyronn Lue’s mouth jumped as his eyes opened vast, the query so ridiculous and the reply so apparent that he couldn’t hold himself from cracking up.

“How completely different are the practices you participated in as a first-year participant in Los Angeles from those you’re working now in your first 12 months as Clippers coach?” the reporter requested.

“You making an attempt to get me in hassle?” Lue requested whereas laughing and repeating himself with slightly extra emphasis. “You making an attempt to get me in hassle, man?”

He laughed as a result of the reply is not any secret. Phoenix guard Chris Paul laughed when requested the identical factor. Clippers star Paul George too. Instances have modified.

Say the phrase “follow” to an NBA participant, coach or government in 2021 and also you’ll both get a chuckle or an Allen Iverson impression. If leaguewide tendencies had not already devalued the factor that makes one good, the NBA’s pandemic schedule has nearly eradicated it.

Say it to somebody like Kurt Rambis, and also you’ll hear them giggle too. The previous Lakers participant and coach and present group government was working a few of these practices that Lue was speaking about.

As a participant, practices with the Lakers have been brutal for Rambis, the whistle nearly at all times swallowed and the work seemingly never-ending.

“The idea and the premise was that follow was speculated to be more durable than the sport so the sport can be simpler,” he mentioned. “… Fouls have been hardly ever referred to as. You simply needed to discover ways to hold enjoying and soak up issues and if you obtained into the sport, issues can be simpler.”

With improved medical data, scientific developments and elevated monetary funding, priorities have modified. The purpose is to make it to the tip of the season wholesome. Practices, particularly the full-contact ones, may not be well worth the harm danger.

There’s a price. Some within the NBA level to the lower in follow as a purpose why video games typically look so rocky, and to an extent look so particular person. Defensive schemes that may grow to be more and more refined within the postseason don’t get the identical consideration with out frequent on-court group exercises within the common season.

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Coaches and gamers have needed to alter and adapt to new methods to remain sharp because the perceived worth of conventional follow continues to erode.

The Lakers, the league’s defending champions, held solely 5 practices between the beginning of the season and the All-Star break. Following a uncommon span wherein the group practiced two instances in three days, the Lakers have solely 4 extra cases on their schedule with two days off between video games.

“I positively do,” coach Frank Vogel mentioned when requested if he wished the Lakers practiced extra. “I feel the execution suffers when you may’t get reps in to work in your habits. And I’ve felt that with our group.”

Vogel has seen it damage his group in all points, together with the power to execute and play in rhythm off of each other, however mentioned he’s seen it most in transition protection.

He’s not the one one feeling it. The Clippers have held solely seven formal practices this season, like so many different groups within the NBA, saving their greatest for later.

“We use the video games as follow,” Brooklyn’s James Harden mentioned earlier than the All-Star sport. “… Crucial factor is being prepared as soon as the postseason begins.”

Whereas coaches would nearly unanimously agree that follow is one of the best ways to make sure that a group is at peak performance come playoff time, there are too many different components that organizations worth.

Former coach Jeff Van Gundy, one of many league’s most audible voices due to nationwide broadcasts on ESPN and ABC, has seen how practices have modified since he led the New York Knicks 25 years in the past.

Whereas there’s a little bit of a “in my day, we used to must stroll to high school uphill each methods” high quality in evaluating eras, they’re drastically completely different.

“Extra time spent on the ground, extra time, with extra contact, and extra repetitions. And it was extra aggressive,” Van Gundy mentioned of the previous technique to follow. “It wasn’t simply five-on-zero. It was extra drill work and extra bodily competitors, you understand? Yeah, I imply, it was simply extra. Extra can be the phrase. Extra typically. Longer. Extra aggressive.”

Van Gundy mentioned his practices may very well be as a lot as 40% dwell motion. That’s the sort of work the place gamers “make certain your ankles have been taped,” as Washington Wizards All-Star Bradley Beal described it, which simply doesn’t occur as typically anymore.

The foremost explanation why groups don’t follow as typically are tied to participant security with an elevated emphasis on well being and restoration by preserving groups off the court docket on days they do not play.

The Lakers’ follow formulation this season has been to carry one provided that there are two days off between video games. Groups nearly by no means follow after back-to-back video games and fewer groups are holding exercises if there’s solely in the future off between video games.

“We play each different day,” Beal mentioned. “It’s important to ask your self, ‘When do we have now time to follow?’”

With schedules crunched even tighter due to the pandemic-compressed offseason and 72-game schedule, groups have been compelled to re-evaluate how they deal with their time.

The Lakers have been superb at taking prolonged movie classes and changing them into on-court methods. Utah has taken particular person talent work and put gamers into small teams in an effort to get them much more linked. Philadelphia has thought-about combining practices and shootarounds into some type of late-afternoon combo on the day earlier than a sport.

Coaches consider the simplest approach to enhance a group is by repeating ideas and assignments in follow settings, making these actions and reactions second nature via repetition.

“How do the standard repetitions flip into habits as a result of on the finish of the day, you might be your habits,” Van Gundy mentioned. “And it’s a must to have higher habits than the folks that you just play towards.”

With strict each day testing routines and a world filled with stressors escalated by the pandemic, coaches are wrestling with how a lot they need to anticipate to get out of a follow in the event that they maintain one.

“I felt just like the emotional endurance and the psychological capability of your group given the state of affairs is simply completely different,” Jazz coach Quin Snyder mentioned.

That the Lakers have been capable of be among the many NBA’s greatest with primarily movie work is not any small achievement.

“Watching movie is boring,” Van Gundy mentioned.

Groups actually could be constructed greatest on the follow court docket and never having time collectively there could be a deadly flaw. After his group was eradicated in Recreation 7 of their playoff collection final 12 months by the Denver Nuggets, then-Clippers coach Doc Rivers paced within the again hallways ruefully remembering how accidents and COVID-19 saved his group from holding full practices.

Rivers, who persistently mentioned he valued rested legs over follow time, once more pointed to the dearth of follow time final season when requested concerning the subject earlier than the All-Star sport.

“I assumed it killed us final 12 months,” he mentioned. “… We by no means practiced.”

But when everybody agrees that follow is essential, why aren’t groups doing it extra?

“It is shifted huge time from after I got here into the league, practising just about day by day,” George mentioned. “… Now, I am on a veteran group, a group that has an opportunity to win. We won’t have any accidents, any setbacks. It is positively a distinct league from the one I got here in at.”

Rambis mentioned gamers of his technology knew solely what they knew. With extra data on this period, priorities shifted, particularly for the groups with legit postseason aspirations. Gamers can’t enable you win within the postseason in the event that they’re not on the court docket.

“One harm can unravel the whole lot,” he mentioned.

So groups are left to select, with most hoping that their gamers can determine all of it out on the fly, that their expertise over time on the court docket can substitute for a scarcity of follow.

It’s not all completely different, with stars like George saying plenty of the identical issues as NBA lifers like Rambis.

“I at all times felt good practising as a result of I felt I used to be conditioning my physique and my thoughts throughout practices to go exhausting and put my physique via plenty of stuff. So when it got here to the sport, it was straightforward. I at all times felt video games have been simpler as a result of we practiced so exhausting,” George mentioned. “I might see each protection, see the whole lot unfold in follow so when it got here into the sport, I knew the way to play via stuff and manipulate offenses and manipulate defenses. There are some execs and cons to it.

“It is a tremendous line. I feel groups ought to nonetheless have practices. However there is a tremendous line of how a lot you wish to follow all through a 12 months.”

And it’s no joke making an attempt to stroll it.

This story initially appeared in Los Angeles Instances.