The Insider Documentary Series: The New Old Boys

[Music] olympia milano [Music] [Music] [Music] bob can you hear me what's going on there ciao my six years in italy was the best basketball time of my life i mean we were always together as a team and it wasn't like that in the nba what was the name of that restaurant that we used to go to [Music] antonio [Applause] [Music] [Music] boys [Music] hello mr armani and mr delorco invited me to come to milano when honestly i did not even think that i was coming back to um to work in europe but at the same time i was willing to have my own team again and you know when you sit when you sit in front of mr george armani it's something special in your life because you meet you meet one of the most impressive character of our you know century and we found let's say um a common agreement on how to structure the club the most important thing is the possibility to choose the people that you work with and heinz delaney and gigi bring to the team a lot of leadership when i say leadership i mean the ability to do the the right thing which most of most of the times is a simple thing under tremendous pressure for the teammates to know that they have these three people that uh in addition cha-cha that under pressure you know that they will do something that helps the team i think it relaxes everybody else and makes uh people like uh kevin panter or siobhan or vlado feel confident that they can do their things because they have this kind of support [Music] i also remember when i first got to italy you know which was so much different than the nba when we we used to have our pregame meal and i used to see everybody drinking wine and i'm like what the hell are these guys doing i mean we got a game tonight and then we go in the locker room and that's when i first saw dino he had a cigarette in his mouth no no no no no that responded this was bad minute what are yeah guys doing over here you guys smoking a cigarette in the game see you're in the locker room before a game tell mike closer to i don't see my brother don't see my son my nephews because i'm afraid to go to there and give him a praise we have here a thousand thousand and thousands of deaths even today you have more more than 600 deaths in italy and so is a tragedy well the dino you you you can't believe you talk about the pandemic mike knows about it you got 40 percent of americans that don't even believe in it and it's it's it's hit me hard because i had a cousin 40 years old in great health that uh about five months ago died from this virus and they won't even have on a mask and i'm like come on man a mass just put the mask on for five minutes to you know protect other people you know it's just it's just terrible over here in the united states right now i'm with you when you say what's the problem to put a mask when you drive the car you put the the the belt for the shoe yeah so i don't know why it's a problem to put a mess for just a few minutes yeah yeah [Music] i remember that was one of the first bob's first experience with european basketball and them throwing coins at us as we tried to go out and put our hands in the middle and then i think a big firecracker came off or one of those cherry bombs in the in the middle and bob read i thought bob that's it he's going back to the states they were warning us that this greek team was pretty good and they they beat us by what 31 31 after we got our ass kicked mike told me okay we gotta beat him by 32. i looked at mike and i said mike really have a hard time beating a high school team are you kidding me 32 get the hell out of here when we lost by 31 there i was really shocked but we start to think how to win the the the game back and uh as the coach peterson said in the meeting before the game we must score one point a minute during the week i usually talk to the players you know you can tell by talking with me i i communicate with the players i didn't say one word about anything and so before the game i told the team i said look it's the first time i've talked in seven days since the previous game so i said no no 32 you know no numbers i said if you're determined to wipe out the disadvantage i said don't be in a hurry it's a 40 minute game all you have to do is make up one point every minute i'm in line locker room that night i'll never forget it it was the most serious quietest locker room that you know i don't know if you remember this mike nobody said anything bob mcadoo said he said he said coach he said i saw the hairs on dino's arm standing straight up he said i knew we were ready to play you know and uh and everybody did something you know when you win a game like that has to do something they try to hold the ball the whole 30 seconds of the shot clock and then they try to get a shot like in the last five seconds to me that was strategically a bad [Music] milan didn't lose the opportunity to give us a hard night it was a big lesson for us and we had the traps after this game when we arrived to greece because everybody believes that we didn't give up we didn't give in that game our best always you have to try our your best and don't stop playing and don't stop trying and we take this lesson from these kids these guys [Applause] [Applause] europa was very funny after the game you know uh gets to me and on any and he slaps me in the back damn we we did it you know and i said i said bob i said it's a miracle and he said what he was he got mad at me he said what what do you what do you say that and he said he said we were all convinced why and he said well we we saw that our coach was so calm the whole week because i didn't talk you know so so you know just sometimes it's better not to say anything so you know that was my job let me tell you that was the most satisfying victory of my whole basketball career one game if you think about it if it went different we would have never had you know the grand slam in 86 88 we wouldn't we wouldn't have won that we wouldn't win the italian championships it was all blown up problems [Music] my [Music] this year games with real was very special for for us because first of all i think it was the last game where we had the 700 people in the in the arena before they shut down everything so we we felt a little bit like playing home again i mean there are big games every time you play a team like madrid it's always special especially on my side i live with them for six years i have a wonderful memories of that time but at the same time you you want your team to be in the top on the top means beating the the best teams madrid is one of them [Music] records between these teams and it's a 14-win streak for real madrid you have to go back more than 10 years to the last time that milan got a victory [Music] [Applause] real madrid a real [Music] experienced team you know the whole world knows who real madrid is they've been together for years uh coached really well you know pretty good players you know they've been winning for years and they speak for themselves i don't really have to say too much about real madrid you know you just say their name and most people know who they are but uh like any other team they're beatable everything for milan is beyond the three-point line delaney off the missed shot came down in some paint ankle twist to his knee which that left leg as he comes down oh yeah it is the left ankle [Applause] [Music] for me it was kind of frustrating because uh i have been dealing with a previous injury for i think the previous four weeks before that game and the madrid game like i talked to kevin before the game and he was like asked me how i felt and i finally started to feel pretty good with my previous injury i knew it was a pretty severe ankle injury and i knew i would have to miss some time and how important early it is in the season for us to get wins and we were just starting to get a good rhythm coming off a preseason and with a couple other injuries you know it was really frustrating for me [Applause] we weren't playing well we were losing in the first in the first half the first quarter i think we only scored like 18 points so we were not fluent they were making shots they were playing better than us three makes the three and that three-point weapon that is the calling card of real madrid in recent years we were down real star scoring a lot from three points so we were in a difficult moment um you know zach going to challenge tavares and you know it was a great block by tavares by the same time i think it was a key play for zach and i think it was a key player for all of us to show that we're not scared um we're going to attack no matter what we're going to try to be the aggressors in every situation playing against him is always a challenge but at the same time you need to know that the you have to put him in the position that he's not comfortable i think taking him out of the basket helps your offense cha-cho front deep [Music] rodriguez comes up with it oh beautiful crossover drive reverse layup and that is pretty cha-cho was tremendous he led emotionally the team when i remember the atmosphere was not great between the first and the second half he was saying hey come on we can we have time to be back i mean he was talking he was leading the team for sure you feel when you play your former team you you want to show that you are still a good team also after that you left them and you can still be successful also without them [Applause] i think that you know in the clutch time he found a way to create shots for himself and for you know his teammates that is uh you know when he's at his best his best is clutch time so i think in that game the third and fourth quarter was really sergio at his best so rodriguez have to pull up for three works around shakes bakes off the back four cha-cho [Applause] rodriguez said let me show you how it's done big fella working up top off the dribble against thompkins and siobhan shields comes up trumps we finish in the right way let's say uh chacho had a couple of three points up shot very important siobhan got this three-point shot on the on the wing very very important milan can breathe a little bit as we hit the two-minute warning crunch time is on us cha-cho on the dribble works against compatso still working against compatso the best thing about that shot i think is how decisive it was to take it the shot after he missed the the previous one it's not easy i got a thanks to chacho because he believed on me you know it passed me twice the ball i mean the second one was was in so i felt pretty good from chacho to marisskini and that is the dagger you know in the playground we call that two for a dollar um in fact that he was able to get you know two shots in one possession and then you know he stepped up and knocked the second one down and you know for us that was almost like you know calling game and this is one they've earned and they've worked hard for i think that uh the key for a very good season from sergio has been to have malcolm here because now they can share the minutes they can share the load they can share the responsibility they can also play together in that specific game malcolm got injured after three minutes so i think he showed us that you know you know in a tough night we didn't have kevin panter vladimir so uh you know he he basically refused to lose that game and tried everything possible and it was a very special i know what it means for him to perform a high level against his former teams teams what he won what is very well remembered so to show i think himself and everybody that is still the player that he's been for many years i think it's always important you're the mvp you you've been the heart of the team in the second alpha and with something special to play against the reality and win against your former team yes we are very happy for for the fans for everybody we are working well but today big news at home and we're going to have another child a mini chacho so i'm very happy i want to thank my wife for the credit for the great work that she's doing and happy birthday anna tomorrow 31 ciao [Music] [Applause] [Music] we're lucky because our players have a winning character they are all all all of them have won we have people who have water experience winners and now it's up to us to find a way to play together and you know defend and share the ball of fanshawe [Music] when marco delaney got injured after few minutes in a game versus real madrid you know we are never happy because injuries is still something that touch all of us but we i knew exactly we knew exactly that our strength is activate our process to come back as soon as possible the first two weeks was only pool and then kovic hit and they shut the pool down so we couldn't do the pool and then we had the kova scare with the club where you know we had to stay in the house for a couple days so so this was my very first day back to practice so i had to miss that week as well and you know i had a shorter time to come back but it ended up working out justino did a good job you know the other trainers manzo that i was working with um they they made sure they had a plan for me to get back and when i got back i felt good in these days to be 33 or 34 is like 20 years ago to be 28 because we're are better doctors better physiotherapists we have more time and better structure to help these players to recover still the high number of games is on one side exciting for the players because they practice less but at the same time there are more injuries with respect to 20 years ago i think compared to what it was in the old days i think that the favor we got more games brought us to a situation where everything is checked also to have some turnovers and to understand who is better that you know rest during a certain game so we can really adjust and being flexible at this point is a huge huge point [Music] i think but that time was harder now we have a lot of facilities to to be playing longer we had the experience and that's a thing that is helping us we may don't have the energy the full energy all the time but the experience helped to to create a better atmosphere when i think to these players like kayak hines chacho rodriguez gigi da tome maybe i can see a part of a legendary olympia toughness players like mike d'antoni bob mcadoo managing and there are many similarities in between these players oh you know it's a everybody thinks that you're old me mike bob roberto it was over 30 36 37 beside the experience i think the most important thing at that age is how you practice how strong you practice because when you're young 20 25 26 god gave you everything when you arrive in 38 39 you must understand which are your limits [Music] everybody was thinking that we were at whole team this is the last game and nobody everybody thought that they were dead and so no chance so in that occasion you find somebody inside of you of your mind especially and so we could find a we could do a great game for us for me it was very tough to play against the italian team milan especially because the tactic by the good very good coach and by the aggressive game aggressive aggressive aggressive and uh at the end we didn't lose by 30 points 25 it was a close very close game maybe they were mentally more strong than us maybe maybe i only remember one mistake you made the championship game against maccabi we at the end of the game i get the ball at the top of the key and i see you breaking toward the basket and i i get it to you and you went in for a unbelievable wide open layup and you missed it so they had a chance to come down and win the game but i said dino no yeah sure sure it's my night my nightmare you know and i think the last shot though was jumpsuit who took the badge to uh took the only shot they didn't really attack [Applause] we were like a family in that time you know jealousy everybody was thinking about what's the best for the team we had our problem was the coach he didn't understand anything about basketball but anyway you cannot have everything you know i i have to change the chapter in my book okay number one i i love you guys take care take care take care mike take care guys okay so take care bye-bye all right see you later [Music] well first of all i made a big mistake okay i i shouldn't have retired right i was i was just 51 years old and uh you know if i had it to do again i would have stayed but i was um i was very tired i was really burned out i was doing a lot of other things like television uh publicity uh you know things like that hey gang we are chattanooga it was a smash success you know the everybody was imitating the ad the the young kids the the comedians uh the imitators and so i think i said this is a good time you know you know i always say it was my biggest mistake but i was sincere when i did it you know i i thought i was doing the right thing but you know looking backward you know we we all would have done things differently you know but you always want to leave something for the next coach if you can do that and i and i left frank of the best team in europe but it was almost a natural thing because i just changed the name but my my rule my relationships with the players was almost the same ma i am very proud remembering that in that season we were i don't know if the first map for sure one of the first offensive teams of the sea of europe [Applause] [Music] [Applause] is and then after the game at the press conference someone asked me and bob do you think you are the two best team of europe and i remember that together we said i don't know about macabe for for us for sure anifa mike d'antoni torna milano las cuatro helena [Music] foreign [Music] milan actually was the basis of a lot of the things that i try to do as a coach and the experience i had with the olympia milan milano olympia team was off the charts and the thing that was created in the time that i was there been part of was the culture of connectivity and how we just banded together after losses after wins and how we just enjoyed each other for for 10 years and everything i do i can reference back to what happened to me as a player than as a coach and the organization the society that always backed me the coaches the players and just the the feeling of being connected with an unbelievably great organization great players and the ability to be able to have success i try to recreate in every job i do the the characteristics just not really specific the connectivity just the the only specific characteristics is just the love of of your teammates the love of uh the people above you and how you treated people and how you dealt with them day to day and those are things that i'll try to carry on as a coach okay so they want to create the advantage in the very first part of the possession okay so number one transition defense is a big kick we need to get back quickly we need to pick up the ball high and communicate on their drags second thing they shoot a lot of threes shoot a lot of threes means that we absolutely must box out and keep them to one shot per possession then third thing offensively as we saw as you will see again in this clips they're aggressive they want to force turnovers so it's paramount that we start on one side of the offense and we go immediately to the other side if we want to force the issue on the strong side we might have problem especially at the beginning of the game use the short roll use the pick and pop but go to the second side okay and once you swing the ball to the second side you can get anything you the defense will give up to you okay so these three things transition defense rebounds patience on offense are three things that you have you have to keep in mind for 40 minutes okay uh now i'm pretty good i'm not still not 100 yet but uh i'm getting there starting to feel good i'm definitely happy to be back playing getting back to my natural form it's been pretty fun so they haven't won here we haven't won here in 20 years okay well yeah we need to change that today the present is macabee in my opinion it will be how can i say a decisive point of the season for milan because if milan win puts him itself probably with solidly in in for the run of the playoffs coach it's been 33 years and 11 games since milan has won here in tel aviv against maccabi 33 years 33 years did it should be about time is it time for milan to beat mccabe tel aviv here well i i don't know it's always uh it's always difficult to play here even without the crowd you know they're a very good team they're also i think not happy the way they have uh dropped a few games so we will find a very hyper motivated team so yeah but it's always i think every time you take the court um you have a chance in the euro league so let's see thank you very much macabre is going to be a big game for us this is a you know a do or die game so you know every win is uh is is necessary for us um you know especially when on the road um you know for the playoffs you know part of this project and the part of reason why we're all here is to change you know uh the culture to change the environment so if we're able to you know be the first team you know to to win in maccabi um in such a long time then i think that'll help put us in the right page and the right path for where we want to go we know it's very hard to get at that point that you are consistently winning we know it's very difficult but we know our club has a lot of history behind we want to put the you know the responsibility to to to honor them we can focus now on 40 minutes of action while our referee gets ready to step into the center circle with this round 11 clash between olivia milano and maccabi television well when you play maccabi uh for sure you have to focus on on their perimeter players you know and we put a lot of emphasis in that game to defend their tree of guards will be king bryant and dorsey i think in that game malcolm did a very good job you know putting the right pressure but also the other guards and so the first thing you focus on you think about their main strength and you try to take away that strength rodriguez little behind the back pass to heinz who returns the favor when you have games like you are playing well then you are struggling and then you get back on the top and and you know and you are feeling sure about what you are doing everything's coming easier the the confidence was there you know it's it's really important for us to to get those road wins so you know we try to come out with energy but as well as being composed you know tried to start the game in the right way and i think it carried us that momentum through the game now here's the mismatch delaney against otello hunter delaney rises for the three got it are they too desperate for a win will begin deep three got it [Music] shields guarded so closely by calario who causes the turnover a team like maccabi when you lose in that moment like five six games very close now if you get to the end of the game that you are still close you know the losing start to affect you and so the idea was we want to get to the end you know with an opportunity to win louie was down four with i'm not sure how many seconds is left and the only thing i remember was i let it go and he cut my leg and i'm falling forward but i still kind of look up and then the pole went in and the first thing i thought was let me just make the free throw could tie the game up and push the overtime and then got the overtime and took care of business in overtime hunter has not yet missed a free throw uh i've been making shots like that my whole career from the time i started so there's nothing new for me i'm so used to defenders constantly constantly being in my face with a hand with a hand so it's something i just see over and over over my whole life so for me it's just something i i just got extremely good at contest all night between those two will begin let's fly with a three if it goes it's over so we'll get five more minutes to separate tonight's two teams here in this round 11 clash you scored the end of regulation makami 70 milan 70. makabi up two here's chop cho with the ball in his hands finds delaney back to chacho rodriguez keeps his dribble alive shot clock running down d3 bro nothing but net [Music] i had a situation uh where i had a shot i think to go up one and uh wilbur ken was defending me and he smothered in me and i think i went to a shot that i don't normally work on and i had i was a bad shot i ended up shooting a layup that you know wasn't you know normally something that i would do so that was something that stuck in my mind and honestly after i missed that shot i was like that could have possibly cost us the game 31.9

seconds left you can't beat us that's impossible here's the mismatch now it's hines wubbagee gets in the lane and he's fouled so uh when you know they missed the free throw and we had an opportunity i wasn't passing the ball macabee up a penny with 14 seconds left i had will bacon on me again he's smaller than me and my only thought was get to one of the spots that i'm most comfortable with and then a move that i do every day in practice and that i work on it's off the mark and milan win here in tel aviv on the back of a jump shot from malcolm delaney it was fun but it was also bigger for the club because it was something you know they haven't done as a club in a while so that was you know even more exciting [Applause] having a six-week injury like that and i did no cardio for five weeks and then we had macabe so you know i kept my weight down i ate the right way uh i followed the instructions of our trainers and i put myself in a situation where in a macabe game like that i could be in at the the last shot and i still was confident enough to take the shot so i felt good enough to to play at a high level well coach it's been 33 years 33 years since vlan has won here in tel aviv what was different about this year well you know it went down to one possession you know i think kevin panther made big shots but everybody played his uh with their heart it's not easy kyle is this a win of character more than anything else uh definitely i mean what a game i mean overtime game um on a row you know versus mccabe you know the first time we've won in here in 30-something years um but this is what it's going to take for us to win games especially road games especially this year in your league it's all character and this is a big character win congratulations thank you thank you very much thank you bye-bye stay safe we understand the situation i mean the this pandemic is something that um you know nobody really has the answers for um you know but the only thing we can possibly do is control what we can control um we understood that we have to be flexible um in every situation in every moment so all we can do is just stay ready continue to work hard and continue to control the things that we can possibly control the city has been you know devastated with you know so many you know so many deaths and so many illnesses of covet one of the hardest of the whole entire world so if we can you know help to give you know you know some positivity you know to the city um you know to the people to the city to the fans of the club you know um you know with our play in basketball um that's definitely one of our main goals you know do great things you know for the city because the city and the people of the city deserve it [Music] a you

2021-04-01 21:23

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