Snyder: Playoffs are fun for coaches
The Utah Jazz beat the Thunder 115-102 Saturday night to take a 2-1 series lead, and Jazz coach Quin Snyder talked about his responsibilities and his team’s focus as Game 4 approaches Monday night.
The Jazz seemed initially discombobulated when the Thunder went with Patrick Patterson at center in a superspread lineup.
Snyder: “I think it’s something we tried to clean up during the game. Just based on fouls and substitution patterns. Those things happen. We’ve dealt with that over the course of the year, as far as people trying to pull Rudy (Gobert) out a little bit. It’s probably, for us, we’ve felt like not to overreact to those things. They’re also legitimate things that happen in the game and you have to talk about ‘em.”
How much are playoff adjustments at the core of coaching?
“There’s a lot. It’s one of those things people can focus on and try to look at. All coaches on the playoffs are aware of it. Some situations call for more than others. There’s nothing magical about what we’re trying to do. You try to react best you can to what your opponents are doing. From a pure coaching standpoint, there’s a ton of things that go into not just the playoffs, but the regular season, and that’s just one of them.”
Are the playoffs fun for you?
“The playoffs are fun. Whether it’s today, talking about trying to get your energy back and move on from a Game 3, where if we lose Game 4 and it’s 2-2 and we gotta go win another on the road if we want to win the series, just keep it in perspective.”
Do you sleep much or do you go home and review the game multiple times?
“Yeah, we watched the game independently. I’ve been on staffs, and frankly I’ve done it too, the whole staff stayed and watched the game. For me with our staff, and the trust I have in them, in a lot of respects it’s better to watch the game independently, where each guy gets a different perspective what’s going on. Then we’ll meet in the morning pretty early. Hopefully the players get sleep in the playoffs. Not the time of year for us. You want to try to stay fresh, but there’s time pressure. You just react to it.”
Since the Jazz was 19-28, you’ve been chasing. Now, finally, Utah is up and someone else is chasing. Can the Jazz stay desperate and dialed in?
“I think maybe desperation can be effective. But desperation also kind of implies on some level, at least to me, that you’re not as confident and you have to do something different. I think you have to continue to try to get better, and that may call for different things. I think it has throughout the season. But we’ve stayed focused on trying to get better. That was our goal in March. That’s our goal in April. I think that remains the thing for us to focus on. The same way you don’t want to lament your record when you’re 19-28, I think it’s a mistake to feel any degree of accomplishment when you’re up one game in a series. I don’t think we’ve done anything yet. I think we can feel good about how we played last night, but there’s also things, in order for us to continue to progress in the series, that we’re going to have to do differently. We’ve talked about focusing forward and not focusing backwards, trying to take certain things with us but that focus needs to remain forward.”