Nurse takes a Ram-tough approach
Raps coach visited his favourite NFL team to pick up some pro tips
The never-ending search for ideas — finding something to tweak to suit their own purposes — leads coaches across all kinds of boundaries and into all kinds of sports. It was what led the Raptors’ Nick Nurse to the football fields of Southern California last summer. That, and a lifelong love of the Los Angeles Rams.
Not long after Nurse became the head coach of the Raptors, he spent time at the Rams’ training camp, observing and picking the brain of head coach Sean McVay.
It would seem an odd coupling. A far more scripted and militaristic sport like football — with more bodies, less flow and a clear delineation between of- fence and defence — wouldn’t appear to be a learning ground for an NBA head coach. But as Seattle resident Dwane Casey did for years with Pete Carroll and the Seahawks, Nurse thought he could pick up something by observing McVay and the Rams.
“I think the one thing that I saw — and we saw the same from Pete Carroll — is the organization,” Nurse said. “It’s really an organizational job with a football team to watch them go through their day. And also just the leadership style, what motivational things they’re doing, what team themes they’re using — it was a pretty broad learning experience for me, going there.”
There are some technical aspects of the NFL game that Nurse wanted to see and perhaps poach. Terminology, for instance.
“I see a lot of similarities offensively in how the plays are called, how you organize things,” Nurse said. “Football is a pretty complex numbering system most of the time. Run the three back through the four hole, things like that.
“We kind of do the same thing — the three man sets for the four, or whatever. The screen-and-roll with the 1-5 (point guard-centre), 15. There are some similarities there.”
And some athletic manoeuvres. “When (NFL teams) put two receivers on the one side and kind of run that pick action, that’s a basketball action, but we usually run them from the other direction,” he said. “But I don’t see why we can’t run them running down the floor like you would trying to open up a receiver. Those are the little things I look at.”
The connection goes deeper. It’s managing time and personalities and egos and situations. It’s massaging a football message to a basketball environment.
“I just wanted to talk to (McVay) about the process of calling plays and getting them from situation to paper to his head to his quarterback, and how they organize things prior,” he said. “They’ve got those play-call sheets. We talked a lot about play-call names. He’s got a lot of fun play-call names as well. He’s really good offensively. He’s changed some things there. They went from 30th to first in his first year as a head coach. I was just trying to pick his brain and see if I can learn anything offensively.”
Nurse grew up a Rams fan in Iowa, running counter to neighbourhood opinion that the NFL universe was centred by the Minnesota Vikings. He’ll take a serious rooting interest in Sunday’s Super Bowl against the loathed New England Patriots after the Raptors face the Los Angeles Clippers. And lest anyone wonder whether Nurse’s football affinity, and his willingness to borrow ideas, rests solely with the four-down version of the game, rest assured he pays attention to matters closer at hand.
“Even when I go watch the CFL, when (receivers) start (toward the line of scrimmage, before the ball is snapped, I don’t know if you’ve noticed but we do that on some of our out-of-bounds plays where the referee hasn’t thrown it in and our guys are moving. I got that idea watching the Argonauts.”