ELEVEN RINGS Part 3

but they do it in the spirit of play.

That's why at the start of every season I always encouraged players to focus on the journey rather than the goal. What matters most is playing the game the right way and having the courage to grow, as human beings as well as basketball players. When you do that, the ring takes care of itself.

CHAPTER 3

RED

The greatest carver does the least cutting.

LAO-TZU

My first impression of the NBA was that it was an unstructured mess.

When Red Holzman recruited me for the New York Knicks in 1967, I'd never seen an NBA game before, except for a few playoff games on TV between the Boston Celtics and the Philadelphia Warriors. So Red sent me a film of a 1966 game between the Knicks and the Lakers, and I invited a bunch of my college teammates over to watch it on a big screen.

I was stunned by how sloppy and undisciplined both teams were. At the University of North Dakota, we prided ourselves on playing the game in a systematic way. In fact, in my senior year coach Bill Fitch had implemented a system of ball movement that I really liked, which I later learned was a version of the triangle that he'd picked up from Tex Winter.

There seemed to be no logic to the Knicks game we were watching. To me it looked like nothing more than a bunch of talented players running up and down the floor looking for shots.

Then the fight broke out.

Willis Reed, the Knicks' imposing six-nine, 235-pound power forward got tangled up with forward Rudy LaRusso near the Lakers' bench. Then there was a pause in the film, and when it started up again, Willis was shrugging several Lakers players off his back, before leveling center Darrall Imhoff and slugging LaRusso twice in the face. By the time they finally subdued him, Willis had also broken forward John Block's nose and thrown center Hank Finkel to the ground.

Wow. We all jumped up in unison and shouted, "Run that back again!" Meanwhile, I'm thinking, What have I gotten myself into? This is the guy I'm going to be going up against day in and day out in practice!

Actually, when I met Willis that summer, I found him to be a warm and friendly guy, who was dignified, bighearted, and a natural leader whom everyone respected. He had a commanding presence on the floor and he felt instinctively that his job was to protect his teammates. The Knicks expected Willis to be suspended for that incident in the game against L.A., but the league was more tolerant about fighting in those days and let it go. From that point on, big men around the league started thinking twice before getting into a tussle with Willis on the floor.

Reed wasn't the only great leader on the Knicks. In fact, playing for New York during the champions.h.i.+p years was like going to grad school in leaders.h.i.+p. Forward Dave DeBusschere, who had been a player/coach for the Detroit Pistons before joining the Knicks, was an astute floor general. Forward Bill Bradley, the future U.S. senator, was gifted at building consensus among the players and helping them meld together into a team. Shooting guard d.i.c.k Barnett, who later earned a Ph.D. in education, used his biting wit to keep everyone from taking themselves too seriously. And Walt Frazier, my roommate during the first season, was a masterful point guard who served as the team's quarterback on the floor.

But the man who taught me the most about leaders.h.i.+p was the most una.s.suming of them all: Holzman himself.

The first time Red saw me play was during one of the worst games of my college career. I got into foul trouble early and never found my rhythm, as Louisiana Tech knocked us out in the first round of the NCAA small-college tournament. I scored 51 points in the consolation game against Parsons, but Red missed that one.

Nevertheless, Red must have seen something he liked because he grabbed Bill Fitch after the Louisiana Tech game and asked him, "Do you think Jackson can play for me?" Fitch didn't hesitate. "Sure he can play for you," he said, thinking that Red was looking for players who could handle full-court defense. It was only afterward that he realized that what Red really wanted to know was: Can this hick from North Dakota handle life in the Big Apple? Either way, Fitch says, his answer would have been the same.

Fitch was a hard-nosed coach-and ex-Marine-who ran practices as if they were Parris Island drills. He was a far cry from my mild-mannered Williston (North Dakota) high school coach, Bob Peterson, but I liked playing for him because he was tough, honest, and always pus.h.i.+ng me to do better. Once, in my junior year, I got drunk during pledge week and made a fool of myself trying to lead a bunch of students in school cheers. When Fitch heard the story, he told me I would have to do push-ups every time I saw him on campus.

Still, I flourished in Fitch's system. We played full-court pressure defense, and I loved it. At six-eight I was big enough to play center, but I was also quick and energetic and had a large wingspan, which made it easy for me to hara.s.s playmakers and pick off steals. My arms were so long, in fact, that I could sit in the backseat of a car and open both front doors at the same time without leaning forward. In college, my nickname was "the Mop" because I was always falling on the floor, chasing after loose b.a.l.l.s.

During my junior year, I came into my own, averaging 21.8 points and 12.9 rebounds per game, and was named first team All-American. We won the conference t.i.tle that year and made the small-college Final Four for the second year in a row, losing in a tight semifinal game to Southern Illinois. The next year I averaged 27.4 points and 14.4 rebounds and scored 50 points twice on the way to making the All-American first team again.

At first I thought that if I was going to be drafted by the NBA, I would be picked by the Baltimore Bullets, whose head scout, my future boss, Jerry Krause, had been eyeing me. But the Bullets were outmaneuvered by the Knicks, who picked me early in the second round (seventeenth overall), leaving Krause, who'd gambled that I wouldn't go until the third round, kicking himself for years.

I was also drafted by the Minnesota Muskies in the American Basketball a.s.sociation, which was attractive to me because it was closer to home. But Holzman wasn't going to let the Muskies win. He visited me that summer in Fargo, North Dakota, where I was working as a camp counselor, and made me a better offer. He asked me if I had any reservations about signing with the Knicks, and I replied that I was thinking about going to graduate school to become a minister. He said that there would be plenty of time after I finished my pro career to pursue whatever else I wanted to do. He also rea.s.sured me that I could turn to him if I had difficulty dealing with New York City.

As it turned out, John Lindsay, New York's mayor at the time, was in Fargo giving a speech at the organization where I was working. Red found the synchronicity of it all amusing. While I signed the contract that day, he said, "Can you imagine? The mayor of New York is here and everybody knows it. And you're here getting signed and n.o.body knows it."

That's when I knew I'd found my mentor.

When I arrived at training camp in October, the Knicks were in a holding pattern. We were still waiting for our new star forward, Bill Bradley, to show up after finis.h.i.+ng Air Force Reserve boot camp. In fact, we were conducting training camp at McGuire Air Force Base in the hope that he would be able to break away at some point and start practicing with the team.

Although our roster was loaded with talent, the leaders.h.i.+p structure hadn't yet been established. The putative top man was Walt Bellamy, a high-scoring center and future Hall of Famer. But Walt was constantly battling with Willis, who was much better suited for the lead role. At one point in the previous season, the two of them had run into each other and literally knocked themselves out fighting to establish position in the post. d.i.c.k Van Arsdale was the starting small forward, but many thought that Cazzie Russell was more talented. Meanwhile, d.i.c.k Barnett and Howard Komives made up a solid backcourt, but Barnett was still recovering from a torn Achilles tendon the year before.

On top of all that, it was clear that the players had lost confidence in coach d.i.c.k McGuire, whose nickname, "Mumbles," said a lot about his inability to communicate with the team. So it wasn't surprising when Ned Irish, president of the Knicks, moved McGuire to a scouting position in December and appointed Red head coach. Holzman was a tough, reserved New Yorker with a wry sense of humor and a strong basketball pedigree. A two-time All-American guard at City College of New York, he played for the Rochester Royals as a pro, winning two league champions.h.i.+ps, before becoming head coach of the Milwaukee/St. Louis Hawks.

Red was a master of simplicity. He didn't espouse any particular system, nor did he stay up all night inventing plays. What he believed in was playing the game the right way, which to him meant moving the ball on offense and playing intense team defense. Red learned the game in the prejump shot era when five-man ball movement was far more prevalent than one-on-one creativity. He had two simple rules, which he shouted from the sidelines during every game:

See the ball. Red focused much more attention on defense in practice because he believed that a strong defense was the key to everything. During one practice, Red, who could be extremely graphic when he needed to be, took copies of our plays and pretended to wipe his b.u.t.t with them. "This is about how much good these things are," he said, dropping the pages on the floor. That's why he wanted us to learn to play defense together better, because once you did that, he believed, the offense would take care of itself.

In Red's view, awareness was the secret to good defense. He stressed keeping your eye on the ball at all times and being acutely attuned to what was happening on the floor. The Knicks weren't as big as other teams; nor did we have an overpowering shot blocker like the Celtics' Bill Russell. So under Red's direction, we developed a highly integrated style of defense that relied on the collective awareness of all five players rather than one man's brilliant moves under the basket. With all five men working as one, it was easier to trap ball handlers, cut off pa.s.sing lanes, exploit mistakes, and launch fast breaks before the other team could figure out what was going on.

Red loved using full-court pressure to throw opponents off their games. In fact, in my very first practice, we implemented a full-court press for the whole scrimmage. That was perfect for Walt Frazier, Emmett Bryant, and me, because we'd played full-court defense in college. My teammates dubbed me "Coat Hanger" and "Head and Shoulders" because of my physique, but I much preferred the name broadcaster Marv Albert gave me: "Action Jackson." I knew that by playing forward instead of center, I was giving up my biggest strength-post play-but I could help the team out and get more time on the court by concentrating on defense. Besides, I didn't possess a fifteen-foot jumper yet and my ball-handling skills were so sketchy that Red later gave me a two-dribble rule.

Hit the open man. If Red were coaching today, he would be appalled at how self-absorbed the game has become. For him, selflessness was the holy grail of basketball. "This isn't rocket science," he would proclaim, adding that the best offensive strategy was to keep the ball moving among all five players to create shooting opportunities and make it hard for the other team to focus on one or two shooters. Even though we had some of the best shot creators in the game-notably Frazier and Earl "the Pearl" Monroe-Red insisted that everybody work together in unison to get the ball to the player with the best shot. If you decided to go solo, which few players ever attempted, you'd soon find yourself exiled to the end bench.

"On a good team there are no superstars," Red insisted. "There are great players who show they are great players by being able to play with others as a team. They have the ability to be superstars, but if they fit into a good team, they make sacrifices, they do things necessary to help the team win. What the numbers are in salaries or statistics don't matter; how they play together does."

Few teams in the NBA have ever been as balanced offensively as the 196970 Knicks. We had six players who consistently scored in double figures and none who averaged much higher than 20 points a game. What made the team so hard to defend was that all five starters were clutch shooters, so if you double-teamed one man who happened to be hot, it would open up opportunities for the other four-all of whom could hit big shots.

One thing that fascinated me about Red was how much of the offense he turned over to the players. He let us design many of the plays and actively sought out our thinking about what moves to make in critical games. Many coaches have a hard time giving over power to their players, but Red listened intently to what the players had to say because he knew we had more intimate knowledge of what was happening on the floor than he did.

Red's singular gift, however, was his uncanny ability to manage grown men and get them to come together with a common mission. He didn't use sophisticated motivational techniques; he was just straightforward and honest. Unlike many coaches, he didn't interfere in players' personal lives unless they were up to something that would have a negative effect on the team.

When Red took over as coach, practices were laughably chaotic. Players often arrived late and brought their friends and relatives as spectators. The facilities had broken floors, warped wooden backboards, and showers without any hot water, and the practices themselves were largely uncontrolled scrimmages without any drills or exercises. Red put a stop to all that. He inst.i.tuted what he called "silly fines" for tardiness and banished from practices everybody who wasn't on the team, including the press. He ran tough, disciplined practices focused primarily on defense. "Practice doesn't make perfect," he used to say. "Perfect practice does."

On the road, there were no curfews or bed checks. Red had only one rule: The hotel bar belonged to him. He didn't care where you went or what you did as long as you didn't interrupt his late-night scotch with trainer Danny Whelan and the beat writers. Although he was more accessible than other coaches, he felt it was important to maintain a certain distance from the players because he knew that someday he might have to cut or trade one of us.

If he needed to discipline you, he rarely did it in front of the team, unless it was related to your basketball play. Instead he would invite you to his "private office": the locker-room toilet. He usually called me in to the toilet when I'd said something critical in the press about the team. I had good rapport with the reporters after years of playing cards together, and sometimes I had a tendency to be overly glib. Red was more circ.u.mspect. "Don't you realize," he'd say, "that these newspapers are going to be lining somebody's birdcage tomorrow?"

Red was notoriously sphinxlike with the media. He often took reporters out to dinner and talked for hours, but he rarely gave them anything they could use. He never criticized the players or any of our opponents. Instead he often toyed with reporters to see what kind of nonsense he could get them to print. Once after a particularly hard defeat, a reporter asked him how he managed to be so calm, and Red replied, "Because I realize that the only real catastrophe is coming home and finding out there's no more scotch in the house." Of course, the quote made the papers the next day.

What I loved about Red was his ability to put basketball in perspective. Early in the 196970 season, we went on an eighteen-game winning streak and pulled away from the rest of the pack. When the streak ended with a disappointing loss at home, reporters asked Red what he would have done if the Knicks had won, and he replied, "I'd go home, drink a scotch, and eat the great meal that [his wife] Selma is cooking." And what would he do now that we had lost? "Go home, drink a scotch, and eat the great meal Selma is cooking."

The turning point for the Knicks was another brawl, this time during a televised game against the Hawks in Atlanta in November 1968. The fight was ignited by Atlanta's Lou Hudson in the second half when he tried to dodge around Willis Reed's hard pick and ended up slugging him in the face. All of the Knicks got up and joined the battle (or at least pretended to), except for one player, Walt Bellamy.

The next day we had a team meeting to discuss the incident. The conversation revolved around Bellamy's no-show, and the consensus among the players was that he wasn't doing his job. When Red asked Walt why he hadn't supported his teammates on the floor, he said, "I don't think fighting is appropriate in basketball." Many of us may have agreed with him in the abstract, but fighting was an everyday reality in the NBA, and it didn't give any of us comfort to hear that our big man didn't have our backs.

A few weeks later the Knicks traded Bellamy and Komives to the Pistons for Dave DeBusschere-a move that solidified the starting lineup and gave us the flexibility and depth to win two world champions.h.i.+ps. Willis took over as center and established himself as team leader and Red's sergeant at arms. DeBusschere, a hard-driving, six-six, 220-pound player with great court sense and a smooth outside shot, stepped into the power forward position. Walt Frazier replaced Komives at point guard, teaming with Barnett, a gifted one-on-one player. Bill Bradley and Cazzie Russell shared the final position-small forward-because our starter, d.i.c.k Van Arsdale, had been picked up by the Phoenix Suns in that year's expansion draft. But Bill got the upper hand when Cazzie broke his ankle two months after the DeBusschere trade.

It was interesting to watch Bill and Cazzie compete for that position when Russell returned the next year. Both of them had been stars in college and prized picks in the draft. (Bill was a territorial selection in 1965, and Cazzie was the number one pick overall in 1966.) Bradley, who was nicknamed "Dollar Bill" because of his impressive (for that time) four-year, $500,000 contract, had averaged more than 30 points a game three years in a row at Princeton and led the Tigers to the NCAA Final Four, where he was named the tournament's most valuable player. After being drafted by the Knicks in 1965, he had decided to attend Oxford for two years as a Rhodes scholar before joining the team. There was so much hype about him that Barnett started referring to him sarcastically as "the man who could leap tall buildings with a single bound."