Throughout the season, the players of Los -Angeles Clippers heard the same as Jeff Van Gandhi, the chief assistant coach of the team and defense coordinator. “All his fact is that we must be aggressive and foresee everything,” forward Klippers Nick Batum recently said.
During the games, Van Gandhi illustrates this thinking from the side line. He screams. He indicates. He waves his hands. He often pops up from his place, sending glasses, sliding on the nose. “He always either scolds us or scolds another team,” said Chris Dunn playing Clippers. “He is really intense.”
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But during the opening of the play -off team on Saturday against Denver Nuggets, Van Gandhi was given an opportunity, almost never providing trainers: the opportunity to practice what he preachs. In 34 seconds, it remained in the fourth quarter, and the clippers cling to the lead at one point, the ball, after how it was pulled out of the hands of Kavkha Leonard, stood on his knees.
The judges decided that the last time it affected Leonard, but it was a close bell. While the coaching staff of the clippers was thinking about whether the call was rushing, the star of Nuggets Nikola Yokich rushed to their bench. Van Gandhi quickly diagnosed the situation. He knew that Yokich’s goal was to take the ball into the hands of the judges and get out of his hands before the clipper could make a decision. He also knew that the game was on the line, and that, at that moment, that Clippers needed most of all, there was more time. So, as almost a 7-foot, 280-fond jokich trunk to him, Van Gandhi, only 5-9, grabbed the ball with both hands. Even when Yokich held out his hand, Van Gandhi was holding on to let go, staring at Jokich all the time.
Fairy -tale for several seconds bought the head coach Clippers Tai Lu, enough time to challenge the play. The call was supported, and LA lost in overtime, but at the moment when Van Gandhi was included in his first season with the team. He not only knew what his opponent wanted to do, but also knew how to destroy it.
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Having entered the 2024-25 season, the expectations for the clippers were low. Nine-time All-Star Paul George left in a free agency. Leonard was supposed to miss the first few months of the season with a knee injury. The only players added to the composition were apprentices, such as Derrick Jones, Jr., Batum and Dann. Nevertheless, 50 Games won – only one shy amount of last season – and after winning the 2nd game on Monday in Denver, only three victories from the first victory in the play -off series since 2021.
How did they do it? Leonard returned to his shape MVP. And the combination of the offensive and durability of James Harden retained the insulting clippers afloat. But the biggest difference this season is “Clippers”, despite the fact that George, four times from all the defenders, turned into one of the best protective teams of the League.
Avika Zubak, who became one of the main defensive anchors of the League, helped. There are also additions to Dunn, Batum and Jones, all of which are protective players. But ask someone for or around the clippers, which is most responsible for the jumping of the team from the 16th in defense last season to the third this season, and they all give the same answer: the 63-year-old former broadcaster, who had not trained the game in the NBA before the season since 2007.
“He changed the identity of our team,” said the clippers wing the norms of Powell about Van Gandhi.
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“His addition,” Batum added, “could be the best in our off -season.”
(Sports illustration of Grant Thomas/Yahoo)
Van Gandhi, who began his career coaching of a secondary school in Rochester, New York (and who refused an interview for this story) – coach coach, lifelong basketball, whom other coaches have long revered. “I remember how I spoke with (Gregg Popovich) around 2015 about who should lead our qualification group,” recalls Sean Ford, director of the US male team. Ford chose several names before mentioning Van Gandhi, a longtime friend. Since Van Gandhi has passed almost ten years, the NBA trained for the last time. Ford was not even sure if he was interested in his work. “But as soon as I mentioned Jeff,” said Ford, “Pop goes:“ My God, He is a guy. ”
Popovich was not the only fan of Van Gandhi around the NBA. Lou, who briefly played for Van Gandhi in Houston, and then worked with him when he and the US team tried to hire Van Gandhi for many years. “But he was not ready to return to this,” Lou said. This changed after ESPN fired Van Gandhi in the summer of 2023, putting an end to its 16 years on the network. Van Gandhi consulted with Boston Celtics during the 2023-24 season, and then, finally, agreed to join Liu’s staff in June.
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It was the perfect time for him to do it. Clippers, knowing that they were on the verge of George’s loss, were looking for ways to update their list. One option was to try to replace George’s account. But Liu and Lawrence Frank, President of the basketball team, had in mind another plan. Clippers already had two elite attackers in Leonard and Harden. They were also removed from the fact that he called his own group as “soft”. So why not, Frank and Liu thought, instead, their stars with impatient defenders surround them and changed the personality of the team?
“His addition could be the best in our off -season.”
And Van Gandhi, both believed, was an ideal coach to help them do it.
In August, Clippers fled to Hawaii, where their training camp was held. There Van Gandhi turned to the group. “He told us that we are going to turn into a defense team, and that it begins with the fact that it comes to work and is ready to do the work,” Dunn said. Van Gandhi had two main goals per season. One of them was to correct the problems of the restoration of clippers; Only six teams were worse in defensive glass in the previous season. The other was supposed to increase their protective pressure; Only nine teams forced less percentage.
Soon after, Van Gandhi began to implement the defense schemes of the team. “I got there late, because I competed (with France) at the Olympic Games,” Batum said. “And when I arrived, the guys told me that with (Van Gandhi) everything was different here.” Nevertheless, Batum could not understand what this means, until I saw the practice of Van Gandhi. “He will look like:“ Do not stand here, stand here, ”and then he will literally move you one inch,” Batum said.
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Van Gandhi supported this attention to the details during the season. Dann described the plans of the game by Van Gandhi as “the best that I saw when I saw.” Numerous players of Clippers are delighted with their step -by -step leadership to their agents.
“Many coaches just tell you, but he breaks it to the nearest, nearest detail,” Harden said.
Harden and Van Gandhi went especially close. They often say, personally, but also by phone. Sometimes they discuss a defensive strategy for the next night. Sometimes Harden, basketball botanist, just listens to how Van Gandhi tells stories about the old wars from all years of his years around the NBA. Relations close to Harden are one of the reasons why Harden was more involved in defense this season. 3.5 deviations that it is on average 48 minutes, it is most since 2020.
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“He helps me a lot, and I know that he helps our team a lot,” Harden said. “He understands the players.”
Like his teammates, Harden knows that Van Gandhi does not ask for more effort than he gives himself. “It doesn’t matter when we appear on the object,” Powell said. “Morning, night time – he is always there.” When by 5 in the morning, when he lives in Los -Angeles, he usually begins to call his brother Stan, the long -standing chief coach of the NBA and TNT analytics, who lives on the east coast. They will break in the previous night, pausing only for Jeff to pick up his usual McDonald’s Oatmeal breakfast and diet stake.
“And if something has not passed in the game, then I always need to teach better” or “I need to have the best scheme,” Stan said. “He does not blame others.”
This is one of the reasons why players love him. Another? He helps them win the games. The clippers finished the season as the main protective team of the League, and only seven teams forced the speed with higher speed. The weaknesses of the last season became the strengths of this season, when their newly acquired aggression helped them steal victory at the beginning of the season, even without Leonard and against more talented opponents. One example: victory at the end of December 114-110 over a fully loaded and then confusing team Grizzlies. This was one of the 17 games this season, in which the clipper was calculated at least 12 interceptions – only two games less than their total number of previous three years combined.
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“This material kept us afloat in these first 50 games while Kavkhi was returning to his place,” Lou said. And now, when Kavkhi has returned, Clippers, it seems, has the best title shot in recent years.
The plan, presented last summer, The Brain Trust was at the full exhibition at the game section 2. With the remaining slightly less than 55 seconds, Leonard buried the contested jumper of the middle class, giving clipper leadership with three points and its 39 points per night. When the nuggets drove the ball up the court, Van Gandhi jumped out of his place to get the defensive directions. Soon after Harden, in the paint, he stumbled upon Harden, Djokich lifted the lazy pass back to the 3rd, where Leonard took him off, the 13th thefts of the team and the seventh turnover of Jokich. Forty seconds later, “Clippers” celebrated the victory in the play -off.
During the press conference of Jokich, the reporter asked him about the turns. “They were definitely aggressive,” Jokich said. “They attacked us. They attacked the ball. “
The players learned from their coach.
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