Shortly after he joined the Portland Trail Blazers coaching staff as an assistant in June, Tiago Splitter sat for an interview with Patrick Carney and Dan Krikorian on the Slappin’ Glass podcast to discuss his coaching philosophy.
Splitter ascended to the acting head coaching chair faster than AJ Green running a fast break. The change came so abruptly that Blazers’ fans have had few opportunities to learn about the principles that guide him. Shoutout to Blazer’s Edge commenter, Svinyard, for alerting
us to this interview.
Splitter said that his run with the 2014 NBA Champion San Antonio Spurs was hugely influential.
“If you guys remember that second unit I played for Spurs with Manu Ginobili, Patty Mills, myself, Boris Diaw, Danny Green, so. That second unit was all about 0.5. This is how Pop will teach us. Point five, you have 0.5 seconds to make a decision.
“You’re shooting, you’re driving, or you’re passing. So gotta be quick decisions. That’s why if my guy is open, shoot it. You got someone on, you drive it, you see a guy open, pass it.
That Spurs squad changed the NBA game forever. They broke the Heatles with the greates Finals performance of all time. And Splitter has brought Popovich’s fundamentals to Blazers practices.
“So we don’t want to create bad habits. That’s why every drill is short, boom, boom, boom, boom. Sometimes even with mistakes. But the priority is space, speed, quick decisions, craziness sometimes, more than correct. Correct. Slow. Slow because that’s the way you’re play in the game. And the earlier you start to think fast and do everything fast, the earlier your team’s gonna play better. I don’t believe in the opposite of going half fast. I’m gonna jog to the screen. That’s why I don’t like too many systems because guys got to think too much. All the thinking slows your game. So I believe in fast and simple.”
The coach is just 40 years old. In his first head coach coaching opportunity, he won the French Cup. It will be interesting to seeing how far he can take this Blazers team.
