Kevin Ollie on being named interim head coach

Kevin Ollie on being named interim head coach

Kevin coming off of yesterday just how was today’s practice and how good was it just to kind of get another day with the group oh it was great to get another day with the group get them up and down a little bit kind of go over the different

Things that we went over yesterday put in a couple wrinkles and um and just go out there and play for one another so it was really good to get back in here and have some Sweat Equity with the guys and they learning me they learning I’m learning them especially in this new

Role so U we just going to go out there and do it together and I thought it was a good day today how did everyone come out of the break and was everyone able to be full participants yes everybody was able to be full participants throughout the practice so that’s a good

Thing um they enjoyed their break hopefully to get away and you know enjoy family and friends and uh get back to the main thing the main thing is that’s the business of basketball and how we do on the basketball court and how we do off the basketball court taking care of

Ourselves recovery all that stuff goes into the bigger picture of things and that’s how you become a professional that’s how you have a professional career taking care of your business on and then taking care of your business of course on and Court too of those uh some of those wrinkles

Where might we see this team look a little bit once you get your vision in place a little bit different than what we saw under JV I offense bigger change defense is the bigger change um we got a couple things in defense that we changing on our pick and roles and you

Know couple things on the offensive things that we doing um to add a little bit more spacing but the biggest thing is playing for each other and making the right plays um not being selfish getting the ball to the guys that they need we

Need to get to get the ball to in they right spots where they can be very successful but playing the right way and we need to do that more consistency so that’s not a scheme change or anything that’s just playing better basketball doing Simple better and I like I like to

Use that term you do simple better and we got to continue to do that how does the relationship with the guys change moving over as you said 18 inches on the bench yesterday um it don’t change um of course you know my voice is prominent a little bit more um but at

The end of the day I I had some great relationships with these guys and I don’t want that to change because I’m a head coach now um I want those to even get deeper where we can have vulnerable conversations I can get them to know them a little bit better so that’s my

Goal is to build on these relationships um my my my plate is a little bit Fuller uh where where I have to do a little bit more things but I have to be attentional and you know very deliberate in my time building relationships with these guys

And not get caught up in all the everyday things and people tugging at me but that’s the most important thing is building relationships so I got to make sure um I check myself each and every day about that and spending time with the guys on and off the basketball court

Because I played this game for 13 years and I know basketball is one thing but you got life too and um I want to make sure they know I’m there for them on both ends of the spectrum we talk about being being unselfish obviously this team very unselfish when Ben’s on the court

Without Ben the ball isn’t f as many guys how do you kind of change that or marry that I guess to make sure that that unselfishness carries over when you have a player who’s very unselfish but when he’s off the court that tends to be a little bit difficult with this offense

Yeah we got to keep standing on our standards um that’s our standards is sharing the cake um everybody got to have a piece of the cake and if you open you need to get the ball and that’s my job as a coach as a manager of of effort

My manager of effort and energy and my manager being a manager of of playing the right way um if it’s a violation and that type of violation and you playing selfish basketball I have to make sure they accountable and then our team their teammates got to make sure they’re

Accountable so that’s the job of the coach that’s the job of the coaching staff to make sure you know we’re doing more possessions where we having a free flow playing unlocked basketball then playing Stuck basketball and we just locked so I want to make sure it’s unlock basketball and playing with

Freedom moving the basketball and moving yourself and getting to the open spaces and that’s playing with Pace as well um but we have to do that for us to win we don’t have bunch of guys that can go ISO basketball and win games we got to do it

Together we got to cut more we got to pass more uh we got to play off each other more and we got to make the right plays and when you do things simple it usually work um you get too complicated that’s when it that’s when it starts

Getting muddy a little bit when you’re trying to do it on your own we have to use all of our resources and all of our players um all of their minds um cuz all of all of us we got great basketball Minds we got to use them together um for

This ship to roll in the right direction that we want to go into seems it seems like fully healthy for the first time this season just is it going to be difficult for you to flush out a rotation given there’s so many guys here that have been contributors you know

With all the various injuries yeah um I don’t like to use the word difficult uh I like to use the word challenging because in challenge I feel like it’s a CH Championship opportunity um it’s a championship opportunity we want to be fully healthy we want to have that you

If you say problem to have um and that’s my job to figure it out that’s our job um in the whole organization to figure it out and um we going to play the guys that go out there and play winning basketball and play hard and play unselfishly and stand for our standards

Which is honey um it’s it’s playing together it’s playing connected um playing the right brand of basketball so uh I look at that as a challenge and as a championship opportunity in that and and it’s going to be changes um but we have to learn how to sacrifice because

That builds when it happens if we sacrifice and builds winning habits and that goes into us all winning you know on the court and off the court what we’re trying to do in life Kevin you mentioned just about building the relationships with the players when it comes to just your coaching staff and

That Bond and that relationship that you guys have built in these last couple of months how much are you leaning into the group that you have oh I’m leaning into them a lot uh we got a bunch of smart guys and if you you’re in this business

A lot is two type of coaches one that’s a coach that’s humbled and one is about to get humbled it’s a lot of ups and downs in this game so um I’ve I’ve learned that been on the mountain tops and been fired so you know so I I

Understand that and I have to lean in those guys they a smart group uh we got some smart uh great coaching staff that that got some masterpieces inside so I lean on them a lot they Lean on Me we’ve been doing that the whole season and we

Going to continue that but I think that’s a great thing um you can lean on Smart individuals to be talented and then Empower them to be great there’s a story a couple days ago about the NBA head coaches that can still dunk a basketball you know Monty Williams

Willie Green can we add you to the list no you can’t add me to the list yeah I I used to th throw the lives or throw it to AI when he was when he wanted to score so uh no I I wasn’t the big dunker

Guy but uh I get you a sis here and there though you mentioned yesterday just about the experience you’ve had from playing to coaching cam Thomas just talked about how he’s looking forward to playing for you and even brought it back to the Yukon days and the Yukon teams

And how he liked watching those games with those groups how has your experience coaching wise especially in the college kind of like helped you in this NBA coaching world it’s chaotic um I think that’s the biggest thing you just never know what’s coming at you and you have to understand it’s about being

In the unknown and living in it and learning from it um like I said go goes back to building relationships in college you was able to build a relationship uh now you don’t have the opportunity to build relationships a lot with the niil but um here you know back

Then you had to build a relationship two over two years and then you finally get the guy so that was a beautiful thing building a relationship and seeing them grow up as you know have having them as young men and then seeing them 10 years later and they got families they got

Their husband now and just seeing how they matured over the years so that’s always been good and you you know this this time is is precious um you don’t get time back and I just thank God for all the opportunities I’ve been through Yukon and the ups and downs with that

I’ve always learned and I’m going to take those experiences from that as lessons and not losses and the wins I’m going to continue to you know praise them and have them um um be a point of my life that I can look back on and say

Yeah I won a national championship U so those are great experiences as well so I don’t discount those um because it’s very hard to win in this league um it’s very hard to win in this league and then when you have success you got to understand that success is not all about

You so I’ve I’ve learned to to handle that U very very well with Ben being back him and Nick were starting alongside one another you know the past few games that he was in just what do you make of that pairing and is that a pairing that you envision playing

Significant minutes together moving forward yeah we just got to be healthy um and playing those minutes I think those two guys are vable parts to our team so hopefully we can have them healthy and hopefully they can continue to grow and play with one another and be successful out there as a basketball

Team but also on the defensive end I think they are credible Nick is incredible back there and we’ve all know Ben can be a tenacious Defender um and we want him to continue to get back to that point where he’s on a all defensive team you talked about spacing um some of

Your concentration on offense who making sure the spacing is good with that particular tandem though Ben and Nick uh how much of a focus is spacing because neither of these guys are known particularly as Shooters yeah you’re exactly right so you have to be able to

Space you have to be able to cut you have to play together um we got to get out and rebound and get stopped so they can play with pace and play in and play in a transition offense so all those things count but when it gets bogged

Down in a halfcourt situation we haven’t have that situation where ones up ones down and how they play off of each other is CR crucial so that’s why it’s so good for practice time we don’t have a a lot of practice times but anytime we have a

Shooter around we always going to be talking about that and when they when they with their individual coaches talking about how those two can play better together and you talked about getting Ben back to where he was defensively as a player um do you think that’s better

Suited um in the draw or is that better suited switching the way you guys have been switching um it it goes it varies um I think Ben is is a great on theball Defender um and I think us ball pressure more getting in gaps more and being

Assertive having him use his arms I call him Eagle arms um getting in assertive gaps and getting steals is a big part of our basketball team and we want to get better at that so um I think his ball pressure picking the ball up being in

The frame which I call it will will allow him to do a lot of things that he can get back to um and we see the progress in him oh it’s not like he’s we’s Reinventing something we just want him to continue to get better um each

And every day and empty his tank like we want all our players to do I got

Kevin Ollie on being named interim head coach. Subscribe for daily sports videos!

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