Will Hardy on Coaching the Utah Jazz and Learning From Gregg Popovich | The Ryen Russillo Podcast

Will Hardy on Coaching the Utah Jazz and Learning From Gregg Popovich | The Ryen Russillo Podcast

He’s the secondy year head coach of the Utah Jazz it’s Will Hardy and look man uh six in a row four on this home stand no wonder we we heard back from the team being like will is available now so I appreciate it yeah thanks for having

Me I was looking through it um because you know last year you start 10 and three and then at the 42 game Mark you’re 20 and 22 and you know I think me like a lot of people were like oh that was kind of cute you know in the

Beginning caught some people off guard and then I think at this year and you start S and 16 I was like yes I don’t know that’s probably the loaded West that might be who they are and now you’re 22 and 20 uh I think that’s kind

Of lost a bit and it’s like oh wait they’re good they’re they’re in it now in the playoff stuff what’s been different about the start of this year to where you’ve been the last month yeah I think obviously last year we had zero expectations um we had just

Made two massive trades The Narrative around the team was we’re going into a rebuild um and we had some guys that really had a chip on their shoulder and we also had some good players on the roster um you know Mike Conley being a veteran point guard I don’t think that

You know you can undersell the value of that when you’re a firsttime head coach and you’ve got kind of all these moving pieces happening around us um he was a real steadying Force for us early in the year and um we also squeezed out some close games early in the year it wasn’t

Like we were rolling people up we won a couple games in overtime um and I think that maybe had the record a little bit misguided early in the year um we were playing well I’m not sure we were 10 and three good um but as the season went on things changed

And uh you know this year we had a little bit of expectation because people had seen Lowry Markin in and the season that he had and Jordan Clarkson had a good year the year before and we signed him to an extension and we did have a little bit of cohesion in certain spots

Um and so I think the narrative was hey they showed last year they can be competitive let’s see if they can take a step this year um but we also drafted three rookies and keontay George is in the mix um you know we don’t have a veteran point guard at the moment and

John Collins coming in it was going to be like how are we going to fold him in how does he fit next to Lowry how does he fit with Walker Kessler what are those things going to you know do to the the lineups every night and it’s taken us a little bit of

Time to figure out what groups work best um I think we all get caught up on who starts and that narrative tends to be one that’s talked about a lot like he’s a St starter he’s a starter oh he’s out of the lineup oh he’s in the lineup um

And for us it’s been about trying to maximize the full 48 minutes like what groups work best together how do we get through the game without having massive drop offs and then as we get to the end of the game we’ll try to do whatever makes the most sense um every night’s

Different matchups are different some nights we need more space sometimes we need more size um some nights this guy’s playing great some guys some nights this guy is not um and so lately we’ve just found a good Rhythm of the balance of the groups I think and credit to the

Guys because early in the year you know again we’re seven and 16 it’s not feeling great it would have been very easy from like a human nature standpoint to just kind of shut down a little bit buy into what people were saying about our team um but they’ve really dug in

The environment here every day has been fantastic like these guys are having a great time but but they’re also working hard um they’re pulling for each other I think we’ve all kind of figured out how to accentuate each other’s strengths a little bit and now it’s about trying to

You know cling to that as much as possible I always feel like there’s this unsolvable conflict despite how on the same page your coaching staff in the front office can be and the conflict is that it’s like look we just drafted all these guys we got to get a minutes we

Got to develop them you’re like yeah but I still have guys on my team that have been around a long time that are thinking about their next contract track because when I look at your rotations like you’re you’re playing a significant number of guys and it’s not just oh the

Ninth guy plays like four minutes you can see that you’re kind of mixing and matching it depending on that matchup so how do you balance you know reward and development knowing that you’re you’re kind of serving two different things here at the same time yeah um there’s a lot of days where

It feels like you’re fighting a war on two fronts and that’s not always easy um I think that the the most important thing for me is that you know the locker room is an ecosystem and it’s a living breathing thing and we have to make sure

That the team knows that we’re trying to put our best foot forward every day um there are lots of ways to develop game minutes are very important but that’s also why you have the G league and you try to use that with really young players to get them a ton of game reps

Um players that earn real minutes in the NBA games well they’ll play um but we didn’t want to turn this into a feeling of like Hey we’re here for these couple of people’s development and the rest of you are just kind of props around them um I just feel like

That’s a really dangerous thing to get into in terms of like what it feels like every day here um we want the team to to know and feel like we’re trying to win every night and we’re trying to prepare to win we’re trying to put them in a

Situation where they can be successful so um it is hard some days because like you know Keon for example is a rookie guard that’s in our rotation and I’m looking for opportunities to put him in spots to be successful I’m also looking to give him opportunities

To play through some mistakes and I I don’t believe that you know the game’s perfect and that you have to play Perfect he needs to be able to learn how to deal with some mini failures in a game and keep pushing but there’s also some nights where it’s like hey man you

Got to come sit down because we’re trying to win and you don’t have it right now and those decisions are not always easy like there’s not a perfect science to it that’s why I have a staff um and I I don’t think I always get it right there’s nights where I’m like man

Maybe I left him in too long there’s nights where I’m like maybe I was a little bit short on the leash tonight but um you know that’s where I feel as a coach like it’s it’s nice to have 82 of these things because I don’t feel the

Pressure of like I only have 15 chances to do this the right way um because Keon is a young player and he’s a young person and so like I recognize the es and flows that will come with that so we’re just trying to do our best to have

Him like I think he’s better now than he was the first day of the season and that’s what’s important to me doesn’t mean that today he’ll be better than he was yesterday like you can have little ups and downs along the way we just want to make sure the big picture is is

Trending up I want to go back uh because I love your story and you know everybody that’s successful you’re kind of like what was that Turning Point how old were you when you knew you weren’t going to play in the NBA oh man uh when I knew I wasn’t gonna

Play in the NBA yeah well maybe you told people publicly you knew you weren’t but deep down you were like you know 66 I mean 16 17 like yeah something like that 17 you kind of come to grip yeah it’s like okay but I I can shoot and that’s

Fine but it wasn’t like North Carolina was beating down my door um it’s it wasn’t I didn’t love basketball and wasn’t competitive I think there’s just a moment where the game kind of tells you that you’re not even really in the conversation um so yeah probably

17 okay yeah look that’s that’s great I mean I’m actually impressed that so you end up at Williams uh a school smaller school that I know in Massachusetts and I’ve heard you tell the story but I want to share it with the audience kind of like the path of of

What led to you getting into the basketball world to to have an internship with the Spurs but there’s a backstory there that that actually takes a really long time before you even realized it was an option so if you could tell us that it’d be great yeah um

So I was was going to school at Williams and um I had met an older couple who lived in town they were a part of our we called it The Hoop Group which is basically the division three version of boosters I guess like they’re people that lived in town and loved the team

And followed us and supported us and took care of us um I had met uh coach Tong and his wife Jinx at a hoop group event you know a dinner we had after a practice and I got to talking with them and uh you know through the conversation

They were talking about how they were moving a bunch of stuff at their house and trying to make some transitions at their house and you know I just kind of spouted off and was like oh well if you ever need any help let me know and you know kept it moving kept conversation

Going like all right you guys have a good night and uh the next day I got a phone call from Jinx like hey this is jinx Tong from last night I got your number from coach uh you know you said you would be willing to help us move

Himself at the house like that would actually be amazing and I’m kind of like oh no dude like why did you open your mouth like it was one of those things like I said in passing it’s not like you didn’t mean it but you also weren’t

Expecting the call the next day um and it’s one of those moments where you’re just like look you got to Stand and Deliver like you told these people you’d help them they called they’re asking for your help go over there so I went over helped them move some stuff and that was

Kind of the beginning of our relationship um they took care of me for a couple of years at school like they were I don’t know surrogate grandparents parents whatever like they would check in on me they became a part of my pregame routine the women’s team would be playing before us conference

Games I would go get my ankles taped I’d go sit in the stands with Coach Tong and his wife on the way back to the locker room and they would just ask kind of General how you doing how’s school you met any nice girls like that kind of

Stuff like it they were they really did feel like family in that way um and this relationship went on for a couple of years cut to two weeks before graduation um I’m 22 I’m clueless I am graduating with an English degree from a liberal arts school I’ve applied to jobs in eight different

Fields um some basketball some I think will you know my English degree will go to good use some are just like hey I would love to live in Washington DC um I’m grew up in Virginia in Richmond had some friends moving there so it was kind

Of spread out trying to figure out what I was going to do with the rest of my life and I got a call one day from Jinx that said hey coach Tong uh would like to meet with you he’s down watching tennis practice which he did frequently in the spring weather turns in

Massachusetts he would go sit down by the tennis courts and watch tennis practice we had plenty of meetings there so I went down sat with him this is again two weeks from graduating and he asks have you thought about what you’re going to do after college and it’s like

Well yeah thought a lot about it actually I’m kind of panicking um I’ve applied to a bunch of jobs and I’m not really sure if any of them are going to work out um I’ve had a couple interviews it seems to be going okay he goes oh

Well I have a job I think you should apply for and I said what’s that he’s like I think you should work for the San Anton Spurs I’m like well that’s a really great idea um but what makes you think that I even have a remote chance

At getting that position he’s like oh I don’t know if I’ve ever told you but um when I was the athletic director at Pomona Greg papovich was the head coach we’ve been best friends for 20 years which led to like a mini argument of sorts because I’m like look man like

I’ve been coming to your house for year a couple of years now I’m on the basketball team you know that I sit in my apartment and watch NBA games frequently during the week it never crossed your mind to bring up that Greg papovich is one of your best friends

Like that connection didn’t seem like a conversation we could have at a dinner at any point he’s like oh no I guess you know I never thought of it so uh I sent my resume to San Antonio um I was actually writing my last paper of college in the library

Like grinding it out like couple pages left and you’re like I’m going to push send college is over I’m going to go party with my friends it’s going to be great and uh I got a phone call from a random number that had a San Antonio uh area

Code and so I picked up and it was this like deeper voice that was like is this will and I was like yes he goes this is Greg papovich and I was like oh my God like hold on one sec I gotta run out of

The library so I like run out I end up talking to pop on the phone for like three minutes scared to death have no idea idea what’s going on and he’s like oh you know we’re still in the middle of our season you know this is May at this

Point season’s still going on and uh you know we’re trying to figure out what we’re going to do but we’ll be in touch okay so I hang up I didn’t hear from them for probably a month six weeks maybe and I just kind of like thought

Hey maybe they looked at my resume and I’m not the fit I’m not the person whatever and so I’m just kind of moving on with some other job stuff taking that down the track um and then about the middle of July I got a phone call back from the

Spurs ended up doing a couple of phone interviews with them um then they flew me down to San Antonio to do a last face-to-face interview um and kind of the first part of August of 2010 they offered me a position to be an intern actually for RC Buford working on the front office

Side and I drove to drove to Texas for a one-year internship uh working in the front office and left 11 years later an assistant coach on pops bench married with a daughter and another one on the way so uh I kind of grew up in San

Antonio in a lot of ways there obviously a ton of stories in between those 11 years but um it’s crazy like how that connection and that random Hoop Group dinner and me offering to move a few boxes uh somehow has resulted in me sitting here talking to you I know when

You went to Boston with eay you know there’s there’s some stories how em had said like look not every place is San Antonio because like San Antonio is your only world that you understand you’re there at such a young age I mean it’s it’s honestly like the standard for what

You would want for your organization when San Antonio was running it for as long as they were uh what to you now that you’ve had I don’t know that you could answer this question properly without the Boston Utah experience but what is different about San Antonio what makes it so

Special um I mean I think for a lot of us that were there when I was there you know I think working number one for a coach who has established himself in a place and you don’t really feel like you’re looking over your shoulder um there was

An unbelievable trust in pop and his relationship with RC and with ownership there like everything just felt pretty stable every day um I also think that like I mean when you talk about Hall of Fame players being in one place for a long time you know Tim Tony and Manu are

Really the reasons that everything there happened um pop was a huge part of it but like look at the NBA right now like could you imagine three guys that are that good staying in the same place for 15 years together and at times everybody taking a little bit less on their

Contract and um making those financial sacrifices and maybe making some statistical sacrifices at times just to keep the thing together um I think the stability of those three guys and you couple that with pop who is the perfect match for the three of them um it really

Set the tone for the whole place every day we didn’t worry about you know our star players being unhappy and leaving um we didn’t worry about them asking for pop to get fired and like I think that there’s realities that are a part of the NBA now that come with the territory but

Um the way that Tim Tony and Manu approached their relationship and the three of them staying together together I really think is something that um we may never see again I know you didn’t have a in in Boston but uh along with Justin zanic guys you’re working with in Salt Lake

Can you give me the pop Scouting Report versus the a Scouting Report what do you mean just whatever you want it to be man like you’re you’re an advanced Scout but you’re not uh I mean we’re not sizing up their games here yeah no um pop

Uh they’re both one-of a kind that’s a fact like they are both very much one of one um pop has a side of him that the whole world sees and then he has a side of him that people that are on the inside get to see

And pop is uh very tough and sometimes short with the media and all those things um but he has a an unbelievable way of caring for all of his people um every single day in the organization um da is Da all the time and he has no

Filter and uh I think that’s probably where they differ pop keeps some things uh when he’s speaking to people in public I think DA has an unreal ability of number one seeing the good in everybody um and number two he has a really unique skill that I’m I’m wish I

Could steal from him of like he can tell you the blunt truth even if it’s 100% disagreeing with you and not make you feel bad or feel like you’re being uh like he’s being combative it’s a it’s a gift I don’t know how he does it but like I’ve had conversations

With da where you know two sentences into him talking I’m like oh my gosh like he’s telling me that he thinks the exact opposite of what I just said but in a way that doesn’t make me defensive um but they’re both uh they’re both unique I I would say that the

Similarity in the two of them is probably two of the most competitive people ever been around like dayt day in everything they do the way that they keep that fire burning hot in that regard is uh is special I want to talk about the job of

Being a head coach in the NBA now and you know I’ll I’ll try to keep up as much as I can but I I can’t help but think obviously because your age you know you’re the second youngest coach um that plays into it there’s probably moments where you felt like I can’t

Believe this is real that I’m in San Antonio I can’t believe I’m the lead assistant here in Boston but then it’s like no this is actually my team like it’s it’s funny how life Works where you can feel like I have no idea where I’m

Going to be in a couple years and then it just skips all these turns where now it’s like I can’t believe now I’m doing this so that first game was Denver last year right at home yeah did you walk out and then like I just don’t know that

Anybody in that spot couldn’t be having just little moments of like I can’t believe this is actually happening and I I know that that may not be anything you even want to admit but did you have moments where you’re like hey should I argue with a ref here it’s been like

Three minutes um because I’m supposed to argue with refs you know do I call a timeout here do I like what’s my first timeout hey I don’t like the way we’re covering this oh hey my guy wants a challenge in the first quarter do I do

That to show him a players guide or I not do it because I’m going to show that I’m not a players’s guy because I’m young and people are already wondering I’m have walked all over how did you handle because I can’t like any a lot of people would want want to pretend like

No that didn’t really happen I was prepared I’d done preseason all this different stuff I think that’d be all because I I just think any normal person would have a few moments in that first game as an NBA head coach where you’re you’re thinking about some

Of these things even though you know you’re not supposed to be yeah I mean I I’m not uh I’m not ashamed or afraid to be very honest like I still have some of those moments um but last year was a whirlwind like the beginning of the year in particular um

You know when you talk about like feeling stress when you talk about like feeling nerves in a way that you’ve never felt them before um I mean I’ll go back even before the first game like our first practice at training camp practice ended and we all brought it in and we

Put our hands up and I’m like my brain is like as an assistant coach just you’re kind of listening but it was dead silent for like 5 seconds and then I was like oh I’m supposed to talk like I forgot that like I was the person that

Was supposed to like wrap up practice with the little message and then like bring it in and like I still have moments of like oh man everyone’s looking at me like I’m supposed to say something right now I’m supposed to do something um the first game last year though was

Like we had this new team it all made sense at practice you don’t really know what it’s going to look like you’re playing the Nuggets they’re a great team you know we’ve got the home fans there the owner there my mom’s in town it’s like just can tonight please just not be

A train night like can we somehow get to the end and people are like oh he seemed like he kind of knew what he was doing like can we just get like that report card at the end of the game but yeah all those little things of do I argue with

The ref do I challenge do I this like I left that game I I don’t think I’ve ever been more tired after a game because your brain is just going a thousand miles an hour and you can’t simulate it and yeah preseason happened but it’s nothing like that

Um and you it it like made me think about also like times I was an assistant like I’m trying to talk to the head coach and they’re kind of like blank like because they’re they’re thinking something in their own head um I remember walking out of the the gym one

Relieved that we won because I was like hey I won’t be the first coach ever to go oh and whatever um and secondly like part of me was like oh my God I have to do that 81 more times this year like I’m exhausted um so yeah it’s uh it’s a it’s

A whirlwind because you get pulled in a lot of different directions I think you I think about things now that I never thought about as an assistant the things that I’m worried about are way different than the things I was worried about when I was an assistant um like I’m still learning how

To do this job I don’t feel like I have it all figured out i’ way more comfortable now than I was the first game against Denver last year but I think last year one of the things that helped me early on was some of the veteran guys we had on the team like

Mike Conley what he did for me last year you know Mike and I are the same age which is weird on its face but like the relationship that we had early in the year being able to bounce things off of him some of the other guys on the team

Um was good to kind of know like hey you guys don’t think I’m crazy doing this do you like this does this make sense to you um you know Rudy Gay who was on our roster I had coached in San Antonio and so I had a pre-existing relationship

With Rudy and like he was really helpful for me last year so like I think it’s you have to lean on different people at different times but I still go into the games with nerves I still have a lot of moments of Doubt like am I

Doing the right thing am I saying the right thing was that message okay but um you got to have people around you that’ll tell you the truth I think last year I had a lot of that I think this year I still have a lot of that um

Because yeah being an NBA head coach is hard like the people that want to say like oh I’ve got it figured out and I know what I’m doing and I prepared for this and all that like that’s fine everybody you know everybody prepares but when the lights come on and it all

Starts happening um your brain gets going pretty quick what do you look for at the start of a game um the start of the game I think mostly uh we’ll go the defensive side um you’re trying to survive because you have adjustments that you have ready to go you assume or

I assume that we’re not be able to play one way the whole game but I’d like to get through the first four or five minutes without having to Pivot to options two three and four because now you have a long way to go but I’m more

Like trying to look at like hey are the matchups correct did we think what we thought this morning or yesterday does it make sense now like seeing it in real time like are these matchups going to work um then you go to the offensive side and it’s like I’m I’m trying to see

Because we play uh a varied style we do a couple of different things like I’m almost trying to like test things out at times and see how they’re going to guard it it kind of informs me to what may be happening for the rest of the game so you know there

Are moments in games where coaches will go to something it works and then they keep going to it early in the game I would say I’m kind of doing the uh appetizer sampler like I’m trying a couple different things to see how it’s going to look um

Um and then talk to the staff and talk about what we’ve seen um because 48 minutes is a long time and like I don’t want to try to be discovering something in the middle of the second quarter so knowing I had you scheduled for this and I was watching their games

A little bit more intently and I went back and watched the fourth quarter against LA and I was again I’m watching in the broadcast so you know it’s not like I’m going to see you a ton especially on offense because you’re on the other side and I was watching what

Were doing and I I was noticing and it might have been with keante where the only thing it Lally looked like you were doing and I’m sure you’re were doing more than this but you kept saying like other side other side you wanted to initiate the offense on the right side

And is that pretty much like hey you know what you’re supposed to do and then beyond that I’m I’m not going to sit here and start yelling out a specific action every single possession it it seemed the priority seemed to be were you initiated and then certainly once

You got the subs kind of with your closing group I mean you want to talk about spacing had I not rewatched it I don’t know that I would have realized the emphasis on how far out your five out stuff was I mean it was incredible

And I think it also speaks to kind of your closing group where I go man I really like that they have four five guys with the ball in their hands that they can get more than two dribbles and still be kind of comfortable and that’s kind of how you lived offensively so

Again I’m using a very spefic specific group that fourth quarter that game but I noticed it it felt a little more hands off and it was more about how you were Al line yeah um we try to communicate in dead moments uh timeouts dead ball so we had talked at

That previous timeout about the couple of things we were going to try to go to um because again like when the game started starts going and it’s going up and down and it’s loud you only have 24 seconds in a possession like I can’t give a long- winded thing to the

Team and so you try to tell them like hey these next two minutes this is kind of what we’re looking for and then my job with keante was trying to point out some spacing and yeah in that game in particular initiating it on that side of the floor

Was good for us um Keon likes his left hand um and so it was about trying to put him in a comfort zone and then also kind of where the action was going to go after that like we felt like the spacing was good but it’s a it’s a

Longer conversation at a dead ball and then that lets the conversation be shorter in that moment because they know what I’m referencing if that makes sense um the the spacing piece is massive for us um we need that especially with guys like Colin Jordan who can break guys down one-on-one off the

Bounce um and we have to play some different spacings depending on who’s in the game like in that game Jon was in which is great for us um JN has a versatile skill set he can screen and roll he can also space it puts big guys in tough situations when we have Walker

In the game we play a little bit of a different spacing um and so yeah like at that point in the game we had stripped it down it was pretty simple how we were trying to attack um and Keon is a young guard like he’s really bright

But in some of those moments you’re just trying to remind him his responsibility which is like if we can just start this in the right spot then you guys can play and I’m gonna kind of get out of the way um because there’s a lot of

Uh we try to coach in Concepts not necessarily in like on every play you go here you go here you go here um but sometimes the concepts can get screwed up if we don’t start in the right spot because I don’t like when you know I think that there’s there’s just so much

That you know one of my favorite things and I’ve always told the stories working for Min League Baseball and being around the coaching staff every single day of a baseball season like I remember just in that short experience going whatever I thought I knew about how this worked

Like I I had no idea I just did and you know when people get on coaches and it’s like ah they don’t run anything it’s like well they’re all running something I would say there’s maybe been a few games the last couple weeks where I was like yeah they’re not doing that

Kind any favors but you know that’s just me at home on it but it felt very and again I’m just picking this one game here but it felt very hands off it felt very papovich you know it felt like and and I I really think too we’re

In a stage now with the NBA where I used to think like the prototypical point guard the greatest skill that he could have would be like hey we need we need something different on this possession we need a different look or this guy hasn’t touched the ball and he averages

18 a game so let me make sure that he’s still engaged and I think we’ve lost a lot of that so then you can have some coaching Styles where it feels like it’s so dominant and I know that you specifically said during this turnaround quote we sto focusing running plays on

Every single possession and I think you have some of the Playmakers for it but I also think that there’s a freedom that every basketball player I don’t care where you’ve been at loves that kind of Freedom knowing that hey you know ultimately it’s on us to beat our guy or

Make the right read it’s not about will over there designing what we do off the blitz or some screen on the Baseline every single time because that’d be an awful way to play basketball yeah absolutely I think and that’s where it comes back to me to like

We’re trying to coach in Concepts and if spacing is really important to us and making good decisions at The Rim is really important to us okay well then I can hold the team really accountable to those two things and I can allow them to have a little bit of individual

Expression in how they do it um they’re all unique like all these guys got to the NBA playing their way and so their way doesn’t totally suck like they got to the NBA so they’re all really good and I need to try to figure out how to maximize that and yeah there’s parts

That you have to try to refine or shave down to make it all fit together a little bit better but I also don’t want them to lose their Instinct because then they become Frozen then they become overthinking because they’re trying to like please me or do something that’s unnatural to them I think

There’s when you make what you care about clear and you hold them all really accountable to those couple of things but then you let them be themselves and you don’t nitpick every dribble every shot every pass you know you give them a little bit of Grace in those moments I think

They’re really receptive to you holding them really accountable to the hey man I told you these two things are what I care about you know like you want to dribble it between your legs a few times and do a half spin on that move like

Okay I’m not gonna I’m not going to be the coach that yells like you have to jump stop on every play like I’m I’m not doing that maybe that’s not your thing some guys play the slow step with the Euro some guys do play off two feet but

They all have their own unique style I’m not trying to make them all one thing um and that’s why like you know from like a big picture thematic standpoint like I say this to the team like this is not my program this is ours I am a part of it

And I have a job to do and sometimes that means I have to make tough decisions that’s part that’s my piece in this but we all need to have ownership of it and so I have to have a little bit of humility in like letting them be

Themselves at times and not trying to micromanage everything they do because their way albeit not perfect on every possession is pretty damn good they’re in the NBA and so like it’s hard to tell a guy that got this far doing it his way that like oh no your way is terrible

It’s no your Way’s good you could do this a little better and you could do that a little less and that’s where you try to like help them in the margins but I think trying to strip them of their individuality for our group is counterproductive and like trying to be overly

Controlling doesn’t help the team and so that means that there’s times like I’m watching and things that are happening it’s like I’m not necessarily in full control now I have timeouts and I can do those things but like when the game’s going up and down like I don’t care what any

Coach tells you like you don’t have control when the game’s going back and forth up and down like on misses and the game’s free flowing like you’re yelling things some of them they hear some of them they don’t it’s loud in there um and so you’re hoping that the concepts

That you’ve coached them on in The Quiet Moments will show up when the game gets a little bit hectic some great answers in there will uh this was a lot of fun and I I really appreciate the time you know busy stretch of the season but it’s been nice

To have you on uh during this this big turnaround and and in the mix there in a crowded West so thanks again and good luck the rest of the year appreciate you bro thank You

Ryen Russillo is joined by Utah Jazz head coach Will Hardy to talk about the Jazz’s recent surge up the Western Conference standings, what it’s like to be a young coach in the NBA, and what he learned from Gregg Popovich as an assistant.

Check out the Bill Simmons YouTube channel: youtube.com/billsimmons

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