During that time, did you see anything about defense that was changing or even slightly different from when you were in Boston?
I would say it’s a copycat league. A lot of teams, as they finish with smaller lineups, the defenses do the same thing. You’re trying to find more switchable guys. Obviously, it’s a luxury if you can have a five man you can keep out there that can punish them on one end but switch and guard on the other end, especially when teams go to small lineups. In general, a lot of the switching is giving teams trouble. We try to make teams beat us one-on-one and take them out of their original sets and plays. You try to figure out, more so thinking offensively, how can we attack these switches that teams tend to do at the end of games?
What were the early days in the Bahamas like before training camp, laying down the foundation of what you wanted to see from a defensive standpoint?
Just not skipping any steps from Day 1. Based on our last three years, I’m not going to treat guys any differently and cut any slack or sweep anything under the rug. We had those conversations early where we needed to get better and we needed to expedite the process. We’ve added some veterans. We have a new philosophy and some different styles of coaching. Now, we want guys to buy in. I said in my press conference, youth is not an excuse. If you make a mistake, I’m not going to sweep it under the rug because you’re young and you can make the same mistake over and over and over. They understood that from Day 1, and that’s just who I am. But to everybody’s credit, they’ve grasped everything we’re trying to do. We’ve really improved, but obviously we’ve got a ways to go, and we can get a lot better. That’s the great thing for this group — to see how much we can still improve.