Why Doc Rivers Outcoached Phil Jackson

After the Celtics wrapped up their 17th title last week, many people were left wondering what happened to the Lakers. Specifically, how did Phil Jackson get outcoached so badly by Doc Rivers? After nine titles with the Bulls and the Lakers, most basketball experts believed Phil Jackson would walk all over Doc Rivers, leaving little chance for the Celtics to overcome the coaching difference. During all six games, Rivers significantly outcoached Jackson for 48 minutes, from motivating his players to exploiting favorable matchups. Has Phil Jackson’s time passed as a great coach and motivator or was something more at work during the NBA Finals?
Despite their obvious struggles throughout the series, Phil Jackson continued to ride Vladimir Radmanovic and Sasha Vujacic despite terrible shooting and nonexistent defense throughout the series. When Ray Allen continued to make corner threes with no sign of Vujacic within ten feet, the viewer began to wonder why Phil Jackson sat there as if he had a dinner date that was more important than the matchups on the floor. Meanwhile, Doc Rivers continued to exploit favorable matchups throughout every game, which inevitably won the title for Boston. Not only that, Rivers kept Boston playing at a level much higher than the Lakers, keeping them motivated throughout the entire series. However, most NBA experts would agree that Phil Jackson is a better coach then Doc Rivers, making it seem as though Phil Jackson simply folded under the pressure of the most watched NBA Finals since Jordan broke Utah’s heart.
When faced with pressure situations, the human body focuses most of its energies on specific things, which can be both a blessing and a curse. Pressure can make people hyperfocused on one event but the stress makes them lose consciousness with other aspects of their life. This is why people in high stress jobs often lose touch with their significant other; the pressure of one aspect of their life drains all of their motivation for other aspects. With the pressure and speed of sports, it is very easy to succumb to the pressure and not make the correct decisions. Although the basketball world could see Phil Jackson making poor decisions, it is much more difficult for the person involved when so much pressure is going on around them.
As pressure continues to grow within a person’s mind, their cognitive abilities often tend to shut down through a process known as cognitive overload. When conflicting stimuli are presented within the mind, the brain subconsciously must choose which stimuli to focus on. With so many different stimuli being presented in something as large as the NBA Finals, from the media commitments to the travel situations to the enormous pressure of each game, coaches must create a balance between everything to be at the top of their game. Even the best coaches in the world tend to make mistakes under enormous pressure. Bill Belichick admitted to several mistakes during the Super Bowl that may have cost his hugely-favored Patriots to lose to the Giants.
Although Phil Jackson could arguably be the best coach in NBA history, he didn’t balance his emotions and was outcoached in every game. Although it could have been his own cockiness and stubbornness that lead to being outcoached, it is likely that Jackson succumbed to the pressure of facing a team that wanted it more than his team. It is well-known that Phil Jackson is set in his ways but that doesn’t mean that he is unaffected by pressure that everyone feels. In this year’s NBA Finals, Doc Rivers looked much more like the coach who had won nine titles, not Phil Jackson.

What's Wrong with Bill Belichick and What's Right with Tony Dungy

What was he thinking? That was the sentiment most people felt when news broke that the Patriots were caught cheating last September. When spygate occurred, Bill Belichick became public enemy number one in the NFL. Why would he go to such lengths to get a competitive edge against his opponents? Is cheating innate or is it something that people develop over time as a result of how they were nurtured throughout life? To understand why Belichick cheated, it helps to look at why some people tend to have a personality that leads them to cheat.
Much like jealousy and empathy, the desire to cheat may be an innate thing that drives people to get ahead of their competition. In the classic Prisoner’s Dilemma task, people are presented with a situation where the individual must decide whether to cooperate with others to reduce both people’s problems or deceive the other person in the attempt to have an advantage over that person. When people believe they won’t get caught, they often cheat in order to help themselves. When it comes down to it, most people would cheat in order to get ahead of their competition whether it is academically or in sports.
From an evolutionary prospective, people in earlier days would need to create an advantage over their competition in order to survive, commonly known as survival of the fittest. However, as societies have become more advanced, societal norms have become a larger part of everyone’s life. Instead of simply surviving, people must work together and be a part of the large picture instead of working for just themselves. When people believe they can’t be caught doing something, they will often resort to the innate thought that leads them lie, cheat or steal in order to get ahead in life. In Belichick’s case, it was likely his own arrogance that led to the belief that he could do something wrong and not get caught.
On the opposite end of the coaching spectrum from Belichick is Tony Dungy. Although just as competitive as Belichick, a person would never find Dungy cheating in the way Belichick and the Patriots did. Most people can suppress the natural urge to cheat because they were taught that it is simply wrong. However, those feelings will always be in a person’s body because of the way the human brain is wired to give yourself an advantage no matter what the consequence is. In Dungy’s case, he can suppress those emotions, likely because of past experiences that shape the way he thinks about his profession and his life.
Both Belichick and Dungy have the same natural instincts but only Belichick acted upon those instincts. With everything in life, it is important to realize that it is normal to have feelings that would lead a person to do something that they would later regret. Everyone has those feelings but those who are able to suppress it will likely get farther ahead in the long run, despite the up-front accolades. Now, Belichick has 500,000 reasons and questions about his legacy to suppress his arrogance.

The Psychology Behind Kevin Garnett and Kobe Bryant

With the NBA Finals under way, Kobe Bryant and Kevin Garnett have illustrated throughout the NBA playoffs why they are so great. Both players are the undeniable leaders of the two best teams in the NBA this year. However, there is one very noticeable difference between the two players. Although both contain the fire within to will their team to victory, Garnett is much more boisterous on the court. Although you often see Bryant getting after his teammates and referees, he is not afraid to joke with opponents on the court. Garnett on the other hand continues to grimace throughout the entire game, as if the outcome of the game depends on how much his yells and punches himself in the face.

Why are these two players so different in their mannerisms? It simply comes down to the way they handle the pressure of the situation in their own way. When people get nervous, they tend to have quirks that help them through their nervousness. Before a big presentation, people often tend to yawn way more often than they normally would. Despite having three cups of coffee and a Red Bull, the pressure of the situation forces the brain to require more oxygen than normal; this creates a need to yawn. This is the neural response to pressure and stress that many people feel.

With that in mind, every person deals with stress in their own way. For Garnett, his way of dealing with the stress of an NBA game is to let out all of his emotions through talking trash to opponents and yelling towards the crowd. There are three ways a person can react to stress. The first of which actually helps the person deal with the demands they are facing. This phenomenon is known as eustress where people learn to adapt to the pressure of the situation and use different means such as adrenaline to help them cope with the situation. The other two ways people deal with stress is to either escape the situation or to deal with the situation in an adverse manner.

To get to a state of eustress, Garnett uses outward emotion to fend off the fear that he deals with during the course of the game. This helps him deal with pressure in a distinct way. First, when a person feels a perceived stressor in their environment, hormones are released from the pituitary gland and into the bloodstream to counteract the stressor. This is usually felt through adrenaline and must be released in order for a person’s mental state to get back to normal. This is why Garnett lets his emotions go during the course of the game. It is his body’s neural response to the pressure of the situation.
If that is the case, then why does Kobe Bryant appear so cool during the course of a game? Although he lets his emotions out, it isn’t nearly as outward as that of Garnett. It is simply another way of dealing with the pressure. Instead of releasing his stress hormones through adrenaline like that of Garnett, Bryant uses his mind to deal with the stressors that are in the environment. The innate health model of stress shows that people attempt to get into a state of mind that releases the hormones caused by stress through the means of a quiet mind. Instead of releasing everything outwardly, Bryant channels his fears through a thought process that determines his response to pressure.
Despite the differences, both players have had great success with each type of reaction to their stressful environment. As a person deals with acute stress more throughout their life, they learn techniques that allow them to adapt to the situation. By finding the key to relaxing your stress agent, people can become more productive and healthier. The key is to not be afraid to try new strategies when you feel a stressful agent presenting itself. This could lead to the breakthrough of overcoming pressure for you like the NBA greats mentioned above.