Rewind: VCR shows idle hands are Horry's workshop
May 21, 2001
Sean Deveney
SAN ANTONIO -- He was 2-for-5 shooting and had only five rebounds, but there was no better player in the Lakers' Game 2 win over the Spurs than Robert Horry. Sure, Derek Fisher was 6-for-9, Kobe Bryant scored 28 points and Shaquille O'Neal grabbed 14 rebounds. But no player was more vital to this win than Horry, with a little assist from his locker room VCR.
In the first half, the Lakers seemed to have no answer for Spurs forward Tim Duncan, especially when Horace Grant was resting and Horry was in. Duncan was 12-for-18 from the floor with 25 points, in the first two quarters, and he was even better when Horry was guarding him. In seven minutes against Horry in the second quarter, Duncan was 5-for-5, hitting two jumpers, a layup, a tip-in and a monstrous reverse dunk that made Horry look cement-footed.
But at halftime, Horry got a quick peek at himself.
"In the first half, I was playing defense with my hands," Horry says. "I was expecting [Duncan] to not be as aggressive, but he was really aggressive going to the rack and I was not doing anything to stop him. So I said, 'I have to change my mode.'
"Sometimes, that's the good thing about having tape you can watch. I could come in and watch myself and see that I had happy hands."
When Duncan is being so aggressive, you can't play him with your hands. There is not a set of hands in the NBA that is strong enough to play Duncan that way. Realizing that, Horry decided to use his whole body in the second half, and force Duncan into spots where other Lakers could offer Horry some help.
"I said, 'Enough with the hands,'" Horry relates. "I had to have happy feet. If I get my feet in front of him and make him step back, that's where I can get help from my teammates. The big thing was we could double team him and make him get rid of the ball to his teammates, and they weren't making their shots."
That was the other important realization for the Lakers. San Antonio was simply missing shots. Even in the first half, when the Spurs took an eight-point lead, Spurs other than Duncan were just 8-for-23 (34.8 percent). So the second-half plan was simple enough: Stop Duncan.
"The way things were going, obviously, with Duncan, we felt like we had to get him off the boards and off the spots he likes and make him pass," says Lakers coach Phil Jackson. "So we started to double team a little more, and that paid off for us."
Jackson was ejected after his second technical foul with 2:59 to play. Horry was in the game at that point, and that left Jim Cleamons -- Jackson's top assistant -- to decide whether to stick with Horry on Duncan or to go back to Grant, the starter at power forward. Cleamons went with Horry, and was rewarded.
After Horry entered the game with 7:48 to play in the third, Duncan was held to just one field goal attempt for the rest of the quarter -- a missed 15-footer. Horry added a big block on an Antonio Daniels dunk attempt and even hit a 3-pointer during a key third-quarter run where the Lakers seized the lead.
"As a coach, sometimes you get a feeling in your gut," Cleamons says. "I liked the way Robert was guarding [Duncan], keeping his body close to him and making him work, allowing our double teams to do their job. So I thought as long as he was fresh, I was going to ride him. He seemed to have a good idea of what to do against [Duncan]."
You can thank the VCR for that.
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