Rip apart Their Minds, if You would Coach Them well

  If I were a coach, I'd know my players -- and their thoughts. At least, as much as I could.
  If you know the thoughts of a player, you know why he won or lost. If you want to dissect a game, dissect the thoughts of those who played it. No one doubts that the mental attitude of a player determines whether he  plays well, so why don't we dissect that, as much as anything? Don't just roll the game film, roll the player's thoughts.
   It's a little harder, of course. There is no game film on players' thoughts. But, if you really want to figure out why you won or lost, this is what you must do.
  "I need you to be honest with me, Donovan," I said to my star player. "I need to know what thoughts were going through your head between the game with Milwaukee and the one with New Orleans."
   We won the Milwaukee game, coming from 17 down in the fourth quarter. Donovan amassed 46 points on 32 shots. Then, at Milwaukee? He shot but 33 percent, scoring just 19 points on 24 shots. If the difference was mental, what were the attitudes, thoughts and fears that made the difference?
  Where was the confidence lost?
  Did you fear you wouldn't be able to duplicate Milwaukee? Were you excited about New Orleans, or was there a drop off in excitement? And, what about during the game, when New Orleans went ahead at the end? Did you experience some panic?
   Come on, be honest. I'm not just your coach, I'm your therapist. And, if we are going to figure out what went wrong, we need to determine what thoughts went wrong. We can't fix it if we don't know where it's broken.