When Billy Donovan first reached out to Gregg Popovich in the late summer of 2014, the Florida coach seeking counsel from the San Antonio Spurs’ legend, his wildest dreams hadn’t included any of this.
That Donovan would go on to coach Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook and the rest of the Oklahoma City Thunder was unexpected enough, but the idea that he would down Popovich’s Spurs in the playoffs en route to a Western Conference Finals matchup against the defending champion Golden State Warriors? Absurd.
The Spurs were fresh off their fifth title since 1999, and Donovan – whose Gators had won the SEC in dominating fashion but fell to Connecticut in that year’s Final Four – was struck by their resilient spirit. After the heartache of the 2013 Finals, when Ray Allen’s miraculous shot in Game 6 sparked the Spurs’ collapse against the Miami Heat in the final two games, they had righted the wrong. And Donovan, a coaching sponge through and through, wanted to learn more.
“I called him ‘Coach,’ and he corrected me about 50 times and told me to call him, ‘Pop,’” Donovan, who didn’t know Popovich previously, told USA TODAY Sports. “So I said, ‘Pop, I want to pick your brain.’”
And so he did.
“He was really, really gracious, and sat down and spent time with me (at Spurs training camp a few months later) and talked to me and took me out to dinner,” Donovan said. “When we had the head coaches meeting in September in Chicago, he came by and said, ‘Hey listen, I want you to come out to dinner. It’s your first year in the NBA, so why don’t you come out with a couple guys?’ We just had some dinner.”
In turn, Donovan got better. And less than a year later, that process continues still – for Donovan and his Thunder team.
When Thunder general manager Sam Presti made the tough choice to part ways with longtime coach Scott Brooks and hire Donovan last May, there was a central tenet to his thinking that is bearing out in a big way during the playoffs: the need to always improve. Status quo wasn’t good enough, even if the Thunder could have pointed to all those ill-timed injuries in playoffs past and play the what-if game.
Donovan was hired to help the Thunder grow, to evolve, and to eventually guide them toward the championship that has seemed possible ever since Durant and Westbrook blossomed into the league’s most dynamic duo. But to see it all come together so quickly, with Donovan’s Thunder downing Rick Carlisle’s Dallas Mavericks in a five-game first-round series win only to stun a Spurs team that won a franchise-record 67 games during the regular season, is something that few saw coming. And Donovan is doing his part in his NBA playoff debut.
His decision to go big against the Spurs, often playing Enes Kanter and Steven Adams together after they’d hardly done so in the previous seven months, helped the Thunder dominate on the glass. His after-timeout, play-call performance – a staple for any of the league’s best coaches – has been stellar. His decision to shorten his rotation was big. Along the way, Donovan has been making the most of the extra preparation time that comes with the postseason.
As opposed to Donovan’s college days, when a loss to an opponent in the tournament meant the season was over, an NBA playoff loss is simply a chance to respond. And because you see the same opponent over and over again, the impact of every possible adjustment looms large. As Donovan noted, there’s the omnipresent risk of information overload as well.
“You could have three or four things that you think may happen, and you don’t want to inundate your guys with so much information that they’re not out there playing,” Donovan said. “So what’s really pertinent information that they need to know, what’s stuff that I need to have in my backpocket as a coach that could potentially happen in the game?
“For example, coming out of the San Antonio halftime in Game 6, we’re up by 23 or whatever it was, and I told Russell coming out there, I said, ‘We need to be prepared for them going small. We need to play through it, and see how it goes.’ Pop ended up going small, put Kawhi Leonard out there and we stayed big and weathered through it … There wasn’t much of a change in the score, and then they went back to their normal lineup.”
In many ways, it’s a coach’s dream. They get to tinker. They get to talk. They get to teach.
“You’re going through every single possession on what’s happening, what’s going on, from matchups to substitution patterns, all those kinds of things,” he said. “(That’s) the biggest difference from the regular season for me to this … I really have enjoyed that part of it.”
They’re getting better at the perfect time because of it, from Donovan on down.
