Killer Crossover, page 10
When we ran the break, I could sense their footsteps on my right and left, running with me as I pushed the ball. We’d come down the court on a fast break and I knew just where to get it to them. If one was curling off a screen or if the other was popping out for a jumper, I would wait and get them the ball in the perfect place, right in their shooting pocket, so they could let it fly. I knew exactly how hard or soft to throw it, how to lay a bounce pass so it would hit them in the hands. The ball would find them in their chest or their waist, and they’d catch and shoot. With big Rod Higgins trailing, I had options all around me. That’s what you develop when you play as a group. But even with the success of my rookie year and how our team began to gel, I knew I still needed to improve. To get better. And who better to learn from than my TMC boys! If I’d be sitting down during practice, I’d watch Mully and Mitch run the floor, studying them. It not only helped add tricks to my offensive game, but allowed me a different view of them running the floor so that I could better get them the rock for a bucket. I’d also find just where they wanted the ball. We worked on bad passes to see what would 90happen if I gave them the ball to the right or left of where they wanted. How they’d adjust. We focused on all scenarios. Those guys worked incredibly hard on every detail.
Mitch, Mully, and I practiced together often to sharpen our chemistry. We often played three-on-three full-court against the likes of Šarūnas, Rod Higgins, and Mario Ellie. We’d work on timing, passing the ball to the perfect spot when one of us came off a pick, going at a defender at the free-throw line. It was all about movement, movement, movement.
On offense, I prided myself on getting to the basket. My penetration was elite, and I played with a ton of energy. Swagger was perhaps my biggest attribute. I wanted to breathe life into my team and snatch life from our opponents with every crossover, jump shot, assist, and steal. I knew I still had things to improve upon, including my jumper, but I was still young and had the desire … plus it helped to be able to play with such stars like Mitch and Mully. It was like we were made in a basketball laboratory for one another. I was the tip of the spear, and they were flying right along with me.
We had a set playbook, but on any given night Nellie would let us throw it out and just run our stuff. He’d say in the locker room, ahead of games some nights, “I’m not going to call a single play. As long as you’re sharing the basketball, be yourselves.” The only rule the guys gave me was that, even though I was so good at breaking my man down, I couldn’t do it immediately. I had to save it like a well-earned punchline to use at the perfect time. After all, why show your best move off in the first quarter when you might need to break it out in the fourth? We also were lucky to have such a strong fanbase that showed us love, though I’m sure they also appreciate that, if we scored enough points, 91our fans got free pizza—so you know they were into it! Our goal each night was to get to 120 points, and we were confident that if we hit that mark, we’d win in the game (and were 22–4 when scoring 120!). Who needed defense?
Mullin, who’d been in Golden State since 1985, averaged 25.1 points per game in my rookie season and 25.7 in my second. In his first three years he’d averaged less than 17. Mitch, who’d won Rookie of the Year the season before I joined, averaged 23.9 points in my second year (his third), his best to that point. Together we averaged more than 72 points per game. And today, all three of us are in the Hall of Fame.
But you don’t make the Hall without work, and I was lucky to have a front-row seat on the time and effort they put in to honing their craft. I still remember watching Chris—he’d work alone for an hour in practice, shooting over and over (where, I swear, he never missed), and then he’d run with the team for another 90 minutes.
The former three-time Big East Player of the Year would be perfect for two and a half hours. When I tell people that, they think I’m exaggerating. But I swear to God, it’s true. I watched him hit every single shot for two and a half hours. Layups, threes, midrange jumpers. He was always in a groove. He must have made 100 in a row! He was one of the most focused players I’ve ever been around. Chris wasn’t an especially athletic guy, so he had to work harder than most to succeed. That pushed me to stay in the gym longer. Like Nikola Jokić or Luka Dončić, Chris wasn’t a fast player. But at 6-foot-7, he used his height and pace to his advantage—and he knew how important that was to our offense. If everyone else is playing fast—fast twitch, fast first-step—well, if you play slow, they won’t know how to 92adjust. With Chris, everything was slow, so he threw other teams off rhythm. Playing against him, guys would just miss blocking his shot or just miss tipping the ball away. They’d be just a half second off time with everything. He knew how to use picks—no one could keep up with his pace. That’s how Joker and Luka play today. If Joker does something, people often just race right past him, not used to his pace. They wonder, How did I miss that? But it’s because he’s so slow. Talented, but a glacier.
And Mitch? Well, he was just a bully on the court. The 6-foot-5 guard played hard and physical and could do it all. He was like a wrecking ball with Stephen Curry’s jump shot. We needed that because ball in the early 1990s was physical. We were tough. I grew up with the mentality of, “if you’re not bleeding, it’s not a foul.” In the NBA at that time, if you got hit, you kept going. You’d take the hit and get right back up. As a point guard, if I passed the ball and then came through the lane, I was prepared to get smacked, elbowed, or even punched. That was just the norm. You’d better cover your chest or stomach because something was coming.
And not sometimes—every time. If we were playing Utah, for example, I knew big Mark Eaton or Karl Malone were going to rough me up in the paint. I had to be strong enough not to get hurt, but I knew I was going to feel it (these days I laugh at some of the “flagrant fouls” NBA refs call in the games compared to what we dealt with on a nightly basis). We had to learn how to deal with it all, or even use it to our advantage.
As I’ve said before, practice is key. You can throw a bunch of All-Stars on the court, but if they’ve never played together then it’s just every man for themself. However, if you match them up with a “team” that has worked together, then it doesn’t matter if 93they have no “stars.” Odds are they’ll take the W. And that’s how we approached things. Whether after a win or a loss, we continued to practice, honing our game. We knew that communication was key, and were always talking. We’d figure out what to do if a defender was playing us a certain way. We’d develop signals about going backdoor on a cut to the basket. We’d know just when to throw a pass by someone’s ear to brush them off, almost like a baseball player. I learned that from the wily John Stockton.
We’d talk about how to defend someone, how to steer him one way so a teammate would be in help position for a steal. Everything we did was part of a plan—and it paid off. While Mitch didn’t make it (though he was top 10 in scoring at the break), Chris and I made the 1990–91 All-Star team. For Chris, it was his third in a row. For me, it was my first. (Mitch would make six All-Star teams later in his career.) Nellie came into practice one day and announced the news. “Tim Hardaway,” he said, “you’re an All-Star. Chris Mullin, you’re an All-Star.” I couldn’t believe it. It was a wow moment.
It was fantastic news, especially coming from Nellie. He had already taught me so much in such a short time. It was the little stuff, the details—like how to position your hands or feet to defend a guy a certain way. Or how to move without the ball. He drilled into me what he called “baseline drift.” When your teammate is driving baseline and you’re at the top of the key, you have to bust your butt to the weak-side corner to give him an outlet. It’s something Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson perfected most recently. But Nellie was having us do it decades before. There were other things, too. Like how to set up a lob pass for a dunk or when to do a spin move. Nellie was ahead of the game.
94 After I got the news that I was an All-Star, I couldn’t wait to get home to tell Yolanda and call my parents. We had a game that night, too, and while I don’t remember who we played, I know the Oakland crowd gave me a standing ovation when the PA announcer introduced me as “All-Star Tim Hardaway!” I couldn’t help but smile from ear to ear. That was the hardest part—you’d have to go from smiling and enjoying yourself to playing hard in the game. From being on Cloud-9 to let’s play basketball against a good team. But that’s alright. It was all worth it, of course. I was scoring well and top five in assists.
* * *
That entire season, I wore the initials “MEE” on my shoes to honor my maternal grandmother, Minnie E. Eubanks, who we called, “Mother, Mother.” She’d passed away in the summer of 1990 after my first full year in the league. That was rough. She died too soon. I’d taken my mother, brother, and Yolanda to Disney World because my mom had never been. But when we got back from Orlando, all my family members were already at our house. Instantly, I knew something was wrong. She’d drank herself to death. It was a sad ending to a great life, and so I dedicated the rest of my career to her.
My grandma had given me the confidence that I later instilled in all of my teammates. She taught me how to persevere. She taught me to be the best person that I could be. She told me that if I was going to do anything, that I should work to become the best at it. She told me to never let anyone take my confidence from me. Never. She put that in my head, and I never forgot it. Born in Mound Bayou, Mississippi, she’d moved to Chicago 95with her sisters and brothers. But as an adult, she always had a problem with alcohol—ironic, given my mother’s decision to be with my father, who was also an alcoholic.
Minnie and my great grandmother lived with us when I was in high school. She worked as a hair stylist in Chicago. She lived with us for part of her life, and owned her own beauty parlor that she ran with a friend. They did hair every day, Tuesday through Saturday. My father’s mother Julia also lived in Chicago. I would visit her after school some days and she always made sure I did my homework. She was always telling me to get my mind together, that repetition in anything I did would help me better accomplish my goals. That helped me become a responsible adult later in life. Both women had big impacts on me, and even though they’re no longer with us, they’ll stay with me for the rest of my life.
It hurt to lose my grandmother when I did, but I used her memory as fuel. And by the All-Star break that season, my Golden State Warriors were looking good. We were sitting at 26–20, fourth in the Pacific Division (which was better than the 24–25 record we had at the break the previous season). After my cyst surgery in college, it wasn’t a sure thing that my right knee would hold up. But I was doing okay thanks to a guy I called “Doc Hollywood.” During my rookie season, someone on the Warriors noticed that I was flatfooted. So they sent me to a doctor in San Francisco to get some orthotics for my shoes. While I was there, this guy, Doc Hollywood, suggested I take some medicine for my knee.
He gave me these giant horse pills that he said would improve blood flow to my right knee. He said they would help the knee not get stuck and maybe even help some cartilage to reform. 96“Alright, cool,” I said. He told me I had to take three giant horse pills per day, but I was willing to do whatever it took. Today, I still use that medication, called Glucosamine Chondrotin. And, thank God, my knees don’t hurt like they could. I’m still walking without pain. My joints are still able to work. Before I started taking the stuff, I could feel when the weather changed. If it got cold, my knee would get stuff. Modern medicine, man, it’s wild stuff.
* * *
The All-Star Game was in Charlotte that year, home of the expansion Hornets, which had only been in the league for a couple seasons. My friend, the 5-foot-3 Muggsy Bogues, was their point guard. They also had Rex Chapman, Earl Cureton, Dell Curry, Kendall Gill, and J. R. Reid. But now wasn’t the time to think about other teams. I was there to enjoy myself for the big weekend. For the East, the starters included my buddy Isiah Thomas, Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, Charles Barkley, and Patrick Ewing, along with Dominique Wilkins, Bernard King, and a few others. (Isiah and Bird were both announced staters, but due to injury didn’t play.)
For my side in the West, we had Magic Johnson, Kevin Johnson, Karl Malone, David Robinson, and my guy Mully as the starters. Coming off the bench were me, James Worthy, Clyde Drexler, and John Stockton, along with others. In a hard-fought battle, the East ended up beating us by just two points, 116–114. We almost won the game, but a Kevin Johnson three-pointer was waived off after a basket interference call on Malone. That same weekend, I also took part in the three-point 97competition. Shooting along with me were Craig Hodges, Terry Porter, Dennis “3D” Scott, Danny Ainge, Hersey Hawkins, Glen Rice, and Drexler.
In the first round of the contest, me and Porter tied with scores of 15, but he beat me in a 30-second tiebreaker and my day was done. Truthfully, I never really liked the three-point contest, even though I participated in a couple of them. When you’re shooting the ball, there’s this camera hanging above you. When we practiced, it wasn’t there. But during the event, there it was. It’s close enough that it distracted me, taking my concentration away from the rim. I always hated that thing. That year, Hodges won the competition (hitting 19-straight shots at one point), his second of three in a row.
There are a lot of events during All-Star weekend. In the morning on Saturday, there was the Jam Session event that began at 8 a.m. All these kids from different local schools would come and fill up the arena in the morning, which was great. We’d meet and talk with them and shoot around, too. And from there, we’d have practice for the game a few hours later. But the problem was, if you went out the night before, you were groggy. That weekend, I think I only got a couple of hours of sleep. In fact, there was one night when I went out and got a taste of what it meant to be a star.
Me and some friends of mine found a club in Charlotte one night. We were rolling deep—there were about forty of us! The club in downtown Charlotte had this long line in front. My buddy said to me, “Go up there and tell them you’re Tim Hardaway.” But I said, “Man, they’re not going to let all of us in there!” But my friend assured me—after all, I was an NBA All-Star. He got me to go up to the door. I talked to the doorman. 98“Hey,” I said, “I’m Tim Hardaway and I have some friends with me.” And the guy extended his hand and said, “Hey, Tim! Congratulations! How many are you?”
I told him we were forty but he just said, “Go on in. Just tell me when to stop.” My jaw dropped. He was going to let whoever I wanted inside. I just had to tell him where the end of our line was! I’d never had anything like that happen before. So we all went inside and immediately realized that there weren’t even that many people there. It was just like the club owner was waiting for a big group like mine. They just kept the line of people outside, making it look like it would be all jam packed. So we all stretched out and had a good time. That was the life, I have to say. It didn’t even matter I had just five points in 12 minutes in the actual game!
For the players, the weekend is as much about being in a room with the twenty-four best guys in the league as it is about anything else. You’re in awe when you walk into that locker room before tip-off. You see Magic Johnson, John Stockton, Kevin Johnson, Clyde Drexler. And you just start joking, like, “Hey, Clyde! I can’t believe you dunked it like that on so-and-so last week!” He’d say, “Man, he shouldn’t have been there!” You make plans for what events or parties you want to go to later. You take pictures, sign autographs, ask about each other’s families. That’s how it’s been for me, from my first appearance to my fifth.
* * *
When the playoffs came that season, we were seventh in the West with a record of 44–38. We’d improved our record by seven games and officially made the postseason. We didn’t care who we 99played, whether it was Portland, Utah, or San Antonio—all of which were top seeds. They were jockeying for position while we were solid at the seventh spot. We just believed we were unstoppable on offense. On the same token, our “small ball” lineup had to make up for our lack of size on defense with quickness. Every team was going to be bigger than us, but they’d also be slower. Our job was to make sure our biggest advantage wasn’t also our downfall. We’d flown commercial airplanes all season, but once we made the playoffs, our owner Jim Fitzgerald sprung for private flights. Only a few teams used private planes at this time—the Detroit Pistons were the first, and it greatly benefited them in the late 1980s. After a five-game winning streak to end the season, we were matched up against the No. 2 seeded San Antonio Spurs. Flying to Texas from Oakland, we thought we could get used to this private air travel.
We had a great team that season with our Run-TMC trio and bench guys like Lithuanian legend Šarūnas Marciulionis, rookie Tyrone Hill, and newly signed Mario Elie, to name a few. But in the first game in San Antonio against the Spurs, we struggled. The Spurs were ready for us—ready for war. Though we had a small lead after the first quarter, they outscored us by 27 in the second and third, and were up by more than 20 heading into the fourth. Their star center David Robinson scored 30 points and grabbed 13 rebounds. Their New York City–born point guard Rod Strickland added another 30 with 13 assists, and their shooting guard Willie Anderson had the game of his life, scoring 38. Despite Mully and Mitch each dropping 29 to go along with my 19 points and eight assists, we lost by nine, 130–121.
But Nellie wasn’t fazed. He just said, “Don’t worry fellas, we’re going to win this series.” I was shocked to hear him say 100that so directly. He didn’t yell or scream or even put us through our paces in practice. Instead, we just watched a little film and had a 30–45-minute shootaround. He told me and Mitch to stop turning the ball over so much and that was basically it— nothing major, just a few tweaks. After practice, though, eight of us decided to play four-on-four full court, and that’s when things clicked—if for no other reason than the confidence Nellie instilled in us. Nellie went upstairs to look over a few things as we stayed on the court and ran. It was me, Chris, Mitch, and Rod Higgins against Mario, Vincent Askew, Šarūnas, and Tyrone. We went up and down hard for about an hour.
