We’ve got to get these guys willing to fight for each other and go out there and fight for the win. Whatever it takes to make that happen, they’ll do it.
Again, that is not the sexy, ‘Oh you’re in the NBA, you get paid.’ That’s why half these clowns in this league don’t win anything. They don’t realize that it comes down to how hard you’re willing to fight for each other. It’s your team.
How hard are you willing to fight for it? What are you willing to do to win that game that night and then what are you willing to do to win that game the next night? You do that 82 times, then you do it another twenty-something times in the playoffs if you’re lucky and you win a championship.
Because the answer is: Whatever it takes. When you have a team that says, ‘I’ll do whatever it takes to win,’ you’re moving in the right direction.
Most teams have guys who say, ‘Well, I’ll play up to this point, but after that, now I’m uncomfortable. You mean I have to put a body on LeBron James and box him out? Wait a minute now.’ So you want to find the guys who will do whatever it takes to win and we’ve got to find out how many of these young guys are willing to do that and then – win, lose or draw – are willing to do it all over again the next night.
It’s a grind. The NBA is a huge grind. It’s not a sexy league. Everybody thinks that it is. But it’s a grinder’s, workman’s, tough league. I always chuckle because I see people writing that it’s about something else. They’ve never played. I’ve never seen a guy who’s played in this league and had success who hasn’t said the exact same thing. It’s all people from afar or people who have never won who say it’s about something else. Talk to anybody who’s won and they’ll tell you it’s a grind and it’s all about finding a way to bring it every night.
So that’s what we’ve got to find out with our team: How many of those guys do we have?"
-- Kevin McHale, þjálfari Rockets og þrefaldur NBA-meistari með Boston Celtics
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