"We must take it ourselves"

So we wonder about this rookie head coach who guided Toronto to the finals, whose nomadic coaching career included several stops in the British Basketball League, a D League incarnations duo and a stay of three days as an associate head coach at Iowa State. brought him hundreds of thousands of dollars (more on this later). The general consensus seems to be this guy is fun.

But you do not reach the finals of the NBA just by having fun.

"Good, of course," says Raptor guard Kyle Lowry. "Nick is very laid back, very cold – until you do not play hard."

Nobody praised the merits when Nurse reunited his team in the movie theater the day after the embarrassing defeat of the first game against Orlando in the first round of the playoffs. Nurse had been so jazzed the night before that he had barely slept. He was ready.

Why were not his players?

After striker Pascal Siakam fell on Nurse before the session, he warned his teammates as he slipped into his seat: "I could tell immediately that he was really upset," Siakam said. "We could see him on his face, very tense, unlike him, he was already pissed off before he entered."

Nurse, enraged by the mediocre efforts of a group made up of veterans, such as veterans Lowry, Leonard Kawhi, Marc Gasol, Serge Ibaka and Danny Green, they have collected overwhelming examples of the latest news. Toronto's insane approach.

"I had 17 clips to show," says Nurse. "I think I stopped at one o'clock, I thought that they understood how much we needed to play because it was the playoffs." Apparently, they did not do it . "

The nurse made it clear that he would not tolerate this. He shouted so loudly and so long that he lost his voice, report his players. His sputtering vomited dangerously close to the sudden and attentive millionaires of the NBA.

"It was not pretty," says the nurse now. "I do not do it very often – it was by far the biggest ball I used."

"He lit a fire under us," says Green. "We needed it, Orlando prepared us for Philly, which prepared us for Milwaukee and locked us up."

And yet, five weeks later, they were there – after defeating the Magic in four straight sets and touting Philly's four-star trio – by 15 at home to the Match 6 Bucks, their inexperience coming to light. It did not help that Leonard bleached his first seven attempts at three points. "I'm watching," confesses the team's president, Masai Ujiri, "and I say to myself," Under no circumstances will we win this game. "

With 5:47 remaining in the third and the score 65-52, Nurse called timeout. He reminded the Raptors that they had caught up on such a deficit a few days ago. He implored them to relax. "He was very composed," said Leonard, who also spoke to encourage his teammates to embrace the present moment.

Toronto roared back. The Raptors have advanced.

"Nobody gives us anything," said their coach. "We have to take it ourselves."

NICK NURSE born and raised in the town of Carroll, Iowa, about 90 miles northwest of Des Moines. He was the youngest of nine children, with five older brothers, so competitive with him that it sometimes brought him to tears.

"At some point in your life, are you trying to think and wondering why I want to win so badly?" Says the nurse. "So do you realize, at home, if you [didn’t] get up and start fighting in the morning, you [wouldn’t] get some cereal – or a bowl or spoon. "

When Nurse was not looking for Grape-Nuts, he absorbed the blows of his older brothers and sisters in various sports businesses. They hardened him and, in 1985, he was the Des Moines Register 's year – round athlete, before traveling to northern Iowa to play basketball, the guy who shouted "Follow me!" – and everyone did it.

"When I took up my duties in northern Iowa," says his former coach Eldon Miller, "I called a team meeting.Five people showed up." Nick was one of them, I could quickly deduce that the other four to Nick to speak for them. "

The nurse shared the room with Greg McDermott, another boy from Iowa. They quickly became friends and snuck in their free time to bet on greyhounds or hustle guys on the golf course during two-ball tournaments.

The two men helped lay the foundation for a resurgence in northern Iowa, which culminated the year following graduation in 1990 with their first appearance in the United States. NCAA. Miller identified Nurse as one of the few college players who not only learned the pieces but took the time to understand why they made sense. McDermott remembers Nurse's precise shooting regime, which has never wavered. He became the leader of all time in 3 points in percentage of shooting (.468) – then traced a way to stay in the game.

It was an overseas opportunity with the Derby Storm in the British Basketball League as a coach. The team went to all its matches in a squeaky white van, but there was a problem: Nurse, at age 23, was not old enough to secure the rental to be able to take the wheel.

"I had to drive my Martin Ford center," says the nurse. "He was not happy either."

While he was not trying to coach players aged eight or older, Nurse tried to keep the van in good working order. One evening after midnight, when he collapsed on a deserted and winding road in the British countryside, Nurse took stock of his career choices.

"It's one of those moments that made you scratch your head," admits Nurse. "First of all, you say," Where the hell am I? "and second, what am I doing here?

Be that as it may, in four years abroad, he has compiled a record of 276-103. And during his travels, he met a young Nigerian player who showed promise for the old Nurse team, the Derby Storm. His name is Masai Ujiri. "All I remember about Nick," says Ujiri, "is that he was very young and, if you were listening to people there, really brilliant."

Nurse emigrated to the United States and, in 2007, landed a job in her beloved state, Iowa, within the Iowa Energy D-League team. His former roommate, McDermott, also climbed the ranks of coaches and landed a job at Iowa State. Their mutual friends could not help comparing.

"I loved every job I had," says the nurse. "People have asked me," Why do not you do something more important? "When I was doing well in the D-League, they would say," Why can not you get a job in the NBA or a job in a college? "I do not think people have thought much about what I did.

"I was learning not only the X's and the O's, but the team's dynamics."

One of the advantages of the D-League was the possibility for players to enroll in a free continuing education. The nurse became one of the few coaches to sign up, taking a Michigan State online course on interpersonal communication and conflict management.

In 2010, after Nurse earned a division title for Iowa Energy, McDermott invited him to become his associate coach at Iowa State.

The nurse jumped on the opportunity and spent the next 24 hours in meetings, filming sessions and travel reservations abroad to recruit in England and Greece. The night before he left, he had dinner with McDermott in an Ames restaurant where the equipment manager came out with his swag Iowa State – sweatshirts, pants, polos and sneakers. "I told him:" Throw it in my office, I'll have it when I come back, "the nurse recalls.

Three days after taking office, after looking for two candidates in Manchester, England, Nurse received a call from McDermott. Creighton coach, Dana Altman, had accepted the position at Oregon and McDermott had decided to replace Altman at Creighton, where his son Doug "Dougie McBuckets" McDermott would join him.

"These guys from England? Tell them that you are hiring for Creighton now," McDermott informed him.

The head of the nurse was spinning. In one way or another, it did not seem right. He canceled his trip to Athens, returned to Iowa, and spoke with Cyclones Sports Director Jamie Pollard, who told Nurse that he was considering replacing McDermott, but that if he did not take the head coach, she would be considered for that.

"It was a crazy 24 hours," says the nurse. "I had only been hired as an assistant coach three days earlier, and now all the media are spinning around my house thinking that it's me the guy."

He was not. Pollard called Fred Hoiberg for the job and suddenly the nurse was unemployed. After a delicate negotiation, the school offered him a $ 175,000 buyout.

"He has become the highest paid state employee per day in the history of Iowa," McDermott said.

"Yes," the nurses counter, "but I've never had my equipment."

NICK NURSE CROIT most things happen for a reason. Because Iowa Energy had not yet found a replacement, he was able to resume his old job and lead him to a championship. He won another D-League title with the Rio Grande Valley Vipers in 2013, and Dwane Casey hired him as a Raptor assistant for his offensive creativity.

"During the short time we spent together at Iowa State," says McDermott, "we have launched several different sets with lots of markers, I showed them to Nick once and I was able to see the wheels turn. " I know, he says, "Why do not you move these two guys here and reverse the big ones …"

"I have been managing this material for eight or ten years and refining it in a way that I had not considered before."

After accepting the position, the nurse asked to lead the team's summer league team. Ujiri warned that his team was a "shit", designed to give OG Anunoby offensive representatives and not much more. "We had no luck from the first day," says Ujiri, "but Nick is starting to raise these kids, they are playing so hard, and in the end he was so excited to watch them."

Thursday, May 30
• Game 1 | 21h ET | ABC / WatchESPN

Sunday, June 2
• Game 2 | 20h ET | ABC / WatchESPN

Wednesday June 5th
• Game 3 | 21h ET | ABC / WatchESPN

Friday, June 7th
• Game 4 | 21h ET | ABC / WatchESPN

And that, according to his players and coaches, is the definition of Nick Nurse: a coach with a flexible approach to a game that changes constantly and an ability to communicate with players of all shapes, sizes and bank accounts.

"He is willing to try different things," says Siakam. "Many coaches are not.

"Last year, I was not busy with the ball, and this year Nick made it a priority and I am not sure that many other coaches would give me that freedom or confidence. "

"He is very good at adapting," Gasol told Nurse. "Some of the things that he does are dazzling." He showed me some really interesting bouncing techniques, that sounds simple when you say it, but they make a difference. "

While those who wanted him to do something important are finally satisfied, Nurse insists that basketball is basketball, no matter what level. Leonard and Lowry are more talented than his boys from Derby Storm, "but I feel the same for me," insists Nurse. "You learn from everyone."

What we learned from the thrilling finals of the Eastern Conference is that Nurse, the offensive innovator, returned the series to his ear with his defensive adjustments. The Bucks finally scored only 0.96 points per possession after a basket of the series well below their 1.11 average in the regular season (ninth in the regular season) and Giannis Antetokounmpo, an unstoppable force in the previous round. Boston, was blocked by a wall of Raptors defenders, starting with Leonard, Lowry and Green, who absorbed initial contact from within 7 feet.