Speaker 1: Welcome back to Coach Check, the official podcast of the
Speaker 1: Delaware Bluecoats, the NBA G League affiliate of the Philadelphia
Speaker 1: seventy six ers from the NBA G League Bubble. Another
Speaker 1: edition of Coach Check the twenty twenty one NBA G
Speaker 1: League season being played at Walt Disney World, the ESPN
Speaker 1: Wide World of Sports Complex, and Coat Check is presented
Speaker 1: by Christianna care I'm Matt Murphy. Quick reminder, if you
Speaker 1: want to hear more from the Bubble, subscribe to the
Speaker 1: seventy six podcast network. Game Schedule heating up, Playoff Picture
Speaker 1: Taking Shape. The Bluecoats eight and four heading into a
Speaker 1: Wednesday morning matchup that you will probably already know the
Speaker 1: result of against the Canton Charge, Cleveland's G League affiliate
Speaker 1: by the time you listen to this one. But again,
Speaker 1: that playoff Picture Taking Shape, a playoff Berth, would be
Speaker 1: the first playoff Berth in Delaware franchise history. On this episode,
Speaker 1: we've got our Bubble correspondent Xavier Silas, one of the
Speaker 1: assistant coaches for the team, for his check in and
Speaker 1: his insights, talking about the recent win over MBA G
Speaker 1: League ignite, and a whole lot more really good conversation
Speaker 1: with Coach Silas that win over the Ignite team, which
Speaker 1: is a team partially comprised of some of the prospects eligible.
Speaker 1: The top prospects eligible were. The twenty twenty one NBA
Speaker 1: Draft was on Monday, March first, and the Blue Coats
Speaker 1: on national television, controlled that one from start to finish,
Speaker 1: one twenty ninety two win for the Delaware Blue Coats.
Speaker 1: Before we get to Coach Silas, let's check in with
Speaker 1: some of the Bluecoats players after that big win. First up,
Speaker 1: Justin Robinson, who accomplished his double double with assists pretty
Speaker 1: early on, got some rest towards the end of the game.
Speaker 1: The team's starting point guard thirteen points, twelve assists. Afterwards,
Speaker 1: he talked about the team putting together a full forty
Speaker 1: eight minute effort. I think overall, our goal was kind
Speaker 1: of putting the whole forty eight minutes together. We've always
Speaker 1: had stretches of two good quarters and whether it's the
Speaker 1: beginning of the game or the end of the game.
Speaker 1: But I think our whole mindsetting goal today was to
Speaker 1: play a whole forty eight and I think us maintaining
Speaker 1: the lead as kind of positive step growing and learn
Speaker 1: him as a team. There were plenty of great performances,
Speaker 1: but how about Braxton Key, the rookie who finished his
Speaker 1: college career at the University of Virginia a national champion
Speaker 1: for the Cavaliers against NBA G League ignite, Braxton Key
Speaker 1: put up nineteen points in twenty minutes, and his first
Speaker 1: half effort really allowed the Bluecoats to build up a
Speaker 1: big lead. He talked afterwards about well, a lot of things,
Speaker 1: but staying ready, the workouts he's been putting in, and
Speaker 1: it was really cool to see it pay off for him.
Speaker 1: I felt great, got an opportunity who go out there
Speaker 1: and play. Just went there and play my game. Guys
Speaker 1: fell on me. I just took the right shots to
Speaker 1: open shots. Defensive vantage is trying to help do whatever
Speaker 1: I can do to help the team win. Guys will
Speaker 1: looking me up. So it was just a team effort
Speaker 1: today and definitely grateful that we got the way. I mean,
Speaker 1: my team they tell me stay ready, they're gonna they
Speaker 1: say they're gonna need me eventually. Tonight was that night
Speaker 1: I gave guys a lift. I've been in a jenna
Speaker 1: past three four nights every night just working on my game.
Speaker 1: Getting shots up. Whether we have a game or not.
Speaker 1: I'm just working on working on my game. Just gotta
Speaker 1: stay ready so when it's time to be ready, it's
Speaker 1: I'm ready for the opportunity. It's definitely tough being in
Speaker 1: that situation, but you gotta be professional at the end
Speaker 1: of the day and do what it takes. Please to
Speaker 1: be rejoined by our Blue Coats bubble correspondent, assistant coach,
Speaker 1: former NBA player, former Philadelphia seventy six er, amongst other teams,
Speaker 1: Xavier Silas, It's good to have you back, coach, and
Speaker 1: another week down here in the NBA G League bubble,
Speaker 1: and it certainly had its ups and downs for this
Speaker 1: Delaware Blue Coats team. But as we record right now
Speaker 1: a couple days into the month of March, eight and
Speaker 1: four record for the Blue Coats eyes on the prize
Speaker 1: being a playoff birth first and foremost for those who
Speaker 1: don't know out there, a fifteen game regular season. To
Speaker 1: put in perspective how many we've played so far, as
Speaker 1: Coach Silas and I talk right now, but eight teams
Speaker 1: out of eighteen here at the single site in Disney
Speaker 1: World will make the playoffs. And when I say it
Speaker 1: was up and down. Really, it kind of takes me
Speaker 1: back to our last episode. And I'm a little long
Speaker 1: winded here, but you said something about finding your identity
Speaker 1: on the last episode that I really wanted to follow
Speaker 1: up on but forgot. So what is the identity of
Speaker 1: this team, the Delaware Bluecoats in twenty twenty one and
Speaker 1: how have you seen it kind of develop? I think
Speaker 1: that our identity really has to do with the pain.
Speaker 1: It's continue to have this theme about the paint, and
Speaker 1: so offensively we want to touch the pain, and that
Speaker 1: requires being aggressive, that requires sharing the ball, and that
Speaker 1: requires kind of being all on the same accord. Offensively, Defensively,
Speaker 1: we want to keep the other team out of the pain,
Speaker 1: and so like the theme I think is just protecting
Speaker 1: the paint and then attacking the pain on the other end.
Speaker 1: And I think that our guys have really put an
Speaker 1: emphasis on that and has helped us get through our
Speaker 1: little skid. That touch the paint theme is shortened by
Speaker 1: you and others in games. To be ttp, where's at
Speaker 1: least one other that I know of. I want you
Speaker 1: to fill in some of the blanks here, PTE that
Speaker 1: has helped out this season. It's it's it's tough. It's
Speaker 1: condensed basketball games. You're playing pretty much every other day,
Speaker 1: so things are going to happen out there on the floor.
Speaker 1: And you've brought and your staff and your fellow coaches
Speaker 1: have brought to the players PTE. Yeah, I think you know.
Speaker 1: PTE means play through everything, and so like I think
Speaker 1: that with our skid, what I saw was that, you know,
Speaker 1: and it's hard. It's hard to play through playing well,
Speaker 1: you know, being on a on a winning streak, it's
Speaker 1: really hard to continue to do the little things and
Speaker 1: to play well. So we need to play through those things.
Speaker 1: We need to play through bad calls, we need to
Speaker 1: play through bad shots, we need to play through you know,
Speaker 1: literally everything bad and everything good. And so like you know,
Speaker 1: a lot of our people on the team, coaches, we're
Speaker 1: all yelling PTE when good things happen, when bad things happen,
Speaker 1: because if we just you know, lock in and focus
Speaker 1: in on every possession, we're pretty good. And we've shown
Speaker 1: that with our seven seven game winning street. That was
Speaker 1: of course at the start of the year. As we
Speaker 1: said eight and four. And when you say players and
Speaker 1: coaches saying things, this is a fun group this is
Speaker 1: a fun Bluecodes team with a lot of characters, and
Speaker 1: you're saying these types of things from the bench as well.
Speaker 1: There's obviously coaching instruction going on, but there's some trash talk,
Speaker 1: there's some support for teammates and to bring people inside
Speaker 1: the bubble a little bit more on game days, I
Speaker 1: think the Bluecoats are one of the loudest benches and
Speaker 1: some of that is in a very good way as well,
Speaker 1: and I think as a coach you probably consider it
Speaker 1: a good thing to a certain extent as well, because
Speaker 1: especially on the defensive end, there's a lot of communication
Speaker 1: on the floor and there's a lot of communication for
Speaker 1: the whole game from the bench from players who aren't
Speaker 1: in the game. Just in general, we're definitely engaged. We're
Speaker 1: I think that we're the most engaged group here. Our
Speaker 1: guys talk and we know, you know the cliche sayings.
Speaker 1: You know, communication is key. You know, in any relationship,
Speaker 1: being able to communicate is going to be the end all,
Speaker 1: be all and if that relationship is going to work.
Speaker 1: And so what we do is we encourage that talk.
Speaker 1: You know, every every day we're encouraging them to talk,
Speaker 1: and sometimes they talk too much. But we rather overtalk
Speaker 1: than not talk enough. And that's for sure more on
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Speaker 1: Christianacare dot org. There is some outside of internal communication
Speaker 1: about plays and positioning and things like that. There's definitely
Speaker 1: some trash talk too, but I think that's made this
Speaker 1: team fun. Maybe a little bit of a target on
Speaker 1: their back in some respects too. Yeah, I think that
Speaker 1: they play with an edge, and anytime you play a
Speaker 1: team that plays with an edge, you're going to get
Speaker 1: up for that game. And so a lot of the
Speaker 1: games that we are in are very competitive and the
Speaker 1: energy is really high because you know, we welcome that
Speaker 1: type of environment and atmosphere for sure, and the most
Speaker 1: recent environment as we move along if the theme of
Speaker 1: part of the theme of this episode is beating the
Speaker 1: G League Ignite team, which is new this year to
Speaker 1: the g League, made up of both some NBA veterans
Speaker 1: but also some of the top prospects who were eligible
Speaker 1: for the twenty twenty one NBA Draft, like Jalen Green
Speaker 1: and Jonathan Kuminga. It was a big win for the
Speaker 1: Bluecoats to get back on track. It was on national
Speaker 1: television and from start to finish, the Blue Coach just
Speaker 1: controlled that thing and a lot of what we just
Speaker 1: talked about went into that performance against NBAG League Ignite. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think TTP was in full effect. I think that
Speaker 1: we were touching the paint at a very high rate.
Speaker 1: I think we were keeping them out of the paint
Speaker 1: on the other end, forcing them to take some contested shots,
Speaker 1: and we did a really good job of playing through
Speaker 1: everything the entire game. You know, there's been some games
Speaker 1: where we put it together for three quarters, but one
Speaker 1: quarter we slack, you know, And this was the first
Speaker 1: time that I saw that we really put four quarters together.
Speaker 1: I mean, we dominated and ended up winning about thirty,
Speaker 1: but it wasn't close, you know, the entire game, and
Speaker 1: we were able to keep that consistency. And so, you know,
Speaker 1: after that four game skid, we came together, we came
Speaker 1: up with the PTE deal and the Ignite game was
Speaker 1: the first time we were able to put it on,
Speaker 1: put it in action, and it worked out. Pretty well,
Speaker 1: and so I think the guys are responding and being
Speaker 1: in the bubble, you know, you have to have certain
Speaker 1: little themes to keep you through and engaged in the
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Speaker 1: Along the lines of that, I want to talk about
Speaker 1: team chemistry in the bubble. I've mentioned it a few times,
Speaker 1: about a little bit here and there about your playing career,
Speaker 1: and you're just out of the game as a player,
Speaker 1: including at this level in the G League. I mean,
Speaker 1: you play in the NBA, but you recently played in
Speaker 1: the G League as well, but you did not experience
Speaker 1: a bubble situation with the G League. You did, however,
Speaker 1: play in the TBT tournament, which I know was a
Speaker 1: bubble variation to a certain extent. But thinking about this setting,
Speaker 1: thinking about this Bluecoats team, their rooms are all near
Speaker 1: each other, They from what we've heard, sometimes bring their
Speaker 1: desk chairs and sit socially distant apart outside just to
Speaker 1: talk to each other. What did you think the chemistry,
Speaker 1: the development of team chemistry was going to be like,
Speaker 1: and how have you seen it develop with this group. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I always thought that the team that developed the best
Speaker 1: chemistry in this little short stint was gonna win, you know,
Speaker 1: and win at a high rate. And I think that
Speaker 1: we've been one of those teams. Like you said, the
Speaker 1: guys pull their chairs out and kind of like this
Speaker 1: old school sitting on the porch, yelling across the way
Speaker 1: to each other and hanging out. But they also, like
Speaker 1: I said, they also have some tough conversations with each
Speaker 1: other and tough conversations with us as a coaching staff.
Speaker 1: And they are a good group because they've been able
Speaker 1: to respond to that. You know, every good team, every
Speaker 1: team in general, but especially every good team goes through
Speaker 1: something and they come out better. And I think that
Speaker 1: that could be the case for us. It definitely has
Speaker 1: the right fixings for it to look like that. I
Speaker 1: think it also shows as we wrap up here in
Speaker 1: just one second, a little bit longer today, but we'll
Speaker 1: have more players shortly on the show this season, and
Speaker 1: one of those guys I'm going to talk about here
Speaker 1: in a second but I think it also shows how
Speaker 1: badly that the players on the Delaware this year want
Speaker 1: to win. There's that dynamic of a lot of guys
Speaker 1: have been called up already, trying to get that NBA
Speaker 1: call up, because that's the dream, trying to do things
Speaker 1: on the court that help you get that NBA call up.
Speaker 1: But it seems like the Bluecoats have a lot of
Speaker 1: winners on this team that have a winning mindset, and
Speaker 1: that goes into how they came together to get back
Speaker 1: in the win column. But when I say we're gonna
Speaker 1: have more players on Jared Brownridge as a friend of
Speaker 1: the show, he's been on a few times, very dynamic personality,
Speaker 1: fan favorite. You and him are both knocked down shooters.
Speaker 1: We talked on the last episode, you and I about
Speaker 1: how many threes you made in your career, how many
Speaker 1: threes he's made in his career. So when we talked
Speaker 1: to Jared, let's get your side of the story first
Speaker 1: to set that up, because you guys have a little
Speaker 1: competition going on in practice here. Yeah, you know, we
Speaker 1: sometimes it's only been twice, but we've we've we've shot
Speaker 1: against each other, and the first time I was beating
Speaker 1: him pretty bad. I think that he'll tell the truth
Speaker 1: about that, but I kind of let go of the
Speaker 1: rope and I got a little tired at the end
Speaker 1: of it, and he came back and barely won. And
Speaker 1: so we might have been a few days ago. Actually
Speaker 1: it was a day before the night game. You know,
Speaker 1: we got back in there and I'll beat him pretty good,
Speaker 1: and so he's been trying to get me to play again.
Speaker 1: But you know, me and Jared brown Ridge being tied
Speaker 1: at this juncture, I think that I'm just gonna call
Speaker 1: it a day and not play him again because it
Speaker 1: feels more like a win for me and a loss
Speaker 1: for him. So I'm gonna keep it there. One other
Speaker 1: thing that I just thought of before we get out
Speaker 1: of here is that same day there was some half
Speaker 1: court shooting at practice with the players, and you often
Speaker 1: see that with college and pro basketball teams as like
Speaker 1: a lighter thing to do. What are some of the
Speaker 1: things you remember from your playing career that coaches would
Speaker 1: have you do in practice to lighten the mood, or
Speaker 1: if it was those half court shooting competitions, how did
Speaker 1: you do in them? What was what was your what
Speaker 1: are your memories of those types of things. It's always
Speaker 1: you're right. You know, a lot of college and pro
Speaker 1: you do that at the end of practice. You know,
Speaker 1: you shoot half court shots and compete against each other.
Speaker 1: And I just was never like I was never good
Speaker 1: at it. Like I was really good shooter, but I
Speaker 1: don't even remember my whole career like making one and
Speaker 1: winning that that deal and I did it a lot.
Speaker 1: So you know, I stayed away from half course shots
Speaker 1: I may want in high school. In the playoff game
Speaker 1: once but we were down for and we lost. I
Speaker 1: lost by one. I lost by one and him a
Speaker 1: half course shot and I jumped into the guy and
Speaker 1: he fouled me. Still to this day, I'll say he
Speaker 1: fouled me, and I made this shot and they didn't
Speaker 1: call the foul to give me the chance to tie
Speaker 1: it to go to overturn. Wow. Well, I didn't mean
Speaker 1: to bring that up at the end, But good story
Speaker 1: a lot, Thanks a lot, Thanks again. We'll check in
Speaker 1: again soon. That's Blue Coats assistant coach and our Bubble
Speaker 1: correspondent joining me and helping me tell the stories from
Speaker 1: the twenty twenty one Nbag League Bubble, Xavier Silas. Thanks
Speaker 1: again to Exavier Silas. As always Matt Murphy and until
Speaker 1: next time, take it or leave it at the coach
Speaker 1: check