Nuggets guard Chauncey Billups is featured in Sports Illustrated this week, with reporter Lee Jenkins writing about how “Mr. Big Shot” spends much of the regular season preparing for the playoffs, and his study habits and effectiveness during the postseason.
“Go to the playoffs nine years in a row, make six straight conference finals, win an NBA championship as well as a Finals MVP award, and the regular season becomes little more than an 82-game nuisance,” Jenkins writes. “When point guard Chauncey Billups arrived in Denver last November after being traded from the Pistons for Allen Iverson, he advised his new coaches not to play him more than 36 minutes per game in the regular season lest he wear down in May and June. The notion that he’d need to save his legs sounded presumptuous at the time, considering that the Nuggets had not won a playoff series in 15 years. But Billups averaged 35.3 minutes, and at week’s end Denver was up 1-0 in the Western Conference semifinals, fresh for May and perhaps even June.”
During his 12-year career, Jenkins notes that Billups has averaged 2.4 points more during the playoffs than the regular season.
“That might not sound like much of a differential, but (LeBron)James has averaged only 0.4 of a point more, and (Kobe) Bryant 0.7 fewer,” Jenkins writes. “In the playoffs Billups has sunk a half-court shot to push a playoff game into overtime and made three 3-(pointers) in a single OT. He outscored Pacers point guard Jamaal Tinsley 23-0 to clinch the 2005 Eastern Conference semifinals, then outscored Heat point guard Damon Jones 18-1 to clinch the conference finals. In postseason situations that Stats Inc. defines as ‘late and close’—two minutes left, a margin of four points or fewer—he shoots 91.7% from the free throw line.”
The story also discusses how Billups has “transformed Denver from a playoff afterthought into a title contender.”
“Billups has helped Denver in myriad ways, but most important he has limited those loose possessions, which doom teams with freewheeling tendencies like Denver,” Jenkins writes. “Less than six months after Billups came to Denver, (coach George) Karl already trusts him to call half the plays.”
Billups told Jenkins he studies “20 times” more film of opposing players in the playoffs.
“I’m looking at the guys I’ll be guarding, what their tendencies are, what they do when they’re pressured, which way they like to go in specific situations,” Billups says. “Some guys, when they go right, they have a tendency to pull up. When they go left, they take it all the way to the basket. The playoffs are mental. If the guy you’re matched up with is good at roaming without the ball, you have to know what gaps he likes to get in and where he likes to catch the ball. If you’re playing against a guy who likes to iso, you have to know his different moves—is he a pump-fake guy or is he a guy who will just catch and go? I watch tape in the regular season too, but never in this much detail.”
Staff writer Mike Chambers can be reached at 303-954-1357 or mchambers@denverpost.com
