Thomas Doing All the Talking in Indianapolis

The first thing you notice about the new coach sitting in Larry Bird’s old seat is that he sits a lot. Just as Bird did in his first year.

The next thing you notice about Isiah Thomas is what happens during a timeout, which can only be described as completely unBirdlike.

Grabbing a clipboard and marker and kneeling at the center of the huddle, Thomas thinks as he speaks, spitting out numbers and drawing arrows as he diagrams plays--some off the top of his head, some from his memories of Pistons playbooks from the 1980s--with his players listening intently.

Drawing up plays was something Bird rarely did over the past three seasons, handing that task over to his more seasoned assistant coaches, Dick Harter and Rick Carlisle.

This season, though, it’s the head coach that’s doing the coaching in Indiana.

“With Larry, he didn’t talk a lot, but with a veteran team he didn’t need to,” forward Austin Croshere said. “Isiah is much more extroverted, much more proactive. And where Larry was much more set in his ways, Isiah is much more likely to change with the flow of the game.”

That is clear from talking to players and peering inside the huddle, even if it might not be all that apparent from a distance.

From afar, Thomas seems to take the same sort of minimalist approach that Bird did. Whereas most NBA coaches spend entire games on their feet, Thomas stays seated through almost the entire 48 minutes.

When he does stand up, he doesn’t have the same body mannerisms as most coaches. Instead of crossing his arms or keeping them stiff at his sides, he tucks his hands into his pockets.

He rarely strays more than a few steps from his seat.

“Pacing the sideline and hollering at the refs -- that’s not my job,” Thomas said. “I’m not there to be the show or to give a show. I’m there to conduct a show.”

Pacers center Sam Perkins, in his 17th season, has seen more than his share of coaches -- including Bird and Larry Brown in Indiana. His admiration for Thomas is enhanced by his memory of what it was like to play against him. He remembered how Thomas always competed hard, and how other players respected Thomas for his competitiveness even if they didn’t like him.

“He wants to be poised and confident on the outside, but on the inside his persona is totally different. When we have a team down and have ‘em by the throat, he wants to make sure we strangle them,” Perkins said.

Last summer, Reggie Miller was in a disappointed mood when he sat down with Thomas after the Pacers had overhauled their roster, losing starters Rik Smits, Dale Davis and Mark Jackson (Miller’s best friend on the team).

All of a sudden the Pacers looked like they were going from a team that went to the NBA Finals, losing to the Lakers in six games, to a team that might not even make the playoffs.

Miller said his talk with Thomas changed his perception of where the team was headed.

“I told Reggie that I remembered what the Pacers were like before they drafted him, and I said the veterans who left were not committed to him,” Thomas said. “I told him that there were going to be younger players in the foxhole with him, and if he is the right kind of leader, they’ll fight for him even harder than some of the older guys would have fought for him.”

With Miller’s acceptance in hand, Thomas went into training camp hoping to install a motion offense with Jalen Rose playing point guard, Austin Croshere moving to small forward, Perkins starting at center and Travis Best coming off the bench.

When Rose returned from a broken wrist Nov. 24 against Washington, Best moved to the bench as Thomas put his plan in place. But just three games later, after a loss at Golden State, Thomas changed his mind and scrapped the idea.

Best moved back into the starting lineup, Rose moved back to small forward, Croshere, who was having trouble guarding quicker small forwards, moved to power forward and Jermaine O’Neal, who had been playing power forward, switched over to center.

“It’s an evolutionary process as he learns his team and what they can and can’t do,” assistant coach Brendan Malone said.

Not only has Thomas been willing to change, he has approached each opponent differently and devised diverse game plans. Under Bird, the Pacers’ game plan was basically the same no matter who they played.

“A lot of people understand that San Antonio, Houston and Dallas are all in Texas, but they don’t understand that you’ve got to do three different things to beat them,” Rose said. “He does that.”

Said Miller: “Some old school coaches feel you play each team the same way, but Isiah doesn’t feel that way. And that’s good, especially for helping the younger guys understand this league.”

Malone, who was Thomas’ coach in Toronto when Thomas was a part-owner of the Raptors, marvels at Thomas’ play-calling skills in the huddle.

“He does things that remind me of a guy diagramming football plays in a playground pickup game. ‘You go here, you go there.’ And he’s so comfortable doing it, even when he’s improvising and making plays up during timeouts,” Malone said.

The Pacers went into the weekend with an 11-11 record, having been under .500 for much of the season but playing better of late, winning five of their first eight games in December.

Thomas has mixed in some young with the old, giving considerable minutes to youngsters O’Neal, Jeff Foster and Al Harrington. But he has relied on his veterans, consistently playing Rose, Miller and Best upwards of 40 minutes per game.