Finding Beauty in Blue Collar

If you are a UCLA basketball fan, consider being less defensive about your team being so defensive.

All week, as the Bruins prepared for their Final Four appearance, the mantra has been that this is an ugly team, whose only memorable marks on offense in last weekend’s regional in Oakland were the scratches its free-throw shooters left on the rims.

Some teams make baskets. The Bruins make bruises.

That doesn’t have to add up to ugly. There is a way to appreciate what UCLA has accomplished, and how. It’s just a matter of changing your viewing habits.

You’ve seen a million jump shooters, a million Clyde the Glides. How about looking at how good defense turns jump shooters into brick throwers and Clyde into crash?

Assuming a man-to-man defense, here’s a primer:

* Funneling the driver.

The best teams work for hours on where to direct opponents’ drives to the basket. Don’t think for a moment that the driving player goes exactly where he wants to. Good defenses move him to where he’ll do the least damage. Gregg Popovich has his San Antonio Spurs funnel everything to the baseline. Jerry Sloan has his Utah Jazz funnel to the center.

The first time a Louisiana State player tries to drive the baseline against UCLA, see where he ends up, besides on his tailbone, and you’ll be on your way to becoming a defense-watcher.

* Screening for rebounds.

This one is easier. Watch away from the ball as the shot goes up. Most players merely turn their back to their opponent and get ready to jump. Better players make an effort to get their bodies between the men they are guarding and the ball. The best players will turn away from the basket, locate the man they are guarding, go out to him, then turn and stick their butts into his midsection. UCLA guards screen 20 feet from the basket.

* Creating the discomfort zone.

The best defenses are the best-prepared ones. Look for how an individual defender sets up against the player he is guarding. If, for example, Ben Howland were coaching against a team whose playmaker was Jordan Farmar, he would have his defender cheat toward Farmar’s right shoulder, because Farmar always wants to go to his right.

If a player thrives on the drive, the good defender will be a little looser, in an attempt to maneuver into his path and make him charge.

If a player is a jump shooter who likes time to set up, square his body and get a clear view of the basket, the good defender will try to prevent him from getting the ball in the first place and, when he does, will attempt to be as distracting and disrupting as he can.

* See me on “SportsCenter.”

The only defense getting oohs and ahs on the highlight shows is the occasional fly-through-theair-like-Superman-and-swat-the -shot-away sequence. Sometimes, it deserves the airtime. More often, it means that Superman was beaten on the play, left himself out of position, or didn’t properly funnel his man to where another teammate could help, and got lucky because he can jump over tall buildings.

Usually, in the end, Superman’s basketball team loses.

Defense is a bunch of cliches: discipline, effort, blue-collar, lunch-bucket, wage-and-hour, blood and sweat.

For UCLA, defense is the Adam Morrison moment.

Morrison, the Gonzaga All-American, could get 25 points after being wrapped like a mummy. If UCLA wins it all, the Morrison moment becomes the 2006 version of Tyus Edney’s end-to-end dash in 1995.

With 1:02 to play, Gonzaga had a 71-66 lead and no chance of losing if it kept its head and its cool. But Morrison, a veteran, didn’t, and he didn’t because the wage-and-hour guys had driven him over the edge.

For about 20 seconds, while his teammates moved the ball around and tried to find him in the open, Morrison dashed from side to side, into bodies and double coverage. His arms flailed, his hair flailed. He was bred to shoot. This was his time. But everywhere he turned, there was a Bruin. Or two, or three.

Finally, squeezing between two Bruins in desperation, he found a couple of feet of daylight and did the worst thing he could have done. He shot.

When the off-balance runner left his hands, destined to miss, there were still 12 seconds left on the shot clock. UCLA made its winning basket with nine seconds to play.

Simple math. In this instance, the great shooter could have best served his team by not shooting.

But the lunch-pail guys had driven him out of his mind and his comfort zone.

With defense.

Unrelenting, you-have-to-kill-me-to-beat-me defense.

Kind of pretty, in a powder-blue-collar sort of way, don’t you think?