Coach Tuomas Iisalo | Memphis Grizzlies 2025 Media Day

Coach Tuomas Iisalo | Memphis Grizzlies 2025 Media Day

Um, Thomas, how you doing? I’m doing well, thank you. How about you? Uh, pretty good. Pretty good. Uh, first, can we start with just breaking down, I guess, your new look coaching staff a little bit. Can you kind of elaborate on uh your coaching staff now and kind of what their roles will be in assisting you uh this season? Yeah, so we had we had some changes in the coaching staff. Uh Ryan Saunders is our lead assistant. He will be doing very much the same that he’s been doing the last three years successfully in Denver, which is uh overseeing a lot of the defensive stuff. Um we I was really impressed with his basketball knowledge throughout our interview process and also on a human level. We connected very well and I’m very happy to work with him. Uh then Jason Marge, uh he will be just like last year helping me with the offensive side. will also have some player development responsibilities. He also is a very important link between us and the hustle, having been the hustle head coach and having been also long time in the NBA, a big asset in that way. Uh Darnell Lazar, somebody who um has been an assistant coach in the league, but also was a professional player before this, brings a vast experience as a player and especially as a big guy. And that’s something we wanted in the staff some specifically also to help our our bigs develop and Darnell will be responsible for that. And and he’ll also be helping out Ryan with the defense. Then uh Eric Schmidt is the head of player development. Uh a lot of you know Eric, he has a very sunny disposition. U brings a lot of energy, but he’s also very organized, very smart. And uh and then we have Penny Collins who came from uh Tennessee State uh head coaching experience uh was a player himself. Uh somebody that has a very unique background and that’s overall what we were looking for, a very aligned staff but that has different perspectives on things. Uh Thomas, um you noted at the end of the season that the situation you stepped into as interim head coach did not allow a lot of time, literally a lot of time to change much. Um, now that you’re starting your first training camp as NBA head coach, how would you describe the style of play you you want you want to pursue and and how is that going to be different or how might it look different from what people saw at the end of last season? Yeah. Uh, it’s I’ve always prided on that that our teams have had a very strong identity and those those things really haven’t changed. It’s still going to be fast-paced, very well organized, and very, very high levels of effort. Those are three things that will never go out of style. Uh it’s easier to score against a defense that’s not set, but when you’re in the half court or whether defensively or offensively, you must be very well organized. uh whether it is playoffs or or regular season and out competing opponents uh is has been always one of the hallmarks and those are things that I believe in and and those are the things that also make up our identity. How uh has this summer gone in terms of getting together with J and Jiren in particular and what have you learned I guess this summer about sort of the way that they operate and how you can get the most out of them? I mean it’s been a great summer with with um with everybody those two also we’ve had a lot of discussions on just um how to bring the best out of the whole team and that obviously relates to there are several layers in it. There’s the personnel, what type of personnel groupings do we want to have? What type of conceptually what type of basketball do we want to do we want to be known for? and then the methodology, the how do we get there through practice. And I’ve taken a very like uh though both of those guys are very intelligent. They’ve been in the league for a long time. They have a yearning to get better and and really take ownership uh of the team and they’ve been great in just helping out and we’re trying to do this together and and that’s the only way that I know how to be successful that everybody’s on the same page. Can you kind of give us an update? We saw Zach and kind of up and down last year and and he’s going to be delayed going into the start of the season. What do you see from him this year once he’s able to get on the court? Um, just continue his development. I mean, I said this over and over again, uh, last season, but the type of basketball that Zach was asked to play in college was very different from the pros. and he he adjusted even within the season. He adjusted to multiple, you know, uh different versions of himself and and I thought he did a he did a great job and and uh generally bigs take longer to flourish and he is already on a great growth uh trajectory. So really just he just needs to keep doing the same things what he’s been doing up until this point. You know, he has great focus. He puts the team first and he’s looking to learn new things and those are our expectations for every player, not just for him. Coach, how much has or how much will not having Jiren, uh, Brandon, Zack up front um, sort of alter or tweak what you need to see from this team in training camp? And, um, what’s the process like for preparing for them to get back and how important it is for them to be locked in still even if they’re not able to participate? Yeah, it’s obviously a huge challenge for us. We’re talking about our our defensive anchors. Uh and we have we have a few injuries, not so many, but they’re they are at the at the big positions. And that means that uh we have taken a let’s say an approach where we’re building a strong base where we can integrate then these key players when they come. And that wasn’t an easy task. and we spend a lot of the preeason thinking about this because it’s a very very specific challenge. Um, yeah, that’s it. Coach, you obviously had a lot of success coaching overseas. What are the biggest differences between the basketball you coached as a head coach overseas and NBA basketball? What what is most similar and what is most different in terms of coaching approach? from from the coaching process. I would say the biggest absolutely biggest difference is, you know, we used to have a seven-week training camp or preeason. You know, you can you can install a lot of things. Of course, there’s more turnover, too. So, we had a lot of successful seasons in Europe and different clubs and that means those players were moving on to even bigger clubs or or to the NBA and that means meant we had to rebuild it from the scratch and now we’re kind of starting over a new process with very little preparation time and and the same thing is is is true also in season. So you don’t really get I mean 5 years ago I was coaching one game a week. So and then couple years ago two three games and now it’s now it’s three four games. So all the time uh the time to prepare gets shorter and shorter. And I’ve I’ve just looked at it from like a personal skill development standpoint that it’s a it’s a situation where I can evolve got to be more precise got to be better in the feedback. Uh, and it’s uh, it’s a very unique challenge to the NBA and it’s something that I spent a lot of time thinking about. More to us here in the back. Uh, specific question, but you talk about pace and I know you followed American basketball for a long time. For a while, the thought process was teams that played at that break neck speed, could score, but didn’t have enough defense to win championships or compete at that level. I’m wondering if maybe watching a team like the Pacers last year that played at that kind of speed all the way up to game seven of the NBA finals maybe gave you some validity that this can work on both sides of the floor and a team can compete at that level while playing at that kind of pace. Um I mean there’s a few different things about that. First of all, it’s should be very like specific about what what metrics you’re using. So, if you use like a pace indicator, that can mean like if you offensive rebound, the possessions take longer, so there’s less possessions or uh stuff like this. If you’re looking at like like the 7 seconds or less Suns, I believe they were like uh uh average defensively in the league, but because they played at a fast pace, they got scored on a lot and people thought they’re playing bad defense. So, it’s kind of a loaded question, but I mean, YouTube is full of videos. You can go check out how basketball was in the ‘ 60s, ‘7s, 80s, ’90s, 2000, 2010, 2000, 2020. Even the like we like a team that was criticized for that, you know, the Danton Suns, uh, they would be playing at a very slow pace for today’s standards. So, even though Indiana is a great example of of uh not only fast-paced but quick decision making and very well organized offense and defense, I don’t feel like it’s been a secret that this works. And actually, I feel like in the 2030s, the game from today should look slow. So um just because of the inherent like u uh structure of basketball where you have the best chance of scoring when the other guy is not yet organized in their defense. Last question. As you kind of approach training camp, do you want your obviously in Europe you kind of speed and intensity was kind of a hallmark of your teams. Do you want to approach training camp the same way? And also is that murder ball drill going to come to uh to practice? What’s that? Murder ball. I’ve never heard about that. Uh yeah, speed and intensity they are they are definitely cornerstones of of uh how we want to play. I mean it’s not a secret like just as I was talking about basketball, you can take any team sport. I’ve been for the first time in my life watching last two weekends the uh Sunday night football and the way I see it the like line of scrimmage uh what type of misdirection is used and how many people are in motion it’s getting more and more complex and the speed speed of the game and the decisions are are really really difficult and we try to create big-time challenges for our players so that they’re not meeting those for the first time in the games they’re meeting those in the practices and and speed is one of the components The other one is intensity. That’s the key to game-like practices, having having very intense practices. But should not forget that the intensity and the speed must always be directed. So otherwise, you’re you’re running around like headless chicken, you know, if you don’t have a plan. So it needs to be maybe even more important than those are clear ideas. what is expected of everyone in those situations and that you don’t fall back on these umbrella terms like we got to play faster or we got to play harder but what is tangible thing that makes a team play harder conceptualize it practice it turn it into a habit and then you know express it during game day thanks coach thank

Coach Tuomas Iisalo talks about the expectations for the Memphis Grizzlies this upcoming season, his approach and more.

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