During the heat of the NBA Finals, Panthers HC Dave Canales explained the team’s love for basketball and how they’ve incorporated the championship into their daily meetings. He thinks seeing the competitive fire both teams play with can help them perfect their craft in the summer months. 

“The nature of competition, that’s what it is; how do you respond to adversity?” Canales said, via Darin Gantt of the team’s website. “We got the gift of watching the Pacers and OKC play and go back and forth, and you see the guys, you see the energy all the way through it. So I love seeing the response, and it just makes everything; you’ve got to be that much sharper. You’ve got to be that much cleaner in your technique, you know, and that’s where you start to separate the details, the fundamental execution, because of the talent is so good right now with our group that that that part can go back and forth so I love the challenge of it.”

Canales continued on the basketball front, and harped on the communication the Thunder and Pacers have. He wants his guys to learn from their constant talking and incorporate that into the football field to ensure everyone’s on the same page. 

“We’ve been following the NBA playoffs, and I think the thing that I keep talking to the guys about and pointing to is to look at the teams that play together, look at the teams that talk on the bench when they come off. There’s an exchange that happens when the coach addresses them. They get their full attention, and they make those micro-adjustments, and that’s great team play. Then, look at the teams that finish. Turnovers are just as important. They show the stats on TV, 21 points off turnovers versus 7. Those types of things matter to us too. . . .

“Great teams, these teams that play together and talk. That doesn’t mean they all made it to the championships, but the ones that did were in constant communication. And Halliburton and SGA (Thunder star Shai Gilgeous-Alexander), they’re constantly talking to guys about defense, where to be at when they got the ball, you know, so all those micro adjustments are so huge.”

Saints