Having spent an entire decade in the NBA, Mickaël Piétrus lived through the harsh daily players playing in the United States. As he explained in an interview with the First Teama coach in particular had given the former French international nightmares in training!
Playing in the NBA for no less than ten seasons and accumulating 557 career regular season games was not necessarily common for a European basketball player in the early 2000s. Mickaël Piétrus even went even further by becoming a public darling American, “Air France” regularly putting on a dunk and three-point show while defending the lead on the wings.
This hyper-athletic 3&D profile has also allowed him not only to remain courted by the NBA franchises for a long time, but also to join competitive teams. The brother of Florent Piétrus was thus a member of the Warriors version “We Believe” in 2006-07 and had therefore participated in the historic upset against the Mavs of MVP Nowitzki. And then, of course, there was the epic of 2008-09 with the Magic.
Mickaël Piétrus impressed by Stan Van Gundy’s training
With Orlando, the Frenchman managed to reach the Finals that year, even defeating the Cavs of LeBron James before having to lay down their arms against the Lakers. An impressive career that has rewarded the discipline of Stan Van Gundy’s men throughout the season. Asked by the First Teamthe former player also confides that the coach made the Floridians drool!
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“Mentally, we want to stop basketball”
???? Mickaël Piétrus told us about the violence of Stan Van Gundy’s training at the Orlando Magic ???? pic.twitter.com/VTbfe4rpzH
— First Team (@FirstTeam101) August 10, 2023
Physically it’s exhausting, but mentally you want to stop basketball so much that it’s hard. We were so strong inside and out but people didn’t know that we had trained two hours before the match, so it was so hard. We had this coach who had this ability to, as soon as the opposing team announced a system, he knew who it was who was going to shoot.
So defensively we were playing tough, but it was a little easier for us to cheat because we knew who was going to take the shot. (…) Out of ten days of work, we had two days off. Frankly, that’s where it was the hardest. That’s when I went to the Magic.
When you hear that, you wonder how Dwight Howard & co. did not land completely burned at each meeting!
Recall that Stan Van Gundy had been the coach of the Heat before arriving in Orlando, the 2006 champion being known to compel his players to an iron physical discipline. No wonder then that the tactician was so intransigent with his new team… It has to be said that the method worked rather well, that said.
2023-08-12 11:40:00
#stop #basketball
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