mlhouse wrote: ↑Wed May 01, 2024 4:41 pm
In todays theathletic
Micah Nori’s humor is legendary for Timberwolves, but he also can coach: ‘Micah’s a genius’
Jon Krawczynski
May 1, 2024
36
For some, the Minnesota Timberwolves’ sweep of the Phoenix Suns in the first round came as a surprise. How could a team full of relatively unproven postseason performers be so dominant against Kevin Durant and Devin Booker, who led a Suns team that was 3-0 against Minnesota in the regular season?
Leave it to Timberwolves assistant coach Micah Nori to come up with the perfect synopsis.
“It’s a different story, regular season and playoffs,” Nori told BallySports North sideline reporter Lea B. Olsen during his halftime interview for Game 1. “Regular season, they caught us at the beach with no sun block. We weren’t prepared.”
In his three seasons with the Timberwolves, Nori has shown a knack for folksy one-liners during those sideline interviews. But he also has earned a reputation among his fellow Wolves coaches and the players for an encyclopedic grasp of opponent tendencies and the savvy way he uses humor to disarm while delivering straightforward feedback for players to process.
That mix may be more important for the Timberwolves than ever because it remains unclear if head coach Chris Finch will be on the sideline for Game 1 of the Western Conference semifinal series against Denver on Saturday. Finch will have surgery on Wednesday to repair a ruptured right patellar tendon, the result of a collision with Mike Conley late in the team’s series-clinching win over Phoenix in Game 4. Finch’s leg will likely need to be immobilized for an extended period following the surgery, which could make it difficult for Finch to be with the team in the tight quarters of the bench.
If Finch cannot be out there, and perhaps even if he can, Nori will take on a greater role in the coaching hierarchy. He filled in for Finch when he missed a game against Cleveland earlier in the season and stepped in to shepherd the Wolves through the final two minutes against the Suns in the playoffs. When it comes to the faith of his charges, Nori has it.
“Micah’s a genius,” Wolves star Anthony Edwards said.
In a series filled with cross-pollination between the two franchises, Nori getting a chance to have a bigger voice against Denver is fitting. He was an assistant under Michael Malone in Denver from 2015-18 and became close with Nuggets MVP Nikola Jokić during that time. Before every Timberwolves-Nuggets game, the two can be seen sharing a laugh on the court during warmups or in the back hallways before tipoff.
“He’s a bad person, first of all,” Jokić cracked. “He’s brutally honest but still funny. He says brutally honest stuff in really funny ways. That’s what makes him a really interesting, really funny guy.”
Nori’s sense of humor shines through in those halftime interviews, which happen at various points of the NBA season. Finch has his assistants do them one month at a time, which allows them to get a taste of working with the media and get some exposure, two important steps on the path toward a head coaching gig. Nori shines in his turns, grabbing the attention of the viewer with his turns of phrase.
“Someone once said a raggedy ride is better than a smooth walk,” Nori said during Game 3 against the Suns with the Wolves leading 59-53. “And what I mean by that is we’re up six, we gave up 18 free throws, we withstood KAT’s foul trouble and he was very, very good in that first part of the game. And also the fact that we’re 6 of 20 from 3 on some very good looks. So to have a six-point lead, that’s a tribute to the guys who were on the floor in that second quarter.”
Nori’s creativity is a long time in the making. He grew up in Middletown, Ohio, the son of a longtime coach, and played baseball in college at Indiana. Just as he was preparing to get into athletic administration after grad school in 1998, family friend Butch Carter called and offered him a job as a coach’s assistant with the Toronto Raptors. Nori was skeptical. He played basketball in high school, but baseball was his specialty. Carter assured him that the role he wanted Nori to fill was geared more toward relationships and hard work than schematic expertise.
“You’re not going to be doing player development for Vince Carter or telling Dell Curry how to shoot,” Carter told him. Carter also promised to teach Nori the X’s and O’s and the strategy involved in the game.
Nori moved into Carter’s condo in Toronto and lived with him for two years. At night when Carter watched video, Nori asked him to say whatever he was thinking out loud so he could see how he looked at the game, processed it and thought things through.
“He’s watching film and talking out loud and he was unbelievable because he would just allow me to ask any questions,” Nori said. “And he just helped me learn the league so much.”
Nori eventually worked his way up to an advanced scout, left briefly to be the hitting coach for the Hoosiers and then returned to the Raptors in 2009 as a full-fledged assistant under head coach Jay Triano. He spent four years in Toronto with Triano and Dwane Casey and then went to Sacramento under Malone in 2013 and followed him to Denver in 2015.
The more established that Nori got in the league, the more comfortable he became with showing his mischievous side. His comedic chops were particularly valued by the ultra-intense Malone as he was building the Nuggets from a 30-win team into a contender in the Western Conference. Malone and Nori would carpool to and from the Denver airport, famously distant from the city limits, and Malone laughed when recounting the quiet, 45-minute rides after a loss.
“Having Micah around was so beneficial because he balanced that out,” Malone said. “He could bring a smile to my face.”
Nori reunited with Casey in Detroit as the offensive coordinator for the Pistons. During the COVID-19 season in 2020 when teams were forced to hold Zoom meetings with each other as part of social distancing, Pistons center Mason Plumlee and assistant coach Sean Sweeney would challenge Nori to insert a quirky word or phrase into the player meetings.
“There was some stuff I won’t even repeat and it was like wow, he actually made it work,” Plumlee said, grinning devilishly. “Some of our teammates thought he was just this guy with a bunch of weird sayings.”
As he started doing more television interviews, Nori’s teenage daughter, Mia, would throw in some suggestions. Snuffleupagus, cattywampus, all manner of unique wordplay. Nori would oblige as a subtle way to say hi to her during a game. Once while with the Nuggets, Nori was challenged to meow in the interview, inspired by a scene in the movie “Super Troopers.”
“I said, ‘Thank God for Jamal Murray, that Kentucky Wildcats meow,’ ” Nori said.
As the momentum built, Timberwolves coaches and public relations staffers got in on the act.
Against Memphis: “We gotta treat (Desmond) Bane like the elf on the shelf on Christmas morning. We gotta find him.”
Against Dallas: “It was on like Donkey Kong the way they started out.”
Game 2 against Phoenix: “Just because there’s glass on the highway, doesn’t mean there’s been a wreck.”
The clips have become something of a phenomenon. Plumlee, now with the LA Clippers, saw them on social media. So did Jokić. It was enough to prompt a knuckle-rapping from his father.
“My dad even texted me and said, ‘Are we worried about TikToks or winning damn championships,’ ” Nori said with a chuckle.
But Nori hasn’t lasted this long and made it this far in the league because he can crack a good joke. It was in Denver where he hit it off with another one of Malone’s assistants, a world traveler on the coaching circuit named Chris Finch.
Both skewed toward the offensive end of the floor and connected on a shared philosophy about offensive flow that laid the groundwork for Finch to hire Nori as his lead assistant with the Timberwolves.
In Minnesota, Nori, 50, serves as Finch’s right-hand man, sitting right next to him on the bench and placed in charge of “special situations,” as Finch likes to term it. Handling rotations to navigate foul trouble, late-game defense and other strategic matters.
In a win over Golden State in March, Nori tipped the Wolves players to what play the Warriors were likely to run late in the game. The Wolves got the stop and closed the game 114-110.
“Micah came to our huddle and was like, ‘This is what they’re gonna run. Be ready for this,’ ” Edwards said. “And they came out and ran the exact play.”
Nori never played in the NBA, so he has to find other ways to earn the respect of the players he coaches. Drawing them a road map to a late-game stop, giving them honest feedback about their games while expressing a sincere interest in their off-court lives and making them laugh with a well-timed joke all help him connect.
“Maybe he seems like a funny guy, but when things matter, he can answer the call,” Jokić said. “He definitely knows his stuff and he’s ready and prepared for everything.”
Added Wolves forward Kyle Anderson on Nori: “We can always count on him, whether it’s a scouting situation or he kind of let us know what Golden State was going to run that last play, and that was big time. I think we’ve got one of the best coaching staffs in the league.”
One of the strengths of Finch’s staff is the way he empowers his assistants with responsibility and authority. He wants each one to have a voice so the players don’t get tired of hearing his during a long season. Elston Turner is in charge of the defense and Pablo Prigioni oversees the offense, but everyone — Corliss Williamson, Kevin Hanson, Joe Boylan, Chris Hines, Max Lefevre, Jeff Newton — all collaborate on the game plans, scouts and schemes.
“We have a tremendous amount of coaching talent on this staff,” Finch said last week. “It’s probably the most experienced, creative staff that I have ever worked with. They work together extremely well, There’s no egos. There’s no turf battles, nobody gets offended when an idea is taken or not taken.”
The staff played a big role in that first-round sweep of the Suns, using a week of practice and preparation to devise a game plan that dismantled Phoenix. The sweep gave them some extra time to prepare for the Nuggets, the second straight season they’ll face Denver in the playoffs.
Jokić, Murray and the defending champions will present an enormous challenge for the Wolves, especially if Finch is limited in any way. Team sources told The Athletic that they remain hopeful they can find a way to have Finch on or near the bench for Game 1.
Even if Finch is there, Nori may need to be more active than normal, communicating with officials and walking the sideline when players need to hear something during the game. And if the situation gets tense, Nori might have a line to defuse the tension.
“You have to be able to have fun,” he said. “You have to be able to enjoy these moments.”
There was a time earlier this season when Nori wondered whether he was having a little too much fun. After one of his halftime interviews, he got a text from Finch saying he wanted to meet with him and Aaron Freeman, the Wolves senior manager of basketball communications and broadcast. Nori was sure he was in trouble for something he said.
“I texted Free and said our run may be coming to an end,” Nori said.
When the Wolves loaded up on the team plane for a road trip, Finch called the two of them to his section and told them he had a request. Nori braced for the bad news. Then a smile creased Finch’s face.
“Next time, can you say this?”