Top 100 Quotes & Sayings by Nick Nurse

I think we're always chasing a win once the ball goes up.

I think a lot of personnel decisions come down to who's the best player today, like if we had to throw 'em in a game today versus what could their upside be 18 months from now. A lot of times, those are two different answers. That's the difficulty of player personnel.

Football is a pretty complex numbering system most of the time: run the three back through the four hole, things like that. We kind of do the same thing - the three man sets for the four, or whatever.

It shouldn't be two separate styles between the first and second unit as much.

I think there's some certain attitudes and certain guys that can feed some positive energy, and that keeps you going through an 82-game schedule.

I was getting a degree in accounting, and I was going to go off and account. And as it worked out, I haven't accounted for anything since.

I think switching is like a lot of things. You can do it - it's a game plan - but you better do it well. You better practise it.

Esthetically, let's move the ball. Let's guard people. Let's fight.

My job is to coach the team and get them to try to play the best they can come April, May, and June.

Don't let people take you ahead of where you are at.

Chemistry kind of builds all season. It's not like we say, 'OK, it's game one, and now we've got our chemistry.' I think it shifts and moves all season long.

An entrepreneur will do whatever they have to do to make sure things get done. Our coaches will be that way; our players will be that way. Just do what it takes.

Why are people afraid to try something different? Because of the scrutiny they're going to receive if it doesn't work. That stops people from trying things different a lot.

I've always been like that: after a loss, I go home and pass out and don't give it another thought. When I'm winning, I'm too excited.

I believe in getting the ball up the floor and trying to take advantage of transition opportunities.

I used to say, as an assistant, I would go in and close my door for three hours after practice and just watch film. Now it seems like I'm in a meeting and then another and then another for three hours that have nothing to do with basketball. It's just different.

The game's evolving quickly, man, and somebody's gotta be trying some new stuff.

People asked me, 'Why aren't you doing something more important?' When I was doing well in the D-League, they were like, 'Why can't you get an NBA job? Or a college job?' I don't think people thought much of what I was doing. That's fine. I was learning. Not just X's and O's, but team dynamics.

I think if you're going to be a little bit innovative or risk-taking, sometimes you're going to be wrong, and it's going to look bad. I understand that.

It used to be every single time you got the rebound, you handed it to the point guard, or you outlet it to the point guard, or everyone cleared, and you waited until the point guard brought the ball up the floor.

I want to see given extra effort, pulling for your teammates: those are the kinds of things we're shooting for and we're going for because that's what we need.

It's pretty draining, the amount of games I watch on a daily basis. It's pretty much non-stop.

If you ask what my philosophy is, my philosophy is kind of like an entrepreneurial philosophy.

We've got to be innovative. We've got to think about what's coming next.

We've gotta be trying to think of what's coming next before it comes next.

It's really an organizational job with a football team to watch them go through their day.

I think it's all machismo - 'Come on, you've got to guard your guy, man. If you can't guard your guy, then you can't play defence.' A lot of it is accountability, where you say, 'Hey, you're matched up with him. Go do your job.' The zone kind of sometimes moves a lot of pieces around.

As an assistant, you are grinding it out and churning out work like there are not enough hours in the day, really. As a head coach, you are doing similar.

I don't mind physicality in the least - I don't mind it in the least, both ends of the floor.

That's your worry as a head coach: Are you going to go in there, give them everything you've got, and are they going to respond?

Sometimes I'm in that timeout, and I say, 'Let's go a possession of zone,' and they're like, 'Yeah, let's do it,' and that shows that they're confident enough to roll with whatever we're doing. And sometimes they're like, 'No, no, no, no.' They don't want a possession to get away from them, possibly.

I think there's always enough right in front of me worrying about who's playing the minutes tomorrow, but you've always got to have an eye on a year or two from now and what those guys will do if you think, 'Well, let's give them a full year at the 905 and see how they progress.'

At some point in your life, you try to self-reflect and ask yourself, 'Why do I want to win so bad?'

You're really in a bubble if you're not watching the league.

I'm getting older and mellower in my old age.

For every philosophical idea about how we're going to do things, there has to be a plan to get there, and we have to be able to execute it, first in practice and then in games.

I just want us to be playing our best basketball here when the playoffs start, and in the right mindset.

Obviously, things evolve; teams see you play a little bit and start try to do things, and the one thing that'll happen is if one team has success in something, you can bet the next three teams are doing some similar things, too.

I've known Adrian Griffin for quite awhile now and always had him as my 'when I get a job, I want to hire him if he isn't already a head coach and I can get him' list.

I just think there are so many more good, talented players.

I like to have an attacking style on both ends.

I know, when I'm walking out on the court before for the game, it's like, man, if you wanna compete, here it is. It's coming. That's something I really enjoy.

I place a lot of value on pace of the game, going after people... always be the aggressor and forcing the issue a little bit when we have the ball, and when we don't have it, we want to come at you, too.

I think I'm always a little bit under construction. I'm a project that I'm trying to improve upon.

Sometimes, I don't enjoy the wins, and I don't enjoy the losses, but I'm here just to get the result and get moving.

I think the game in general is changing so fast right before our eyes.

I'm a guy that, when there's something rolling out there, the predetermined rotations might go right in the garbage can.

I loved every job I had.

Phil Handy played for me in England and has obviously risen to stardom in his area of what he does.

I'm gonna back my players.

One of my favorite things about the D-League was going on the road and losing and not having to talk to anyone after the game.

You look at any roster and you say, 'Geez, he's pretty good. He's pretty good. He's talented. He comes off the bench?' All of a sudden, it's, 'Geez, that's a pretty good roster they got right there.'

People talk about offensive chemistry all the time, but defensive chemistry is something you have to build, too, and there's a lot of that work to be done with just communications and the feel of who certain guys play.

I understand there are bumps in the road. I understand there's a lot of noise that I don't want to listen to, and I just try to do my job to the best of my ability.

Fifty-nine or 54 or 52 or 49 wins isn't going to mean a whole lot. What's going to mean a whole lot to me, our organization, and our fans is how we perform in the playoffs and how deep a run we can make, and that's what we're setting our sights on.

I always say we're chasing perfection in an imperfect game.

We are trying to get away from those traditional centre, power forward type things.

In the regular season, they all only count for one win or one loss. But for a team or coaching staff, these are tests, and you want to see where you're at.

It's such a long season, right? It's certainly serious business, but it's no sense that we all have to be miserable doing it.

We want to always play with pace on offence.