I DIPPED into more than 33 years of basketball knowledge when I had a conversation with basketball lifer, Paul Mokeski.
Mokeski was an All-American at the University of Kansas where he played college hoops for four years.
He played in the National Basketball Association (NBA) for 12 years, eight of them with the Milwaukee Bucks where he had as teammates the likes of Marques Johnson, Jack Sikma, Terry Cummings, Paul Pressey, John Lucas and Sidney Moncrief.
Kevin McHale and Moses Malone were, according to Coach Mokeski, were the most difficult to guard because they were creative in the post and they were both very unpredictable.
Paul recounted his experience to us of playing a Game 7 at the old Boston Garden in the 1987 Eastern Conference semifinals against the reigning and defending champions at the time, the Boston Celtics led by Larry “Legend” Bird.
They couldn’t hear each other in the huddle despite being an earshot away from one another. Playing venues at the time were small so the crowd noise was amplified. Celtics fans are known to be rabid, passionate and loyal and Coach Paul felt it.
They led majority of the game until the final minutes. The winner went on to face the rising Detroit Pistons, who, Mokeski felt, they could match up with man for man.
In the former Jayhawks standout’s last year in the league, he played with “Run TMC,” Tim Hardaway, Mitch Richmond and Chris Mullins who, the three of them combined, could average close to 80 points per game. That’s a lot of offense.
The former Bucks seven-footer said there wasn’t a lot of missed shots between them then so there weren’t a lot of rebounds to corral and not a lot of turnovers also because the ball was well taken care of.
At the time, Warriors Coach Don Nelson had a free flow type of offense where players were allowed to get creative and innovative. They averaged 110 to 120 points per game.
After 12 years in the NBA, Mokeski played overseas in Europe. He coached the British national team at the 2012 Olympics and also led the Jamaican national team.
Coach Mokeski is semi-retired from the game, holding and conducting basketball clinics all over the world.
If you look up the dictionary, beside the words basketball lifer, there should be a picture of Coach Paul Mokeski, a teacher of the game and after more than 30 years, still a student of the game as well.
He preaches and speaks from a wealth of experience.