Playoff strategies - apply them all season

On March 16th, thoughts were provided regarding tournament strategies and how they should really be applied all season. The same can be said of the NBA playoffs. The lessons and messages from the coaches of the four semi-final teams have likely been stressed repeatedly. Even though the playoffs seem to provide the bigger spotlight and microscope, if the concepts below aren't addressed in the regular season then a team will not even make the playoffs. Some recent quotes to ponder:

• "Most disappointing to me was I didn't have our team better ready to play," (Orlando coach Stan Van Gundy)
• "It's my job. I'm the coach of this team. It starts with me and I'm not happy with where we had our team tonight or anything I did." (Orlando Magic coach Stan Van Gundy)
• "He's leading the team. He's playing with great focus. He's giving an amazing effort, never giving up on any possession." (Boston Celtics coach Doc Rivers commenting on the play of his point guard, Rajon Rondo)
• "We've found a number of ways to score." (Lakers coach Phil Jackson commenting on his team's unselfishness and every player being involved)
• "Every time we tried to make an adjustment to slow them down.......they go somewhere else" (Suns coach Alvin Gentry regarding the Lakers having many players that attack, the sharing of the ball, and the subsequent difficulty to defend)
• "It was a defensive game, and we like those.......everyone is healthy, everyone's listening, and everyone's buying into our defensive schemes." (Celtics coach Doc Rivers)
• "As a coach you try to look at situations and try to put them in the best positions to see if they can execute and do some things that would help us defensively. Didn’t work, so we’ll try something else." (Suns coach Alvin Gentry on defensive game-planning, using his defenders, trying to exploit a team's weakness)