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NARRATOR: From our region to yours...
MAN: I'm Kelly MacDonald for Accessible Media,
inside the Air Canada Centre, off to the side
of the Toronto Raptors' practice court.
Coach Dwane Kasey, in his third year with the team,
joins me for a conversation at the end of a recent practice.
Coach, there's been a lot of changes,
especially in the management at MLSE.
Let's talk about how that affects you
going forward as a coach.
Right, well, it really doesn't 'cause, you know,
we got have great new leadership in Tim Leiweke
as the head of MLSE and Masai Ujiri,
who's the President and General Manager of our team.
Uhh, they're excellent leaders.
One thing they've done,
they've given us the resources to work with,
and me, resource to work with as a coach
and said "Hey, you coach the team."
And that's kind of where we are right now.
Can you talk a little bit about
the systems that are in place that we, as fans,
hear about that coaches employ?
One thing we do, Kelly, is the fact that we work, uhh,
diligently with players with video,
show 'em the mistakes they make on video, umm,
counsel them about what they can do on the court,
behind closed doors.
We come back at night-time with players and shoot with them,
work on their skills at night-time.
But there's a lot of hours that go into the day,
working on guys' individual skills
and one-on-one skills,
whether it's mentoring off the court
or mentoring on the floor after hours.
So, a lot of things take place that, uhh, the everyday
the fan that comes to the game from 7:00 to 9:00
don't get to see.
You and I spoke a couple of years ago
when you started with the Raptors
about the defensive skills and how important you feel that
that is. And I'm seeing more adjustment to defence, offence.
How's that blend working?
It's working really good.
You know, the one thing, uhh, we've done, Masai has done,
is bring in, you know, some defensive-minded players,
uhh, Tyler Hansbrough.
You have, uhh, John Salmons, who just came here with
in the trade.
Patrick Patterson just came here in the trade.
All these guys are defensive-minded guys.
So, we're incorporating those type of players in on our team
because one thing about the Eastern Conference, Kelly,
you have a lot of physical, tough guys
in the Eastern Conference.
And we're we're loading the team up
with those type of players.
With Canada's basketball team, the Toronto Raptors,
I'm Kelly MacDonald for Accessible Media.