Q&A with Sixers assistant Bryan Gates on his long history with Nick Nurse and building a defense

When Bryan Gates’ family needed to evacuate from New Orleans before Hurricane Isaac in 2012, he called Nick Nurse.

Gates hoped Nurse, his longtime friend who at the time was the head coach of the G League’s Rio Grande Valley Vipers, could help them find a hotel in the Houston area. But Nurse happened to be in the city and insisted they all stay with him in his hotel suite. So Gates and his wife, Robin, and their 17-month-old triplets stayed in the bedroom for about three days, while Nurse slept in the living room.

“Sometimes you have people who offer help,” Gates recently recalled to The Inquirer. “But it was like, ‘Hey, man, this is what we’re going to do.’ It’s always been that way.”

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That captures the relationship between Nurse and Gates, who first met as young coaches vying for table space at the Summer Southern California Pro League, then worked together in the now-defunct United States Basketball League before carving out their own NBA careers. They have reunited with the 76ers, where Gates is Nurse’s assistant and collaborator in building a defense that entered Monday ranked fourth in the league in efficiency (110.5 points allowed per 100 possessions).

As part of an ongoing Q&A series with the Sixers’ assistant coaches, Gates dove more into his past with Nurse, how coaching is a seventh-grade project come true, and why he has been so impressed with this team’s veterans.

(Note, this conversation took place in early December and is edited slightly for length and clarity.)

A: It’s one of those situations where I’ve known everybody, but really never worked with them. I coached Coby Karl. I coached Terrell Harris, which is kind of interesting. Matt Brase is one of my really good friends. I’ve known Bobby Jackson for a long time. Obviously, Rico Hines. For me, coming in late [as a July hire] was a little challenging, but what we do is a little bit of a whirlwind. Once the season gets going, you kind of get into robotic mode. We’re in it. I mean this in a good way, I think basketball’s just like a lot of jobs. You have so many resources, so your offseason’s really not an offseason anymore. It’s just not. You have summer league. Then you go right into your L.A. workouts. It’s just bang, bang, bang, bang. You’re just in it, which is great. One thing I like about our staff is, if you don’t love it, you’re going to struggle.

A: When I was in seventh grade, I had to do a book report on what I wanted to do when I grew up, and I actually wrote an NBA coach. When I finished college, I was working at a technology spot and I got offered a pretty good job. I told my parents, who were divorced, that I was going to be an intern for a minor league team and go back to waiting tables at Red Lobster. My dad hung up on me, and my mom had the report, so she reminded my dad. Obviously, you finish college and you have a career path. I don’t know. It’s just what I’ve always wanted to do. I enjoy the challenge of it every day. You close the book on [the Washington Wizards on Dec. 6], and it was kind of cool for us to get on the train and say, “OK, now what’s next?” It’s always, “What’s everybody doing? What are the trends in the NBA?” We use the term “America’s Play”: What play is everybody in America running? America’s Play changes all the time. What’s this year’s America’s Play?

The relationship part of it is, when you meet the players for the first time and you’re like, “We’ve tried to stop you for years.” And you watch the work ethic and you’re like, “We were just chasing our heels.” I do that with Tobias [Harris]. OK, I see you now, Tobias. Being in the East for the first time is different. You only see Joel Embiid twice a year, and sometimes it’s on a quick back-to-back. Living him every day is amazing. He’s just unbelievable. Tyrese [Maxey] is unbelievable. The players here that other teams built, it’s phenomenal how good the guys are.

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A: The Great Alaska Shootout always came through [Gates is from Anchorage], and my uncle took me all the time. It started from there, and when I was a senior in high school, I started helping with the freshman team. It’s what I’ve always wanted to be. I grew up in Alaska, and when I woke up, basketball was on because of the time difference. Summertime, the sun came up at 5 in the morning, so you just went outside to play. I didn’t watch cartoons. If I didn’t clean my room or something, my punishment was I couldn’t watch basketball for a week.

A: We met in a league at [Summer Southern California] Summer League. The games were going where it was a free-agent camp. There was one little media table in the bleachers, and if you got there first, you got the table and you could spread out a little bit. So that’s kind of how the relationship started. I think I’m a pretty good dude, and he’s a good dude, and we both like the same things. So we just kind of became friends. I got the chance to coach this team called the Oklahoma Storm, and he reached out to me and he said, “I have a little bit of a window between my seasons. Can I come be your assistant?” He said, “I’ll do it for free. Can you just put me up?” He just came to Enid and we coached together for the year. And then a couple years later, they asked me back, and I hit him back and said, “Hey, listen. I’m going to do this again, would you be interested in coming?” He was like, “Yeah, absolutely.” We lived in a Holiday Inn in adjoining rooms. The second year, we shared a two-bedroom apartment and it was like we were together every single minute of the day for four months.

It’s funny, all the stories you forget about, the fun times. I guess you talk about my joy every day, when we did the schedule, we played in Salina, Kansas, like on a Thursday and had to play in Brooklyn on Friday. There’s no direct flights, so we had to wake up, drive from Salina to Wichita and board the plane to New York and play the game. I’ll never forget, Nick was like, “What a great day we get. We get to see the sun rise over the Great Plains of Kansas, and we get to see the sun set over the Statue of Liberty.” We won both games, and we looked at each other, like, “Come on, man. We’ve got to go see the Statue of Liberty.” And it was dark outside, but it was the joyfulness of what we get to do. I don’t think either of us have ever lost it.

A: The hardest part is being in the NBA, the way both of us are, we’d only see Toronto twice a year [in the Western Conference]. And it’s like, “Hey, I’m excited to see you. But, for the record, I want to smack you.” That competitive fire, I don’t want to say gets in the way of friendship. But the way different people are, we are kind of getting to know each other a little bit again. I’ve always called him “Double N.” Now working for him, there is an adjustment. There’s sometimes where I’ve got to say, “Are we B. Gates and Double N? Or are you the head coach and I’m the assistant coach? My bad.”

A: I think we’re getting there. The game’s never going to be 0-0. As we’re putting his system in and what he thinks is built for the team, to be honest with you, we’re finding things that we can be good at. Which has been enjoyable. He’s a musician guy. Nick’s an outer thinker, and I’ve always had my hair cut the same way. He’s a much more adventurous person than I am, just in general. I’m pretty straight and narrow. It seems that that balances each other out. He’s ready to just [try everything]. For an example, [in that Dec. 6 game against the Wizards], I thought our defense was good when we were just playing five-on-five, man-to-man. The Wizards were doing some things that he wanted us to do better at defending, so we were changing some things. I think we were both right.

We talked about that when I got hired, “What are going to be yours and my challenges?” When we were in Enid, Oklahoma, we had coupons for Applebees and I’d order the same thing and we’d sit at the same table. And he’d be like, “Come on, B. Gates! Turn the menu page.” Even the clothes I would wear, I’m just a very routine person, and he’s not. Which is not right or wrong. Our personalities, I get this a lot [mimics Nurse slapping his knee] during games. I have to say, “We’re OK.”

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A: Yes. Yes. Yes. He’s actually allowed me to change some pretty drastic things, but I’m pretty true to my beliefs. Now, you’re going back to that he’s the head coach and I’m the assistant coach. I’ll give him my suggestion, and you take some and you don’t take some. I think we’re still building. Obviously, we want to be more aggressive and we want to create more turnovers. We’re getting there. It’s more like, “How do we create more turnovers? How about this, this and this?” Yes, yes, yes. It’s been enjoyable. I could do that crap all day with him. We’ve spent many hours doing that at restaurants, over phone calls, emails. I think one of my strengths is I try to stay above what everybody’s doing in the NBA. To go back to America’s Play, we’ll figure it out quick and how to stop it. Hopefully, that’s why I’m here.

A: One of the biggest ones is Paul Westphal. You talk about somebody forward-thinking, he did a timeout play on a short clock where he threw it off the backboard and the guy followed it up and laid it in. The question of “Why?” versus “Why not?” Coach Westphal gave me my first NBA job. There are a lot of minor league coaches that I’ve been around. Obviously, Monty Williams, I was with him for seven years between New Orleans and Phoenix. I’ve been very fortunate to have some mentors. My first year was Jim Eyen, and then Randy Ayers and Elston Turner. Eight of my first 12 years, I sat next to Elston Turner or Randy Ayers on the airplane. And if I can’t figure stuff out, sometimes, as young guys, we’ve got to shut up and listen.

A: They’re a veteran team that still wants to get better. They’re not content. I’ll just tell you this, being in the West and seeing Patrick Beverley every day, you want to choke him out. And one of my best friends was with him in Minnesota and he’s like, “Hey, man, Pat Bev’s a vet and he’s a pro.” And then you’re around him every day and watch his every day-ness. Pat Bev is really good. Their ability to see, not just what’s next year, but what tomorrow is, is unbelievable to me. Tobias, Joel, Tyrese, Melt, Nic Batum. Our team, as experienced as they are and how many years they all have under their belt. …

I said something to Tobias, and he’s like, “Hold on, what? OK.” Running the defense, it’s never going to be perfect, and their willingness to embrace change is unreal. To be honest with you, Tyrese and I got into it during the game a little bit the other day. I was like, “We good?” And he was like, “B. Gates, man, we’re going to be doing this all the time. We’re good.” And it was just over a very simple, “I think you can make that play.” “No, I can’t.” “Yes, you can.”

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A: We have triplets. I have one kid that is all-in on basketball. If you asked him who his best friend was, he would tell you Mikal Bridges. He made a little travel team here and he’s 25. He hit a couple threes and did [Bridges’ pointing and head-nodding celebration] to me during the game. I have another one, his brother, who could care less. My daughter kind of cares. But I have a 12-year-old kid who is going to build buildings or he’s going to be a YouTube star. He’s going to do something that’s going to blow me away. Or, one thing I miss about Phoenix, I’d go play golf. If I’m answering honestly, I’m having a conversation with Preston Gates, or I would go play golf. Or I would try to cook something on the grill, because I think I’d actually be in that Grill Masters competition, but I have no chance. My specialty is a rare steak from Mrs. Gates.