Nick Nurse vs Chris Finch: Coaching rivalry between friends which started in BBL | NBA News

Nick Nurse and Chris Finch faced off as coaches in the NBA for just the second time on Wednesday night and the Toronto Raptors head coach went 2-0 against his sometime-colleague, sometime-rival and old friend.

The Toronto Raptors strengthened their hold on sixth place in the Eastern Conference by beating the Minnesota Timberwolves by 125-102 on Wednesday night, meaning Toronto (44-32) moved two games ahead of Cleveland for sixth after the Cavaliers lost to Dallas. Minnesota (43-34) sits seventh in the Western Conference, 2.5 games back from the Utah Jazz.

Nurse and Finch know each other very well. Nurse assisted Finch at the London 2012 Olympics managing Team GB, Finch assisted Nurse with the Raptors prior to taking the Timberwolves job, and the pair built up an immense rivalry in the British Basketball League in the 1990s.

The pair have been competing against each other for almost 30 years after starting their coaching careers on these shores and it was in England where their love for coaching basketball started and was the launchpad for the success they have achieved in the sport. Nurse won silverware with Manchester Giants and Birmingham Bullets between 1995 and 2000, managing a number of teams, whilst Finch had a glittering ten-year spell with Sheffield Sharks between 1993 and 2003.

Finch said: “My time in Sheffield was great, I loved my time and spent 10 years there. The organisation was great it allowed me to succeed and fail, which was huge [for my development as a coach]. We also had a lot of success there which set me up for a lot of different things.”

In his decade-long spell with the South Yorkshire team, he led the Sharks to a BBL Trophy win in 1998, British League Cup and Championship in 1999, also winning BBL Coach of the Year in 1999, before defending the cup a year later.

At the same time as Finch’s success with the Sharks, Nurse was also building a successful programme in Manchester.

In just two years with the Manchester Giants, Nurse won the BBL Championship in 2000, the BBL Trophy in 1999 and was the BBL Coach of the Year in 2000.

Nurse reflected on his time in Manchester fondly, he said: “I loved working for the Manchester Giants, and I wasn’t going anywhere. I loved the city. I was living in Altrincham at the time, and we had a great team, ownership was great and there was a great buzz about it all.

“It was an enjoyable job, and I would probably still be there if the club hadn’t changed hands and let us go, that’s how much I loved that job.

“Manchester is an awesome city and that always sets you up to be able to do something special.”

How rivalry helped built a friendship

The pair were involved in one of the most famous BBL games in history, a top-of-the-table clash in the 1998-99 season between the Giants and the Sharks which saw 11,143 people flock to see the action – it remains the highest recorded attendance for regular-season game in the BBL.

Sheffield were first and Manchester were second and both were on 16 wins heading into the game. The Sharks came out on top with a tight 86-83 victory on the night.

The two coaches played over a dozen games against each other between 1995 and 2003 and finished next to each other on nearly identical league records between the 1995-1996 season right through to the end of the 1999-2000 season.

Nurse reflected on these experiences of the big games he had coached against Finch in the BBL, as a reason that he wasn’t nervous – even as a rookie head coach in NBA terms – ahead of the 2019 Finals when his Toronto Raptors team faced the Golden State Warriors.

The pair have gone from rivals in the BBL, to colleagues on more than one occasion and have become close friends.

Finch, speaking to Sportsnet.ca, said: “It’s kind of crazy to think that we’re here, given where we started.

“We have great respect for each other. That trumps everything. Friendship is always there, regardless. We’ve been really supportive. We lean on each other a lot, having come into a lot of different situations where we’ve experienced the same kind of pushback or obstacle or challenges, how we manage those things kind of as outsiders.

“We didn’t go to North Carolina, and we didn’t grow up in the league. So, there’s a lot of things you have to do to crack your way in.”

BBL investment and keys to using it wisely

It’s an exciting time for the BBL, with the recent multimillion pound 777 Partners’ investment into the domestic game, there is a sense that the sport is primed for a surge in popularity.

Finch explained that developing raw talent needs to be the key in ensuring growth in the league.

“Assuming the funding goes to where it’s needed most as a coach, I would hope in the investment would go towards developing these kids and that would be the catalyst for developing more talent,” the Timberwolves head coach said. “There is so much raw talent in the UK for all sports and particularly in basketball.

“Especially in London, I know there is so much raw talent there. They just need time and structure, soccer over here started the same way. It was very patchy, but it was popular in some places and now you get good soccer coaching pretty much anywhere.”

With 777 Partners buying a 45 per cent stake in the British Basketball League, there are rumours of the league even expanding and growing with potential new franchises. The most noteworthy instance is that of the Birmingham Rockets who applied to become a BBL franchise back in January this year with the backing of NBA icon Hakeem Olajuwon.

Nurse knows better than anybody about the rich tradition and heritage of basketball in Birmingham after winning a BBL Championship with the then Birmingham Bullets in 1996.

“I think it’s important and I believe there is enough tradition and history there to not totally start from scratch,” Nurse said. “There will be some experience there with people who know the league which will accelerate the success a little bit. Personally, I would like to see it, that team has some tradition and personally I think it’s important to revive that city of its basketball tradition.”

Finch recognises the power of Olajuwon attaching himself to the venture and believes that could prove to be a key differentiator in the long run.

Finch said: “Any sort of name recognition with someone like that, the power those sorts of former players can bring can only help and particularly if they are some of the most famous players to have ever played the game like Hakeem is.

“But I think what’s important for the game is that you must get the foundation right. A lot of the time, we want to skip steps in these types of things [but] you’ve got to build up the foundations of your club and you’ve got to build the foundation of your league.

“I believe that’s the missing formula for sustained success in the BBL and for basketball in the UK. We’ve had these moments where we have had money, profile, and exposure but for some reason we try to skip steps and try to get to the end point and that’s why the game has continued to wax and wane.”

Nurse added a note of caution, saying: “I think that any league needs visibility and stability financially. People can say how great and worldwide basketball is and it is but there are a lot of countries and a lot of leagues that are still trying to piece it together financially. There are a lot of teams who are still trying to keep it together financially and I think those investments need to be managed well and used wisely.”

The rush of live NBA games (TV listings here) continues on Sky Sports this week, subscribe to watch the live action.