It is very common for professional sports teams to talk to the media after a game in cliches. And it’s common for a reason: the media is an obligation for players. After playing a long game and discussing it as a team, guys can’t just go home. They have to talk to the media. And after an exhausting practice, guys cannot just relax: they must chat about it to the media. Combine that with the fact that much of what teams are really doing and much of what goes on behind the scenes (flaring tempers, chemistry issues) is meant to be proprietary, and guys cannot even tell the truth anyway. So what you get is the same cliche answers from game to game — I call them canned answers — only for the guys not to follow them the next game.
Here is a list of some of the Nets favorite cliche and canned answers that they nearly never follow. Pull these out when you watch a postgame: you’ll hear a variation on all of them.
-It’s a process.
-Guys go down but other guys need to step up.
-We do not have an identity right now.
-We need to play better and it starts with me. I take responsibility for this loss.
-We just didn’t have it tonight.
-That’s a good team we played.
-We can’t let our offense dictate our defense.
-We have to stick through this together.
-We were doing ok and then we started missing shots, Player X got it going, and things just got out of hand.
-It just wasn’t our night/It was just one of those nights.
-Player X gave us/them a lift.
-Everyone needs to play better. I need to play better.
-It’s tough right now. It’s not a good feeling.
-There’s still time to turn this around.
-It’s still early/It’s not early anymore.
Let me know if you think of more: I’ll share them!
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