Chansky’s Notebook: Dean Smith On My Mind

The Patriots had me thinking about Dean Smith all week.

Obviously, I am a New England Patriots fan. Duh. And I was unusually calm all week heading into the AFC championship game Sunday against the Kansas City Chiefs.

Now, maybe because the Pats were going for their third straight Super Bowl, fourth in the last five years, fifth in the last eight years and ninth in the last 18 since Tom Brady and Bill Belichick have been together. You can’t win them all, I might have been thinking; they have already won more than their share.

But something else was on my mind, and it involved the late great Dean Smith, Carolina’s Hall of Fame basketball coach. Over the last 30 years of his career, Smith instilled confidence in Tar Heel fans that gave them hope even with the odds stacked against them.

I remember his 1989 team going to No. 1 and undefeated Duke on a Wednesday night without injured senior guard Jeff Lebo. Smith found a way to win, by imploring his bigs to out-rebound the Blue Devils. In 1992, they lost two in the regular season to Florida State, but Smith turned to a zone in a third match in the ACC tournament and Carolina won. In 1995, no one gave them a chance against second-ranked and bigger Kentucky in the South regional final. The Heels cagily kept it close until they spread the court and broke it open late.

I can go on and on, but I had the same feeling about the Patriots going to KC with the odds against them. They will come up with something and Brady will execute in the clutch like no one else can. And if Brady had not thrown a regrettable 1-yard interception in the end zone, the Patriots might have led 21-0 at the half, not 14-0.

What they came up with was a table-turning, hold-the-ball strategy to keep Chiefs’ phenom Patrick Mahomes off the field by pounding the ball on long drives behind their running game. It worked to near-perfection, they shortened the game and then survived a fourth-quarter shootout that either team could have won.

It wasn’t their normal game, like Smith occasionally went away from his up-tempo offense and pressure defense. But their execution of the strategy put them in a position to win, and they did. Again.

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