Insider: Nate McMillan alters Pacers’ travel itinerary to maximize rest

PHOENIX – When Indiana Pacers coach Nate McMillan was asked how his players have adjusted to the travel routine he instituted this season, he gave a short, blunt response.

“Well,” McMillan said Sunday with a grin, “they’ve got to go when the plane goes.”

In a season full of changes, the Pacers under McMillan have altered their travel during trips. They have fewer shootarounds before road games. It's rarer now that they head to the airport immediately after road games. When the schedule allows it, they stay the night in the same city they played in. The changes are designed for one goal: extra sleep.

Rest, in a league where 82 games will be played, has become one of the growing topics for every NBA team. How can you maximize it? How can you rest players enough to stay fresh and help prevent injuries? How can you get an advantage, no matter how little, against an opponent?

McMillan wants his team, which is full of veterans, to sleep. Unlike former coach Frank Vogel, McMillan has concentrated on the Pacers’ flights and hour-to-hour schedule as much as the five opponents they will face on their West Coast trip. McMillan wants the Pacers to get as much uninterrupted sleep as possible when away from Indianapolis.

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After their win Wednesday over the Phoenix Suns, the Pacers showered, changed into street clothes and got on team buses. But the buses did not head to the airport for Dallas, site of Friday's game. The Pacers instead went back to their hotel. They spent half of Thursday in Phoenix and practiced at the Suns’ Talking Stick Resort Arena before flying to Dallas.

“When you’re going West Coast to East Coast and vice versa, you have to look at that because it does have an effect on performance,” McMillan said Thursday.

“You’ve got to find time to get your rest," he said. "There are distractions on the road, whether its family or friends or treatment. This is a part of how we train and condition ourselves, both mentally and physically.”

To begin their trip, the Pacers flew to Portland on Nov. 29, the day before the game against the Trail Blazers. The team practiced in the Moda Center that afternoon. The  schedule was foreign to many who had played under Vogel.

“That was the first time we’ve done that,” C.J. Miles said after the Nov. 29 practice. “I guess with the time difference and the long flight, you want to get out early so you get the day to kind of get yourself right.”

McMillan’s strategy on flights has produced inconsistent results. For all of McMillan’s planning ahead of Portland, the Pacers were embarrassed by the Trail Blazers in a 131-109 loss. The team stayed in Portland after the game and performed much better Sunday in an impressive 111-102 win over the Los Angeles Clippers.

Before that game, Clippers coach Doc Rivers praised McMillan for having the Pacers join the growing number of teams that have put an emphasis on not flying to the next city after every road game.

“I think Nate McMillan actually (should) get the credit, which he doesn’t get, for doing that in Portland,” Rivers said.

When McMillan coached the Trail Blazers, he listened to his medical staff when they approached him in 2008 with ideas for how to get players better sleep.

McMillan began consulting with Dr. Charles Czeisler, the director of the Division of Sleep Medicine at Harvard Medical School and the chief of the sleep medicine division at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. With Portland, McMillan allowed his players to stay out until 2 a.m. when on the road to help keep their body clocks on Portland’s Pacific time zone. Czeisler, known in the NBA as the sleep doctor, suggested that to McMillan.

McMillan and Rivers did not concern themselves with their sleep habits when they were playing in the 1980s and 1990s. But both men have made it their mission to ensure their players understand how at least eight hours of sleep will prepare them for success on the court and might prolong their careers.

“Honestly, even though you might not like it all the time, I’d rather go to sleep in a bed than try to sleep on a plane if I had the choice,” Miles said after Thursday’s practice in Phoenix. “You’ll sleep better. You don’t sleep all balled up.”

Josh Corbeil, the Pacers’ head athletic trainer, agreed with Miles’ thoughts as he wrapped bags of ice on the small forward’s knees. The two fist-bumped.

Other players, such as Jeff Teague, experienced the growing trend with the Atlanta Hawks under coach Mike Budenholzer before joining the Pacers.

“I’m pretty chill,” Teague said. “After the game, I just get something to eat and I’ll probably watch a little movie and then pretty much go to sleep. If we fly out after, I probably can’t go to sleep until, like, 4 or 5 in the morning. I think that’s the way it is for most people on the team. I think staying after games is better for us, but it don’t matter to me.”

Before the Pacers left Indianapolis for their longest trip of the season, McMillan’s goal was to get the Pacers at least three wins — a winning record on their journey. A victory Friday against the Dallas Mavericks will accomplish that goal. If that occurs, McMillan believes the team’s sleep schedule will have played a part.

After four road games of getting used to the unusual, Miles appears to be less skeptical of McMillan’s approach.

“I think in the long haul it does (work),” Miles said. “As much rest as you can get as the season goes on, where you can find places to get more, you’ve got to do it. It’s a grind. As much as you train for it, your body still needs it. In all actuality, you don’t get the amount of rest we should get for the amount of stuff we do. That’s not a sob story. It’s just the nature of what we do. Don’t get me wrong, though. We do get compensated for it.”

Miles wanted to say more, but he couldn’t. He was the last player to leave the court in Phoenix after Thursday’s practice. There was another flight, this one in the midafternoon, he needed to catch.

Call IndyStar reporter Nate Taylor at (317) 444-6484. Follow him on Twitter:@ByNateTaylor.

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Pacers at Mavericks, 8:30 p.m. Friday, Fox Sports Indiana