“Later practice is all right, whatever Doc wants, man,’’ Garnett said after practice yesterday afternoon. “Ain’t my cup of tea. I don’t sleep anyway. It’s good, you’ve got to find good in everything, if that means sleep till 8:30 or 9, so be it.’’
The NBA is a layup case study for sleep deprivation. Players burn the candle at both ends. They perform high-stress, physically demanding tasks late at night, then awaken in a different time zone to repeat the routine. They are penalized for a shot clock violation, but when a body clock alarm sounds, it is ignored.
“What we are trying to do is leverage the power of sleep,’’ said Czeisler, who pioneered sleep study in the 1970s. “As pro athletes, they spend so much time trying to practice and master the skills of the game - and sleep turns out to be a very critical part of the process. There is evidence that you can significantly improve free throw percentage and reaction speed if you optimize levels of sleep.’’
Czeisler started working with the Portland Trail Blazers and, briefly, with the Celtics last year. Both teams might have been skeptical at first.
“When I talked to the Celtics, it was the same thing that happened with the Trail Blazers,’’ Czeisler recalled. “The coach told me I had 10 minutes, and I ended up having 2 1/2 hours worth of questions. These guys know how important sleep is, because they know what happens when they don’t get adequate amounts of sleep. If your reaction time is 250 milliseconds, it goes up to 700 to 800 milliseconds if you stay awake all night - you are impaired as if you were drunk.
“If you’re traveling to Europe and going through customs, it’s not going to make much difference to you. But that can be critical if you are a professional player and you depend on timing.’’
Portland coach Nate McMillan was desperate to find an answer to his team’s difficulties on the road. Long trips to the Midwest and East Coast were particularly tough. The change in sleep schedule produced immediate results.
