Effort

Effort and concentration can be a hard thing to teach. It usually comes do to if the player really wants to succeed or win. If the player doesn't care about getting better or helping the team win then they will not put out the maximum effort. A lot of players will say they want to win or they will say they want to get better but really they do not. They would rather take the easy road and have mediocre success then to push themselves everyday. The road less taken is usually that way for a reason. There are a lot of people that like to say "I could have been..." fill in the blank. To be honest no they could not have been because obviously they were missing something and that's why they didn't. Of course, they probably could have if they fully committed themselves to that thing but they probably lack that kind of work ethic or concentration.

Here is a clip of Kevin Garnett after their game Thursday night. He talks about playing with effort every night.