Sixteen wins in eight weeks. There's no time for anything else. You have to have a one-track mind until it's over. Everything else in your life takes a backseat. That means not only asking for your family's understanding that you'll be preoccupied, but also asking everyone you come into contact with to understand that you're zoning.
Teams virtually pull a shroud around themselves during the playoffs.
Because no one can be trusted, curtains shield the doctors and trainers from the media. All injury talk stays in-house. Anything that leaks out is usually false. The last thing any player wants is for the opposition to know the specifics of an injury, because that would mark that body part with a target for the rest of the series. ABC showed taped footage of him blocking MacInnis' shot.