Mr. McMillan's timeout philosophy dates from his college days at North Carolina State, when he had the chance to watch North Carolina's famous coach, Dean Smith, in action. Mr. McMillan noticed that Mr. Smith always seemed to have a surplus of timeouts at the end of games, which allowed him to substitute players and disrupt the other team's rhythm. "He managed the last couple of minutes as well as anyone," he says. "I think that's when I took notice of timeouts and how important they were." (The Blazers were second in the league in fourth-quarter timeouts this season.)

His chief weapon is practice. Most NBA teams only work on plays to run after timeouts during training camp. But since his arrival in Portland in 2005, Mr. McMillan has made a point of drilling his team several times a month on post-timeout plays — the most common being a "1-4" set in which All-Star guard Brandon Roy handles the ball while the other players try to open up the middle of the court. "We really focus on it," Mr. McMillan says. To make sure the practice is paying off, he has one of his assistants track the team's post-timeout performance during games.

Last year, despite having a losing record, the Blazers were better after timeouts than several playoff teams and were 11-7 in games decided by three points or less. This year they not only led the league in post-timeout performance, but they also reeled off 13 consecutive wins in December and surprised experts by falling just short of a playoff spot.

The idea to measure "post-timeout performance" came from 82games.com, a basketball research Web site. To compile these performance numbers, Roland Beech, the site's editor, logs each team's points, field-goal percentages and turnovers after timeouts. Several NBA teams, including Houston, Boston and New Jersey, say they have started tracking this statistic, too.

Next season, Mr. McMillan may very well take Portland to the playoffs. The team's bid was hampered this season by injuries to Mr. Roy and by the absence of 7-foot center Greg Oden, last year's No. 1 overall draft pick, who missed the entire season with a knee injury.