Almighty Coach

Boston, Celtics general manager Dennis came to the team early. As usual, the secretary made him a cup of coffee, while he himself sat in front of the computer and called the website to check the situation of the NBA game last night. .

Boston is in the eastern part of the United States, so the kick-off time of the western teams is relatively late for Bostonians, especially for teams on the west coast of the United States such as the Lakers, Clippers, Warriors, and Trail Blazers. It is three hours later than the East, the East game is over, and the West game has not yet started. By the end of the game in the West, it was already late in Eastern Time, and many Bostonians were already asleep. So Dennis rarely pays attention to the Western Conference games on the night of the game. After coming to the office the next morning, it became a habit that Dennis has developed over the years to learn about the situation of the Western Conference teams through the news.

Looking at the score after game, Dennis finally saw the score between the Clippers and the Spurs.

"92 to 87, the Spurs lost to the Clippers? How is this possible! Although the Spurs are unlikely to win the championship this year, their strength is still not to be underestimated, and now is the critical time to hit the playoffs. How could they Losing to the Clippers team? It’s normal for the Clippers to score 92 points, but the Spurs only scored 87 points. The Spurs’ offense is not weak, and the Clippers have never been a team that is good at defense. How can they beat the Spurs? The defense only scored 87 points, what the hell happened?"

Dennis immediately clicked on the detailed statistics, hoping to find some clues.

"Starting with all substitutes? What is that old fox in Gray doing! The two core players have been placed in the inactive player list. Is this a rotation? There is still one month before the end of the regular season. Isn't it too early for the rotation now? "

Dennis looked at the Spurs' ranking in the West.

"The Spurs are now ranked fifth in the West. After losing this game, they are 1.5 games away from fourth place, and the next six to nine are also very tight. They don't even have home court advantage in the playoffs. Where did the Spurs come from for rest? At this moment, shouldn’t they work hard and rise to fourth place, at least holding the home court advantage in the playoffs.”

Dennis frowned and thought for a long time, guessing various possibilities, but the more he guessed, the more he couldn't understand why the Spurs made such an arrangement.

"Although the Clippers are not a strong team, it is impossible for the Spurs to send a substitute lineup to play. The Spurs obviously want to lose!" Dennis said to himself, suddenly, he thought of something, Then click the mouse to check the record of the Clippers.

"The Clippers have now risen to 11th in the West, and the same record can be ranked 9th in the East, which means that there are four teams in the West that are not as good as the Clippers, and there are six teams in the East. The team's record is not as good as the Clippers. If the current record is used to rank the strength list, the Clippers should be in the bottom eleven of the league! Damn..."

Dennis couldn't help cursing secretly, because he remembered the draft pick in his hand that was traded from the Clippers.

The NBA's draft position is related to the team's record in the regular season. The worse the record, the easier it is to get a high-ranked draft lottery. On the contrary, the better the team's record, the lower the draft pick. . The bottom-ranked team in the league has the greatest chance of winning the No. 1 pick. The No. 1 team is basically guaranteed to get the No. 30 pick.

So in theory, the Clippers are ranked eleventh from the bottom, so in the draft, they are likely to get the eleventh pick.

However, before Li Dai became the head coach of the Clippers, the Clippers were ranked second to last in the Western Conference, and their overall record was also ranked fourth to last in the league, which can be said to be the bottom team in the league. According to the situation in previous years, the fourth-to-last team has almost a 10% chance of winning the No. 1 lottery, and the probability of winning the No. 2 and No. 3 picks is also very high. Even if the luck is relatively average, it is easy to keep the top five picks.

That is to say, after Li Dai coached, the Clippers' draft pick changed from the top five picks to the eleventh pick, which obviously depreciated.

In fact, the eleventh pick is actually not bad, and it is also a lottery pick. However, compared with the top five picks, the eleventh pick has really dropped several notches. Compared with the No. 1 pick, it is even more heavenly and underground. Any team would rather bet on the 10% probability of the No. 1 pick than the 100% No. 11 pick.

In order to form the Big Three, the Clippers traded a draft pick to the Celtics. This is the first round pick this year. With such a bad record for the Clippers this season, the value of the draft pick that was traded to the Celtics has also risen. Dennis also feels that this deal is really profitable.

The Celtics' record has always been in the top three in the East, and they have a chance to hit the championship. And the draft picks exchanged from the Clippers may win the No. 1 lottery. A team that is aiming for the championship may win the No. 1 pick. Every time he thinks about this, Dennis can't help but want to applaud for it.

It's a pity that the sky didn't go his way, the Clippers' record improved, and the top five pick became the eleventh pick, which completely bid farewell to the possibility of winning the No. 1 pick.

The Celtics hope that the Clippers will play worse, and it is best to fall to the last place in the league, so that the Celtics can happily enjoy a No. 1 pick. Now that the Clippers' performance has improved, the biggest loss is of course the Celtics.

Thinking of the depreciation of the draft pick in his hand, Dennis felt very annoyed.

"Damn Spurs, why did you lose? You should beat the Clippers at this time! Sending a full bench lineup, you are deliberately losing! Yes, it must be intentional! No, I want to complain to the league about you Deliberately lost to the Clippers!"

...

After defeating the Spurs, the Clippers' next opponent is the Rockets.

The last time the two teams met, the Rockets made a wave of three-pointers in overtime and took the Clippers away.

The current record of the Rockets is No. 1 in the West and No. 1 in the entire league. The Warriors with a record of five games surpassed the second-placed Warriors. The probability of securing No. 1 in the West is already very high.

In Houston, Rockets coach Max also learned of the Clippers' victory over the Spurs.

"The Spurs lost to the Clippers, and they sent a full bench lineup, which is really puzzling. Although the Spurs are one year older this year, there is still one month left in the regular season, so there is no need to play now." Let's start resting the players." The assistant coach whispered in Max's ear.

Max smiled slightly, and said: "You don't know that old fox Gray. This is not a rotation, but a trick he played. But what he never expected was that he wanted to trick others, but was tricked by others instead. "

"Coach, I don't quite understand." The assistant coach asked with a confused expression.

Max went on to explain: "I used to work for the Spurs, so I know something about Gray. I guess Gray is to avoid overtime. The Clippers have played too much overtime recently, and the Spurs The overall age of the team is too old. Playing an overtime game is equal to the consumption of two usual games, and the players are still at risk of injury. So Gray sent a substitute player to play, waiting for the Clippers to play overtime, but unexpectedly There was no overtime at all in this game, and Gray's plan to count others fell through."

"So that's how it is!" The assistant coach showed a suddenly realized expression.

After Max explained this, he fell into deep thought.

"Although Gray's old fox's calculation failed, it also reminded me, maybe I can learn from it." Max thought to himself.

Max is the "running and bombing master" in the NBA, and his tactics are very advanced. When the NBA was still more advocating defense, he had already led the team to play bombardment tactics. Now that the NBA has entered the era of small balls, he even came up with a set of magic ball theory, giving up mid-range shots during offense, and either shooting three-pointers or attacking the basket. In the defense, it is infinitely changing defenses to break the advanced and most popular pick-and-roll.

However, Max has a big disadvantage, that is, he doesn't trust role players very much. In his team, many role players can only appear in garbage time. Because he doesn't trust role players, Max often uses seven-man rotations, which is where he is often criticized by fans.

The regular time of an NBA game is 48 minutes, and a team will have five players on the court at the same time, which means that the entire team will play for a total of 240 minutes, which is a fixed number.

If it is a seven-person rotation, the average appearance time of each person will exceed 34 minutes. If it is an eight-person rotation, the average appearance time of each person will be reduced to 30 minutes. The long time is only 24 minutes.

From this comparison, each player can play 10 minutes less in a ten-man rotation and a seven-man rotation. This also means that each of them can rest for ten minutes more in each game, and their physical fitness will be more abundant.

Of course, this is just theoretical data. In reality, the main players will definitely have more playing time, while the substitute players will have less playing time.

But one thing is certain is that the more people who enter the rotation and the more people who can play the game, the less physical energy consumption of the players will be.

Considering that there are 82 games in the regular season in a season, coupled with the fierce playoffs, it is obviously a good thing for the team that the main players consume less energy.

However, Max is the head coach who often plays in rotation with seven players. It is impossible for him to reduce the energy consumption of the players. What is certain is that the Rockets must consume more physical energy than other teams because they often play seven-man rotations.

"There is still one month left in the regular season, and it is time to prepare for the playoffs. This season, we have played too many seven-man rotations, and the physical consumption of the players is relatively large, and there have been signs of injuries recently. , I have to find a way to control it."

"Anyway, the Clippers can't make it to the playoffs, and they don't pose any threat to us. If we compete with them in overtime, the gain will not be worth the loss. And our current record is firmly ranked first in the West, and we want to be second. It is not easy to catch up, and we lose one or two games occasionally, which is irrelevant to the overall situation."

...

The Clippers defeated the Spurs, which was already an upset, and what was even more unexpected was that the Clippers defeated the league's No. 1 Rockets again!

This time, the Rockets also came off the bench with all the players, and even the players who played in the Development League were called back and played for more than 20 minutes on the court.

No matter how weak the Clippers players are, they will not be unable to deal with the players in the Development League. This is another Tian Ji horse racing game.

The reason why the Rockets did this is that they really don't want to spend overtime with the Clippers. After all, the Rockets have played a seven-man rotation for almost a season. By the last month of the regular season, the physical fitness of the players has been very poor. Instead of fighting the Clippers for one or two overtimes, it is better to save more energy for the playoffs.

...

Cleveland Cavaliers.

The head coach walked up to a strong player and asked, "Do you want to take a break for the next game?"

This strong black player named Brownie is the "first man" in today's NBA.

After hearing what the coach said, Brownie showed a trace of doubt, and he asked, "Did something happen?"

"Our next opponent is the Los Angeles Clippers," the head coach said.

"I know there are some fans in Los Angeles who don't like me, but most of the people who don't like me are Lakers fans, not Clippers. Besides, even if the fans don't like me, the ball still has to be played !” Brownie replied.

"You don't get my point. Last game, the Clippers beat the Spurs, because the Spurs were all off the bench. And the last game, the Clippers beat the Rockets, and the Rockets were all off the bench. Lineup. So I think, we are facing the Clippers, should we also rest some of the main players. There is less than one-fifth of the regular season schedule, and we should also focus on the playoffs. Our The goal is the championship, as for the ranking in the regular season, it is actually not the most important." The coach said.

Bronny can become the "No. 1 player" in the NBA, and his IQ must be online. After a little thought, he understood the reason.

I saw Browne nodded: "Our victory or defeat with the western team hardly affects the ranking. Among the western teams, the only ones we need to pay attention to are the Warriors and Rockets. We may meet them in the finals. Playing two or three overtimes for a team that has nothing to do with the playoffs is indeed an unnecessary waste."

"Well, for the next game, you should take a rest first. By resting this game, you can get at least five days of adjustment time. Now that the schedule is so dense, five days is really rare."

...

Boston Celtics.

The manager Dennis looked at yesterday's battle report with a tearless expression on his face.

In the last three games, the Clippers have defeated the Spurs, Rockets and Cavaliers one after another, which are all strong teams in the league.

More importantly, these three opponents of the Clippers are all Xuezang's main players, allowing the substitute lineup to appear. And because of this wave of winning streak, the Clippers have risen a place in the strength list. In this way, the Clippers' first-round pick depreciated again.

"What's the matter? The Spurs sent a substitute, the Rockets sent a substitute, and even the Cavaliers sent a substitute. They are letting the water go! This is clearly to let the Clippers win on purpose! How do I feel, the whole league is against me!"