The Basketball Court Swordsman

Before the game began, Henson kept Becky Harmon always awake. And it turns out that Henson's worries are not superfluous.

"Al Horford set up an off-the-ball screen for Isaiah Thomas. Thomas cut in empty-handed. He received a pass from Avery! Do you want a layup? No, Thomas chose to score. Al Horford hits the ball. Shots from distance, hits! Haha, beautiful offense, a typical Stevens-style offense. The Celtics once again surpassed the score with the strength of the team, I don’t remember this is the first few times that the two sides have changed in this game. Leading. But obviously, the Pacers are in big trouble!"

On the commentary stage, Mike Brin cheered for the wonderful offense of the Celtics. After all, he has rarely seen any team that can play such a smooth offense in front of the Pacers.

I think even Popovich led the Spurs, it is difficult to play such a smooth offense. Stevens's Celtics did it.

"Coach Stevens' timeout has played an immediate effect. Like Henson, he is one of the coaches with the highest'offensive success rate after timeout' in the league. His timeout allowed the Celtics to immediately be able to Finished scoring. His tactical arrangement is always so exquisite." Next to Mike Brin, Jeff Van Gundy also kept using words of praise on Stevens.

At this time, the high-profile home game has reached the last five minutes of the fourth quarter. On the court, the Boston Celtics led the Pacers by two points. This season has reached the present, with the exception of the 76ers three-pointer game, no team has been able to fight the Pacers for so long.

Among them, Stevens's excellent adjustment played a key role. Whenever the Pacers had to take control of the overall situation, it was Stevens's timely pause that interrupted the Pacers' momentum.

In fact, it is very simple to stop the Pacers from gaining momentum. A timely and effective timeout is sufficient. As long as the attack after the timeout can be completed, the morale of the players will immediately rise. And if the offense after the timeout is not completed, the players will bear a huge psychological burden instead.

It's just a pity that most teams are in the latter case when facing Henson's Pacers. However, Stevens was able to fight with Henson.

Seeing Al Horford, his most important No. 5 position, made a three-pointer, Henson had no choice but to shake his head. At first he thought that Horford might not be able to stay, but who knew he had ran to the Celtics in a ghostly manner.

With such a smart coach as Stevens, Horford can undoubtedly play his greatest role. What's more, the two have had the experience of working together in the Pacers. Therefore, Horford is almost plug and play in the Celtics, and there is no running-in process at all.

The goal just now was actually a tactic that Henson used to play with the Pacers. Horford lags behind, attracting attention at the first position and passing the ball at the second position. Finally, the ball is divided from the first position to the fifth position to finish the offense.

One of the most important skills Stevens taught Henson was to "copy" other coaches' tactics and improve them. And there is no doubt that this time, Henson finally experienced what it felt like to be stolen by others.

"I said, the professionalism of coach Stevens is much better than Henson. As you can see, the Celtics offense is very delicate today, Stevens can always dismember Henson's defense. It must be broken. Now, the Celtics will gradually take the initiative."

Far in the eSPN studio, Jim O'Brien also gave his own interpretation of the attack just now. It's not so much an offensive interpretation, it's better to say that he has another excuse to complain about Henson.

After several attacks, the Celtics did play very well. The effect of Stevens's timeout lasted more than just one round. The Celtics didn't miss several rounds in a row, and there were four minutes left in the game that widened the point difference to 4 points.

At this time, it's time for Henson to stop the game. After 44 minutes of fighting, Henson has basically figured out the reason why this Celtics is so magical. So this timeout was considered by Henson as a timeout to end the game.

If this timeout still fails to allow the Pacers to solve the problem, then whether or not they can win today will have to be controlled by the player, not his coach.

"Henson called a timeout, but in my opinion it's just to no avail. Coach Stevens must have predicted Henson's thoughts a long time ago." Jim O'Brien started to complain again. In his eyes, Henson It seems to be the nerd scout who didn't understand anything but a little clever.

"Coach Jim O'Brien, I'm very curious. If Coach Henson is really as unbearable as you said, how did he lead the team to build a dynasty?" At this time, even the host in the eSPN studio could not listen. Go down.

"You know, every coach is good at different areas. Coach Henson is very good at seeing people and dealing with locker room relationships. I admit that. So the Pacers' drafts have been very successful, and Henson coached. During the period, the Pacers did not have any contradictions. But in terms of tactical training alone, I don't think Henson Joe is so good."

O'Brien said, making a fist hard. He was still tearing down Henson's platform, but at this time Henson didn't even think about what else O'Brien said.

The magic of the Celtics is actually similar to Curry's. At the beginning of his career, Thomas was criticized for being too sticky, and it was not until he met Stevens that there was a qualitative change.

The Marshal's use of Thomas is partly similar to Cole's use of Curry, which is to use other ball holders in the team to liberate the point guard who has both shooting and flexibility to the ball. Therefore, the Celtics offense will be so flexible. Thomas, who is only 1.75 meters tall, will have a smooth run in Boston.

For this reason, Stevens will equip Thomas with dual guards like Bradley and Smart. Of course, it was Horford who really helped the liberation of Thomas.

His passing support, his shooting range, his basketball IQ... The role of this "ball blind appraiser" in the Celtics can be said to be comparable to Thomas Jr.

Therefore, to prevent the Celtics from playing smooth offense. First of all, it is necessary to make Thomas unable to attack without the ball as he wants. To do this, Henson had to strangle his former beloved Al Horford.

In the 44 minutes of the fight, Henson used Lopez and Rooney to match Horford. Lopez is really heavy, and he always plays awkwardly when he runs around with Horford on the perimeter.

Rooney's athletic ability is enough, but to be honest, the basketball IQ is still not as good as Horford, and it cannot prevent Horford from calmly responding.

Channing Frye? Forget it, Henson should stop torturing the old shooter. After thinking about it, Henson found that only Antetokounmpo met the requirements of defending Horford.

With athletic ability, height wingspan and basketball IQ, Antetokounmpo is undoubtedly the best candidate to defend Horford. And Horford is not the kind of "Big Mac under the basket" center, so Antetokounmpo is not afraid of Horford playing the low post.

Solving Horford, the Celtics' offensive fluency was at least halved. At this time, coupled with Oladipo's breakthrough ability... Henson believed that he could kill the game in the last four minutes!

So Henson called this timeout and began to implement his substitution plan.

After the timeout, a more "exotic" lineup appeared in front of the fans.

Antetokounmpo moved into position five, and Channing Frye moved into position 4. On the outside, George and Danny Green were still present, but Oladipo replaced Chris Paul at such a critical moment!

Once again, Henson's substitution made people hard to understand.

"What kind of strange substitution strategy is this? At a critical moment, Coach Henson actually won Chris Paul? And, he actually used Antetokounmpo as a center?" Jim O'Brien smiled and shook his head. "What am I talking about? Coach Henson's tactical literacy is really amateurish."

Seeing such a strange lineup in front of him, Henson only wrote an Arabic number "4" on the tactical board.

"After 4 minutes, we are going to win. Strictly implement my arrangement, and no one is allowed to have extra problems, understand!?"

Henson finished speaking and threw the players onto the court. The confrontation with Stevens is really brain-burning, but no matter how brain-burning, there will be a day of being seen through.

The timeout was over. When Stevens saw Antetokounmpo appearing on the court as the fifth position, Stevens felt a "thump" in his heart.

That guy Henson, wouldn't he find a way to deal with the Celtics so quickly...

Really capable people and O'Brien kind of people who are strong in the middle, look at Henson from a completely different perspective.

The reason why O'Brien thinks Henson's substitution is a bluff, only because his level is not enough to interpret the duel between Henson and Stevens.