The Pope of Basketball Community

Regular season individual awards have been determined.

Jordan won the tenth scoring title of his career; Rodman won the seventh rebounding title of his career; Strickland of the Wizards won the assists title for the first time;

The king of blocked shots had a big upset, and it turned out to be Marcus Camby of the Raptors. The plan of the Raptors management is to let Camby put up good numbers, increase the value of the trade, and then send it away.

The Knicks' 13-man roster for the playoffs is confirmed, and Mickey Moore is excluded. After the end of this season, it will be difficult for him to get a contract extension. If he wants to become a qualified NBA player, he still needs to work hard.

Knicks VS Nets, tickets sold out quickly. Although there is no suspense in this series, fans like to watch the derby at home!

The Nets are just across the Hudson River from the Knicks, two kilometers away in a straight line. There is the Washington Bridge connecting the two places, and the bustling area is connected by tunnels, one is called the Holland Tunnel and the other is called the Lincoln Tunnel. If New York fans want to go to New Jersey to watch the game, it is very convenient, and they can get there by car.

This has created an embarrassing situation. The Nets can say that there is no home court in the playoffs. At that time, most fans must support the Knicks.

In 1998, the first round of the NBA was a best-of-five game, and the home court advantage was more obvious. Experts predicted the outcome, and no one was optimistic about the Nets' counterattack to advance.

The New York media predicted the game, focusing on whether the Knicks can continue to play a good offense in the playoffs, and praised Yang Rui's role in the team.

For Nets coach John Calipari and manager Ed Stefanski, it was an embarrassment.

The two had a tacit understanding and didn't tell the rest of the management that Yang Rui had come to the Nets for an interview, but they couldn't escape the torment in their hearts. The owner of the Nets has always wanted to strengthen the team's offense, attract fans, and compete with the Knicks. If they know that the talent is sent to their door and they are driven away, will they have a good fruit to eat?

The Knicks only made their debut on the 24th. They had four days to rest and did not arrange high-intensity training. They just held a meeting to explain tactics to the players before training on the 23rd.

Van Gundy first talked about defense, Childs started to pay special attention to Nets point guard Sam Cassell, Johnson followed Van Horn, Bowen strictly guarded Kittles, etc...

Van Gundy's defensive strategy is almost watertight, and he has analyzed all the characteristics of the Nets. Except for Ewing defending the basket, everyone else is defending, focusing on mid- and long-range shots.

The weakness of the Nets is the lack of low-post offense. Van Horn is a big man who pulls out and shoots. He can play in the low post, all thanks to his skills.

Chris Gatlin, nicknamed "Stimulus", was selected to the All-Star Game once, but he couldn't stand the obvious decline in his state.

In the 96-97 season, Gatlin played 44 games for the Mavericks, averaging 19.1 points and 7.9 rebounds per game, climbing to a career high.

Afterwards, the Mavericks and the New Jersey Nets announced a large-scale transaction involving 9 players. In this transaction, well-known players including Cassell, Robert Parker and "Big Bamboo" Bradley all completed the collective migration, and the Gatlin also moved to New Jersey, but due to injuries, in the second half of the 96-97 season, Gatlin only played 3 games.

This season, Gatlin averaged only 11.5 points and 5.9 rebounds per game. He is 208 cm tall and weighs 100 kg. He is too thin to hit the basket, and his jump shot is not as accurate as before.

Jason Williams was selected as an NBA All-Star this season, averaging 12.6 points and 13.6 rebounds per game. But he is a defensive blue-collar, and his offense depends entirely on picking up leaks at the basket.

Among the players of the Nets, the point guard Sam Cassell is the point guard who scored the most points with his back. But just because he played too ugly, he was even uglier, with 19.6 points, 3 rebounds and 8 assists, he was not selected for the All-Star Game.

After finishing his defense, Van Gundy stepped off the podium and said to Yang Rui, "Come on.

"

In the past, Van Gundy organized the coaching staff to discuss tactics first, and he passed them on to the players. After playing for a period of time in the regular season, he directly asked Yang Rui to come forward to arrange offensive tactics. Anyway, the players knew that as long as there were new tricks, it would definitely be Yang Rui. Thought.

Yang Rui first drew a picture on the tactical board, and then said: "It is not difficult to win the Nets. As long as we have a solid defense, we can win with them, relying on the depth of the lineup, but I think we can win more beautifully. The key is to win by surprise, so the core of the offense in the first game is Larry and Patrick, and my idea is to try to get as close to the basket as possible.”

Yang Rui explained the tactics in detail. It was very simple, but it was the opposite of the routine in the regular season. In the regular season, Johnson mainly pulled out to shoot, and played off the ball most of the time. Now change to attack with the ball, or cut into the basket to play with the ball behind.

In the regular season, Ewing screens outside the mid-range to support offense or jump shots, and also changes to screens and cuts to the basket for short-range shots. One of the two always goes into the basket, which attracts the Nets to shrink and then split out, shooting from the outside.

After talking about the tactics, he asked with a smile: "In the regular season, the number of times you go to the basket is relatively small, so you don't feel pressure to play like this all of a sudden?"

Johnson laughed and said, "What's the pressure? I've wanted to play like this for a long time. If Van Horn started, he would never be able to defend me one-on-one."

"I'm fine." MVP's voice was super loud, which made Ewing's confidence stronger.

He does have the strength, even against the star center of the league, he is not bad. In addition to being slightly lighter at 110 kilograms, Ewing has no obvious weaknesses. He played against the Lakers twice in the regular season, and he also has better statistics than O'Neal.

What is surprise? It is to attack in an unexpected way. Now that all teams play the Knicks, the first thought must be to defend the perimeter three-pointer. In this way, the two insiders of the Knicks may become big killers.

At this point, Yang Rui no longer considered letting Ewing hold back. As the core, as long as he can be inside and out, he can pose a greater threat.

Van Gundy fully agrees with Yang Rui's tactics. There is no room for loss in the first game. A big victory will boost morale and have a good impact on the entire playoffs.

After the meeting, Van Gundy and Yang Rui were the last to leave and asked, "Jerry, are you not nervous at all? This is your first playoff game."

"I'm not a player, what's there to be nervous about?" Yang Rui shrugged.

"When you are interviewed, you always implicitly express your desire to become a head coach. This time our record will directly determine your status in the hearts of other team managements. I thought you would care about it." Van Gundy analyzed.

He always pays attention to Yang Rui's news, knowing that Yang Rui has great ambitions. He admits that this is a good teaching assistant, but he can't stand the teaching assistant always pointing fingers. This season, he can tolerate it for the sake of winning. If another season comes, he is going to go crazy if his assistant coach steals the limelight like this.

Therefore, Van Gundy actually hopes that Yang Rui will leave the Knicks after the end of the season.

"I really care about it, so the Knicks will only have one result this season, and that is to win the championship." Yang Rui paused, not hypocritically saying that he wanted to stay in the Knicks, and smiled: "Let's have a good time together." Let's finish the season!"

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