The Whip of the God of Basketball

When the first quarter ended, the Lakers even led the Celtics by 3 points 24:21.

"Drink some water, everyone, take a good rest, think about the problems you encountered in the first quarter, and adjust your feelings. Remember, we must strengthen the offensive rebound rush and continue to rush, no matter what the consequences are. "Leon said to the players during the break between the two quarters.

As the head coach, Leon doesn't like to shout some encouraging words to the players during the break or timeout, but tells them what they should continue to persist in the next game. For example, in this game, he asked several inside players to increase their offensive rebounds.

Leon specially greeted Dalembert and said to him: "I will give you another quarter, grab more than three offensive rebounds, and I will consider keeping you on the court. Come on boy, this The task is not too difficult. Learn to use your body..."

In the first quarter, Dalembert's first start did not play a role in disrupting the inside of the Lakers. As a 6-foot-11 center, his offensive rebounding impact is actually not enough. In addition, the Lakers pursued the strategy of shrinking the whole team and grabbing rebounds in the backcourt. Dalembert just grabbed an offensive rebound with his hard work, but after getting the ball, he was a little flustered due to lack of experience, and was eventually defeated by his opponent. Take the ball away.

But Leon was very patient. He replaced Dalembert in the eighth minute of the first quarter and replaced him with Tony Batty. The Haitian looked a little frustrated. He had a sullen look until the end of the first quarter, exactly the same as Wang Zhizhi who was sitting aside.

Leon's encouragement gave Dalembert a lot of confidence, but he still didn't understand why he was asked to insist on grabbing offensive rebounds. In the previous four games, the Celtics were not keen on the frontcourt Scramble for rebounds. They lack height inside and often choose to return to defense at the first time, at the cost of giving up the frontcourt rush. This is also one of the reasons why there were so many rounds in the first few games and the offensive and defensive transitions were so fast. This is undoubtedly what Leon is happy to see .

But so far in this game, Dalembert will hardly return to the defense immediately, which makes him very uncomfortable. He has to squeeze in the Lakers' three-second zone to fight for the ball. At this time, he thought of Dennis Rodman. This guy was there last season, and he always appeared in the right place to grab the ball. Dalembert really wanted to ask Rodman how to grab the offensive rebound now. .

Not allowing him to think too much, the second quarter started soon, and Leon patted him on the shoulder, signaling him to go straight to the field.

The lineups on both sides at this time, the Celtics are the second team of Dalembert, Chris Anderson, Eric Williams, Steve Kerr and Joe Johnson, and the Lakers are the second team. Kobe, Bryan Shaw, Robert Hawley, Devin George and Medvedenko, in comparison, the Celtics have more players. After all, the Lakers injured two generals, O'Neal and Fox.

The Celtics sent the ball to the baseline, and Cole dribbled the ball past the half court. The old general under Jackson is quite familiar with the Lakers' defense. Create psychological barriers to the opponent's shooting. So Cole first gave the ball to Joe Johnson, who asked for it on the right waist, after halftime, and then pulled away to let Johnson one-on-one.

Joe Johnson is facing Kobe's defense, which is currently the best defender in the second position in the league. Although Joe Johnson tried to challenge Kobe, he found it difficult to find a suitable shot after trying to dodge and move around. , and he was pressed to the bottom line by Kobe, which made it difficult for Joe Johnson to get the ball out.

"We should strengthen the training of positional offense." Looking at the scene on the field, Dave Cowens, who was sitting next to Leon, said. During the entire training camp period, the Celtics' positional offense has always been a short board, but Leon seems to have no desire to strengthen this area.

"A solution will be found..." Leon just said softly. At this time, Joe Johnson barely passed the ball to Eric Williams who came to meet him. Williams made a mid-range shot at a position of about 45 degrees and 19 feet, and the ball hit the right side of the basket. middle.

At this time, Dalembert was like a black King Kong. He pushed aside the two Lakers players, stretched out his hand, and took the ball into his arms without much jumping. He listened to Leon's words and began to use his body. After getting the ball, he didn't hesitate like last time, but decisively returned the ball to Cole's hands.

At this time, Cole was standing just outside the left three-point line, a position he was very used to shooting, and made a three-point shot after receiving the ball. With an extremely standard shooting posture, the ball crossed a high arc in the air, which attracted the attention of more than 20,000 people in the audience, then crossed the net and fell into the basket!

The referee made a three-point gesture. After the goal, Cole also gestured a three-point gesture to the bench. An important three-pointer equalized the score!

At this time, Leon's restless heart calmed down a little, but this was just the beginning, and there was still a long time to go.

Sure enough, in the second quarter of the game, Dalembert and Chris Anderson's inside line, one high and one spring, began to exert their power, desperately rushing to grab offensive rebounds. The Lakers fight back, especially when the Lakers have Kobe, once Kobe has a one-handed opportunity in the fast break, basically two points are given away.

But Leon knew that Kobe couldn't kill anyone like this, and the initiative of the game would gradually be in the hands of the Celtics.

At the end of the first half, the Celtics 51:49, leading the Lakers by 2 points, Dalembert and Chris Anderson jointly grabbed 5 offensive rebounds in the second quarter, which means that the Celtics People suddenly have five more offensive opportunities. Not an astonishing number, but this is based on the continued shrinking of the Lakers' defense.

"Now, the Lakers' defense has shrunk and can't shrink any more, but our three-point performance is not very good, maybe it's because we haven't adapted, or something else. Solve them! Solve these problems! From the third quarter In the beginning, the three-point shot will be our main theme, and in the first five minutes of the third quarter, we will use the three-point shot to lay the foundation for victory.” In the Celtics locker room, Leon finally told everyone It revealed the whole picture of his tactics in this game.

In the preparation last night, how could Leon not look at the Lakers' game and technical statistics? He is a player with outstanding rebounding among the defenders. Regardless of Kobe, Fisher's strong body and power forwards are not at a disadvantage in rebounding.

And the Lakers' forwards like Devin George and Hawley are all-around forwards who can attack and shoot three-pointers, defend and rebound. Both of them, including the injured Fox, have Scottie Pippen. Shadow, undoubtedly Phil Jackson's favorite type of striker, has always been biased towards this type of striker in his past, present and future coaching.

Therefore, the Lakers, who were rebounding together as a team, did not suffer from rebounds without the main center, and O'Neal was not a super defensive rebounder.

Because of this, Leon didn't even want to use offensive rebounds to gain an advantage, but he needed offensive rebounds to open the situation. In the second quarter of the game, Leon made Dalembert desperately grab the offensive rebounds, which had a certain effect. In order to curb this situation, Phil Jackson kept shrinking the team's defense. By the second half of the second quarter, Bryant and George didn't even play very fast, because they had to stay for rebounds, and they were held back by Dalembert and Anderson's few but continuous offensive rebounds.

As a result, gaps began to appear in the Lakers' three-point line. When the players focus on the positioning and rebounding inside, the rotation and pressure on the outside line will be reduced accordingly, and the Celtics' outside line will have the opportunity to do more conduction and three-pointers.

Sure enough, after the start of the second half of the game, Paul Pierce took the lead with an adjustment after passing the ball and hit a three-pointer. The very simple cooperation of the two opened up the Celtics' indiscriminate bombing of three-pointers in the third quarter. prologue.

A team's defense will produce inertia and continuity in a certain game, especially in the regular season, once the team's defense maintains a certain intensity or strategy from the beginning to the middle of the game, then if you want to Sudden changes and adjustments in the second half of the game are difficult. Even if it is adjusted, it cannot be changed in one or two rounds. Some top defensive teams can often do it. This requires the team's defensive system to be very orderly, with a clear division of labor, and to have military-like discipline.

Obviously, the Lakers' defense is great, but they haven't reached such a point. They fell into defensive inertia at the beginning of the third quarter, and they still went to block with Dalembert to grab backcourt rebounds just like in the second quarter. Dalembert, as always, followed Leon's request to grab offensive rebounds, but this time he was no longer obsessed with grabbing, but wanted to point the ball out so that his teammates could get a chance to shoot from the outside.

Arenas, Reed, Walker, Pierce, four shotguns from outside, took turns to shoot, especially Antoine-Walker, after holding back for several games, he suddenly got Leon's release order, allowing him to shoot when he can Under the circumstances, play three-pointers by yourself.

Therefore, one step outside the three-point line and two steps outside the three-point line became the location of Walker's three-pointer. Moreover, he doesn't pay much attention to coordination of three-pointers. The opponent's defense shows some gaps.

In comparison, Pierce seemed more cautious, Reid only shot from the right corner, and Arenas put his shooting point on the front, and directly pulled out the shot through the pick-and-roll cooperation with Walker. The four of them threw 11 three-pointers in the third quarter! Hit six of them! A three-point bombing, suddenly opened the difference between the two sides to 14 points.

When the Celtics made three three-pointers, Jackson was still sitting on the sidelines squinting his eyes as if asleep. When Arenas made a three-pointer in the counterattack, Jackson's eyes were wide open. opened. When Reid made a three-pointer from the corner, Jackson couldn't sit still, but he still held back and didn't call a timeout. When Paul Pierce hit his sixth 3-pointer on a 45-degree left favorite from his favorite spot on a scramble by Chris Anderson, the Zen master couldn't sit still and called a timeout.

The firepower of the Celtics is beyond his imagination. He doesn't know what magical and effective training this team has experienced in the summer. He only knows that he misses Shaquille O'Neal.

Fortunately, he still has Kobe Bryant under him.