The Whip of the God of Basketball

After Carlisle returned to the hotel, his mind was in chaos, both due to the effects of alcohol and Leon's words. Leon's words seemed ordinary, but they revealed Carlisle's embarrassing situation in the Pistons at this time. On the one hand, he is not very popular with the players. Although the players respect him, he has never been the kind of "players' coach"; on the other hand, he is not liked by the boss. Not only does he dislike him, but the relationship between the two parties It was also very tense.

Carlisle, with his stubborn temper, hates those executives who are dictating the team and letting laymen guide experts. Including that time when the Pistons participated in an exhibition game, the conflict between him and big boss Davidson became increasingly intensified. Davidson is not a boss who orders blindly, but he must make a choice between his officials and the head coach. Obviously Carlisle is not in Davidson's long-term plan.

Although Carlisle is now leading the team to focus on playing in the playoffs, Leon's words brought out all the things that bothered him from the bottom of his heart, so he regretted going to Leon's house for dinner. This guy was really not in peace. With good intentions, I guess he was just waiting for the opportunity to reveal this scar on himself, so that he would be distracted from directing the game properly.

Thinking of this, Carlisle quickly went into the bathroom and took a cold shower to calm down. At the same time, he also began to think about tomorrow's game and what kind of strategy he should use to deal with the current Celtics layout.

Basketball has developed to this stage, and the general tactical program and system have been roughly formed. What is changing are the rules, the players, and the details. How to combine these elements to complete a perfect game is the lifelong focus of every coach. Pursue. Both Leon and Carlisle are still walking on this difficult road, and can only see a little light, whether it is the dawn of the vast sky or a lonely firefly in the dark night.

It is these two young and talented coaches who are racking their brains to create a better tactical environment and conditions for their team's players in order to win the series.

Compared with Carlisle, Leon's cards are undoubtedly better. Although the Pistons have the first place in the Eastern Conference in the regular season, there is actually no gap in quality between them and other teams in the Eastern Conference. On the contrary, in Leon's eyes, the real opponent in the Eastern Conference is Only the New Jersey Nets and the current Pistons are not qualified.

But this does not mean that Leon can relax his vigilance. The consequences of relaxing his vigilance against the Pistons will be the Orlando Magic.

In the evening, Leon invited Carlisle to have dinner. Firstly, he really wanted to catch up on old times and chat, but secondly, he just wanted to disturb Carlisle. Leon is a typical grassroots coach in the league. He has little interaction with the bosses, celebrities, stars, tycoons and CEOs. The biggest boss with whom he has a close relationship is Khomeinis’ father, his prospective father-in-law. He is just one of the owners of the Celtics.

On the contrary, the scouts, agents, assistant coaches, and journalists who form the foundation of the league are Leon's position. There are 29 teams in the league, and he has scouts or team staff members he knows in almost every team. , especially the Spurs, Nuggets, Lakers, and Pistons. Some of them are friends that Leon met during the scouting group, some are colleagues he met during the regular season, and some are a group of industry insiders he has recruited after expanding his network.

They may not work for Leon, nor will they accept Leon's employment, but there is no problem in providing some gossip and doing some small favors. Some senior reporters in Detroit are aware of the conflicts between the Pistons' head coach and owners, whether they are major or minor, but they have not spread in the mass media.

Leon indeed learned from a basketball worker in Detroit that although this man was engaged in basketball in Detroit, he was a Bostonian and a Boston fan, so he told Leon this somewhat valuable news. And Leon made good use of him.

Of course, Leon will not pin his hopes of victory on Carlisle's brain. If he wants to truly make Carlisle's brain faint, he must completely overwhelm him tactically!

……………………

On the night of May 10th, the North Shore Garden Arena in Boston was a little empty. Obviously, for Boston fans, the conference semifinals were far from satisfying their appetite. They did not come early to reserve seats or wave white towels. However, when the game was about to start, the arena was still packed with fans and the atmosphere began to become lively.

"This is the place to play basketball..." Leon thought as he stood on the sidelines and listened to the familiar cheers of the North Shore Garden Arena. The unique echo structure here made the sound particularly majestic. He liked to direct the game here. In the green sea. He hated the mechanical, dull blue-grey of Mount Auburn, with its hint of dull red. On the contrary, in the North Shore Garden, the vibrant green here seems to be full of magic.

Leon quickly noticed that there were changes in the Pistons' starting lineup. The Pistons' starting small forward changed from Michael Curry to Tayshaun Prince. This is a very noteworthy change. Although Curry was the Celtics' starting small forward in previous games, he was actually a defender. He is only 6 feet 5 tall and is still quite reluctant to play small forward.

However, he is strong and experienced, so it is no problem to support Pierce. Moreover, in the Pistons' rotation, he is just a pseudo-starter. Although Prince is a substitute, he plays longer than Curry.

Now Carlisle directly lets Prince, who is 6 feet 8 tall, has an amazing wingspan and is also quite thin, play. This move obviously has strong tactical pertinence and tactical prediction. In comparison, the Celtics are still a starting lineup that remains unchanged in response to ever-changing changes. This time, Leon did not emphasize who should be the main attacker, but demanded that the defense must start from the beginning, and then seek to speed up the offense after stabilizing the defense. This is undoubtedly a more conservative strategy.

After the game started, Leon discovered that Carlisle actually asked Pulis to face Walker in the defense. I don't know what medicine Carlisle sold in the gourd. He asked the rookie small forward to go against him and scored 35 points in the previous game, which was almost a blowout. Wallace's All-Star power forward. However, in the Celtics' first offensive round, Walker failed to attack with the ball.

He reached the position easily, then rolled over Prince and squeezed in. Wallace stepped forward to cover. Walker tried to pass the ball, but found that his passing route was blocked and had to move to a wide area. In the right corner, Reid took the ball and forced a three-pointer but missed.

The Celtics' positional offense is much lackluster compared to their smart, changeable and quick counterattacks. It's nothing more than Pierce and Walker's low singles, attracting firepower and then moving in a wide range. Reed, Arenas, Cole and other shooters on the weak side are ready to catch the ball. Or, continuous pick-and-rolls are carried out in the high post to launch an attack, Walker provides support or directly attacks in the high post, Arenas breaks through and handles the ball for the second time, with obvious shadows of the Eagle-style offense, and mixed with some principles of the triangle offense.

But because neither Pierce nor Walker are true low-post attackers inside, their low-post offenses are often not deep enough to move the ball around. At the same time, Arenas was severely suppressed by Billups in these two games. On the offensive end, he almost turned into a top pitcher and a pure blaster, which caused considerable resistance to the Celtics' positional offensive tactics.

Sure enough, halfway through the first quarter, the Pistons led the Celtics by 4 points 14:10, and Leon took the lead in calling a timeout. Pulis had a very good effect against Walker. Walker seemed to underestimate this thin young man. Although he was completely unable to withstand Walker in terms of strength, he had a lot of confidence behind him with a big blocker behind him. foot.

At the same time, Prince has an extremely long wingspan, and other Pistons players also paid great attention to assisting Brown in defense, and did not let the two team up to penetrate the Pistons' interior like in the previous game.

Leon knows that the tricks used in the last game have become old and he can no longer count on Walker to break out. Wallace returning to his familiar defensive position will cause trouble for every Celtics player who enters the Pistons' interior.

Leon was certainly prepared for this, and he decided to throw out that miraculous card again in the playoffs.