The Whip of the God of Basketball

Defense cannot be developed overnight. Leon spent three years with the Boston Celtics carefully training him, and he continued to learn before he built the Boston Iron Wall.

The Suns' defensive foundation is not as bad as people think. Although it is far from the top level of the league and cannot reach the level of a championship team, their defense is not without merit.

With the two defensive heroes Marion and Bell, as well as the team's good defensive enthusiasm and unity and cooperation ability, the Suns have maintained a good defensive intensity, but when it comes to the playoffs, they have almost no way to defend. Causing trouble for strong teams, especially the Spurs.

Leon is not prepared to comprehensively transform the Suns' defense. Unless Nash and Stoudemire are sold for reconstruction, it will only be half the effort and no results will be achieved.

But as one of the coaches with the richest defensive experience in the league, Leon has a lot of defensive tips and strategies in his mind to help the team solve the dilemma on the court. At the very least, James will not be allowed to hit Nash in such a misplaced position.

He decided to use a weak strategy to force James or Damon Jones to take a breakthrough route that they are not good at, and then allow other players to come over in time to delay and prevent too many one-on-one mismatches.

The focus of this strategy is not to make the opponent use his non-dominant hand, which is a common method in defense, but to anticipate it. Leon pulled Nash and said to him: "Follow Damon from the beginning of the midfield. Guard, force him to go left, and then don't switch guard. Of course, don't think too much, follow your experience and instinct, don't think too much."

Leon kept reminding Nash not to think too much, because thinking too much about "letting the opponent use his non-dominant hand" will slow down the player's defensive response, so Leon has to set an advance amount to allow Nash to get on the line early to defend. The advantage is that you don't have to go to the top of the arc to start thinking about your position. The disadvantage is that this is a test for Nash's defensive steps.

Then Leon also made a substitution adjustment. He replaced Jascovicius and Laga Bell, using a double point guard combination to enhance the team's offensive flexibility.

This substitution was very risky, because the Suns were already at a disadvantage inside. Gooden and Big Z were expected to grab the rebounds, but Leon decided to replace defense with offense and use firepower to drown out the Cavaliers' advantage.

As for LeBron James, Leon's strategy is as always, let him take a step and let him shoot.

The timeout ended, the score on the court was 30:26, and the Suns still had a 4-point advantage. The two sides returned to the court. Charles Barkley and Kenny Smith were still chattering on the TV. When they saw Leon Everyone was quite surprised when Jaskovicius was replaced.

"The Suns replaced their backup center, Jaskovicius from Europe, to protect their backcourt rebounds. I think this will definitely have an effect."

Barkley joked without scruple that in the Eastern Conference, Jaskevicius' lack of confrontational body caused him to suffer a lot, and in the Warriors, he also did not get the opportunity to perform as he should.

After coming to the Suns, Jaskevicius's performance was unexpectedly good, but he still did not meet people's expectations. After all, there is Manu Ginobili in the league.

The game continued. After Jaskevicius came on the court, Nash handed him the ball. In this way, there were three points on the Suns that could control the ball. Nash, Jaskevicius, and Bowen Reese Diaw, opponents can no longer rely on Nash to block the Suns' offense.

Jaskevicius controlled the ball, and Nash began to play without the ball. This was a rare opportunity in his 11-year career, and it was also a challenge, but with Nash's basketball IQ, this was not difficult.

The Suns took a position to clear the baseline. Jaskevicius and Stoudemire engaged in a pick-and-roll. Nash slipped from the bottom line to the left corner and took away the defense. Jaskevicius held the ball and walked to the middle. His breakthrough was not too big. The big threat failed to tear apart the Cavaliers' defense.

But Stoudemire moved down to the low post on the left, and Diaw moved to the high post. Jaskevicius passed the ball back to Diaw in the high post. Diaw tried to lob the ball to Stoudemire in the low post but failed, and instead passed the ball to the left corner. Nash, Nash directly lobbed the ball to Stoudemire. Stoudemire took the ball low and drove Gooden away, turned inside and hit a right-hand throw.

This is a low-post singles tactic that was very rare in the Suns in the past. The starting line and the passing line are very Spurs-style. Kenny Smith couldn't help but exclaim: "Is this still the Phoenix Suns? This is still Nash and Stade. Meyer?"

This is not a brilliant tactical routine. All professional players who have played all the way from childhood to college to various teams are familiar with this simple tactical coordination and can do it instinctively. It just depends on the coach. requirements.

On the offensive end, Leon requires everyone to let go and make the offensive tactics richer and crazier. They have such good offensive talents and talents, there is no reason to suppress them.

Back on the defensive end, Nash followed Leon's instructions. Damon Jones stepped forward to press just after halftime. When he felt that James was coming to cover from behind, he decisively turned sideways. If James wanted to cover, he had two options. One A frontal block allows Jones to go to the left; a side block still allows Jones to bypass Nash and go to the right, but the side block carries the risk of moving the screen.

James chose to block from the front, and Jones came down the left. Marion blocked Jones for a while, allowing Nash to squeeze through and buy time to catch up. Then he immediately returned to guard James. This time, James was not misplaced to hit Nash. .

Compared with tactics, tacit understanding of details on the defensive end and concentration are more important.

As soon as Jones went to the left, he passed it back to James. James still faced Marion's defensive step, and this cooperation was in vain.

However, there is still a chance inside the Cavaliers. Gooden got stuck in the three-second zone in the middle. There was about a second of passing space. James seized it and passed a through ball to Gooden. Gooden received the ball and turned around to lick the basket. But under Stoudemire's interference, he missed.

Stoudemire protected the backcourt rebound. He did a good job in defense this time. Leon applauded vigorously on the sidelines as encouragement and shouted "Run", allowing the team to launch a quick counterattack.

The Cavaliers returned to defense very quickly and did not give the Suns a chance for a fast break. This time the Suns had Nash holding the ball. He dribbled the ball out of the opponent's three-second zone and found that the person guarding him turned out to be James. Because of the quick retreat, the Cavaliers' defensive formation was in chaos. James came back the fastest and followed Nash out.

Nash waved to the other teammates, telling them to clear the air and go away. He wanted to single out James on the open field near 45 degrees on the left!

Whether it is strength, speed, height or explosive power, Nash has no advantage against James. He only has advantages in experience and skills, and of course, his outstanding will.

Nash adjusted the rhythm while dribbling, and the entire American Airlines Center fans stood up. James lowered his center and concentrated on it. Defense relies on instinct and will. Instinct does not come from talent, but from muscle memory and will formed by daily hard training. Derived from lessons learned from experience.

James has good instincts, but his willpower is still not enough. Nash chose to break through with his dominant hand. He was not fast but had a good rhythm. James followed closely, and Nash burst into the middle in an arc and was about to step into In the three-second zone, he suddenly stopped suddenly, and then his whole body fell backwards!

This emergency stop was quite sudden, with almost no warning. James stopped based on instinct and reached out to Nash to interfere, but it was already too late.

Nash shot a rather exaggerated fadeaway jumper. The ball drew a high arc in the air, and then fell steadily into the basket, making a two-pointer!

The American Airlines Center was filled with jubilation. Phoenix fans discovered that the new style of play brought by Fox-Leon can also be exciting. As long as you can score goals and win, why do you care so much? At 34:26, the Suns once again opened the point difference to 8 points and regained control of the game. Leon returned to the bench.

It seems that Nash's condition is better than he imagined. If so, Nash may really be able to make a big difference in the scoring field this season.