The Whip of the God of Basketball

On October 10, 2001, on the fourth day after the start of the training camp, the Celtics' first NBA preseason game of the 2001-2002 season will be played at the TD North Shore Garden. Their opponent is the Charlotte Hornets.

At five o'clock in the morning, Leon set off from home to the training hall. This is the training on the game day, so he has to arrive earlier to prepare for the evening game.

He arrives at practice at six, with Jim Young, who also has a lot of work to do as the team's video editor. The team's strength trainer, Usher Dick, has also started training in the weight room. As the strength training guide for the players, he must make good use of these equipment before the players arrive, and personally experience the training that will be arranged for the players today. content.

Leon and his colleagues greeted him and went to his small office, made himself a cup of coffee, and on the table were two materials that had been prepared yesterday—one was the Charlotte Hornets team data report for this year , one is the videotape of yesterday's training.

There are a total of 29 teams in the league, and each team needs to study carefully. Leon is mainly responsible for sorting out and collecting information on the Eastern teams, while the Western team is handed over to Vogel. The information on the Hornets in front of Leon is the first-hand material he collected in his spare time throughout the summer. Every word, every sentence and every data in it was typed out by Leon with a computer. While sipping coffee, he picked up the materials and flipped through them. At the same time, he stuffed the video tape into the VCR, started to watch the video tape edited by Jim Young, combined with the report in hand, and began to list today's training plan on the scratch paper.

The team's daily training plan is similar. After O'Brien formulated the team's direction for the next season, all Leon has to do is to add, delete, and repair the training plan according to different situations every day. Today he decided to start the defensive training in the morning. This is a brand new change in the 2002 season. In April of this year, the league announced that it will start to relax the zone defense restrictions next season, cancel the rules of illegal defense, and increase the defense by three seconds. From the current point of view, the impact of this rule change is only in theory, and the actual effect will not be known until the regular season officially starts.

During the summer at the University of Southern California, Leon and Winter discussed this issue in depth. They agreed that this rule change would have a major impact on the team's style of play, especially the restrictions on inside players and outside players. This is also one of the theoretical basis for Leon's draft and team training plan this year. O'Brien is on the contrary. He doesn't think that the release of the zone defense and the setting of the three-second defense will have a substantial impact, so his training is still conservative.

It took Leon ten minutes to write out the training outline on the draft. Three-tasking is a small case for him. After packing up the materials and turning off the video recorder, it's time to go to the cafeteria to have breakfast. Leon has always insisted on keeping pace with the athletes in terms of diet. He never eats and drinks casually just because he is just a coach. For breakfast, he always only eats salad, fruit and the steamed buns he brought. That's right, Leon likes to eat steamed buns, but the chef in the canteen doesn't know how to make them, so Leon makes all the steamed buns by himself, one every day.

When Leon was eating with steamed buns and salad dressing with relish, the team's assistant player development coach John Carroll sat across from Leon with a plate. As the coach of the main player's personal ability development, he also He must rush to the training hall early in the morning to watch the players' personal training videos in the video room. Recently, he has focused on the shot selection of Arenas, Joe Johnson and Michael Reid.

"A unique way of eating, I heard that this kind of Chinese 'steamed bun' is filled with something?" Carol watched Leon eating, trying to find a topic to chat with him.

Leon took another bite of the mantou dipped in the salad and said, "This is a mantou, there is nothing in it, only the buns have something."

Carroll and Pitino joined the Celtics in 1997. Before that, he had both coached in the NCAA and worked as a scout in the NBA for several years. He has rich experience in player personal development and is good at Train young players. Although he joined the Celtics at the same time as Pitino, he was not born in Kentucky like O'Brien and Vogel, so he is not a direct descendant of Pitino. In the Celtics' series of actions in the past two years, Carroll has been staying out, on the periphery of the storm circle, and he can be his player development coach with peace of mind. The team's draft, trade, and sovereignty changes basically have nothing to do with him.

He is like a steamed bun, without all kinds of fillings, and without special talents, but he is solid, full and nutritious.

Carol's breakfast was coffee and bread, and she couldn't accept Leon's strange way of eating. Leon and Carol were not very familiar with each other. They chatted for a while, packed up the tableware, and it was time for the coaching meeting. O'Brien was already waiting, and the venue for this meeting was in his office.

The coaching meeting just started went smoothly as usual. Everyone watched the video of yesterday’s training and discussed the progress and shortcomings of the two-day training. Brian nodded in satisfaction. But in today's training plan, conflicts emerged, and O'Brien expressed dissatisfaction with the content of Leon's arrangement for zone defense training.

"There is no need to engage in zone defense, just let the players get used to defending for three seconds. For something like zone defense, one or two training sessions are useless, and today, when three-pointers are becoming more and more popular, zone defense is a waste of time. "O'Brien didn't want players to practice zone defense, thinking it was a waste of time.

O'Brien's words are not completely unreasonable. Under the restriction of the three-second rule of defense, the power of zone defense is cut in half, and then the NBA's three-point line is farther than FIBA, making zone defense more difficult. Moreover, the zone defense needs long-term training to form a tacit understanding. A morning's practice can only give players a basic concept.

"If we don't start training, we will never be able to use it. The zone defense will always play its role." Leon made an excuse, but O'Brien didn't seem ready to listen to his opinion. He used a pen to train In the plan, the zone defense was crossed out and replaced with a full-court pressing defense practice.

At this time, John Carroll spoke. He rarely spoke in the coaching meeting. He said: "Maybe we should practice the zone defense. Antoine Walker and Pierce both mentioned it to me in training yesterday. It’s best to practice zone defense tomorrow to adapt to this new thing, and let them get familiar with zone defense on the offensive end.”

Carroll's words made O'Brien hesitate for a moment. After thinking about it, he thought that Carroll's words might have some truth, so he erased the area that had been painted over with an eraser, and then said to Leon: "Organize a zone defense in the morning." Let's train, Hart, you are also responsible, let the substitute players conduct zone defense, and the main force practice to break the zone defense, forty minutes, only forty minutes."

Leon was too lazy to argue with O'Brien at first, but he didn't expect Carroll to speak up for him, and even persuaded the head coach. Who knows if Walker and Pierce said they wanted to practice zone defense yesterday.

Today's training ended early at one o'clock in the afternoon, because there was a game in the evening, and the training intensity was not too high. Leon had an appointment with Khomeinis in the afternoon, so he left the training hall early and returned to Boston. The evening game was played at 7 o'clock. Boston fans came to the arena early with unusual enthusiasm to watch the first preseason game of the new season, and the Celtics did not disappoint the fans. : 91 swept the Charlotte Hornets. Paul Pierce and Antoine Walker were in excellent condition.

In the next consecutive games against the Mavericks, Cavaliers, and Bucks, the Celtics won. Throughout the preseason, the Celtics showed a momentum that was overwhelming, which gave fans great support. Hope also gave O'Brien doubled his confidence in the new season. The performances of several rookies are also quite good. Arenas, who is holding back his strength, Joe Johnson, who is mature in technology, and Michael Reed, who is more advanced, all perform at their best in their playing time. The big problem O'Brien has to face.

Soon, on October 30th, the regular season officially began. The Celtics' opening game was held in Cleveland. Facing the underdog Cavaliers who were obviously inferior to them, they followed the routine of last year. They were soon beaten to the ground. The Celtics got off to a good start with a 108-90 away game with an 18-point advantage. It is worth noting that Dennis Rodman was put on the observation list because of conflicts with the head coach and did not get a chance to play in the preseason or the first game of the regular season. With the idea of ​​​​abandoning Rodman.

During this period, Leon performed his duties conscientiously, and fulfilled all the requirements of O'Brien with all his strength. Unlike Pitino, there was no personal grudge between O'Brien and Leon, so I saw that Leon was responsible and excellent in his work. , He also put his energy on team building and game command.

The first game at home on October 31 will be very important. It is the opening game of this season in Boston. The meaning of winning this game is more important than the last one, and their opponent is the New Jersey Nets.