The Whip of the God of Basketball

Defeating LeBron James and the Cavaliers was just an episode in the Celtics' regular season. After ending the indomitable passion at the beginning of the season, a team needs a reasonable and efficient tactical system and stable rotation. To support the team to win in the deeper regular season. Starting from mid-November, the Celtics began to enter a continuous home and away game schedule. They played 12 consecutive games, all at home and then away. This not only challenged the physical strength and endurance of the Celtic players Energy is also challenging Leon's time.

Due to the obstruction of lawyers, the trial on the case of Leon punching Frank was delayed again and again. Leon also began to visit the police station and the prosecutor's office more and more frequently to accept investigations. Throughout the second half of November, Leon was not allowed to Don’t choose to only attend home games and forego traveling to away games. This had a certain impact on the Celtics' record. On the 21st, they lost to the Philadelphia 76ers in an away game. Allen Iverson gave the Celtics a 45-point scoring performance. Second loss of the season.

After that, the Celtics maintained the rhythm of winning three or four games and losing one, and finished November with some stumbling. After beating the Denver Nuggets on December 7, the Celtics won 15 games in the first 20 games. A record of 5 losses, a good record, but it seems to be a little bit far away from people's expectations. After all, in the eyes of many people, this Celtics team should surpass the 1986 championship team. But they still lost some games that they shouldn't have lost. The points difference in the few games they lost were all within 5 points. It seemed that they still lacked some sure offense and dribbling at critical moments, even though they had Paul. - Pierce.

It is worth mentioning that, except for the game lost to the Chicago Bulls, Fox-Leon was not present in the other four lost games. It seems that Carlisle has not been able to grasp this team well, which also caused him to suffer. It received a lot of criticism from local Boston media, and some mean reporters even used Leon's previous comment that "a dog on a leash" can win to ridicule Rick Carlisle.

However, after entering December, the Celtics began to play more home games, and Leon returned to the court and was able to participate in consecutive games with the team, and summarize and make up for the game situation in training. The team's record began to pick up quickly. They had a five-game winning streak in early December, beating their opponents by more than 15 points in almost every game.

Michael Reed was at his best during this period. In the game against the Seattle SuperSonics, he scored a career-high 39 points against Ray Allen and made 6 of 7 three-pointers. Set his own records for three-point field goals made and field goal percentage. The Celtics even beat the SuperSonics 119:101 at home.

On December 14, Leon's days of being unable to play consecutive games with the team were finally coming to an end. His case officially opened at 10 a.m. in the Boston District Court. Khomeinis, Pagliuca and Danny Ainge and other Celtic management personnel attended the trial. After two hours of trial, court debate and jury deliberations, Leon was sentenced Declaring excessive defense, the judge sentenced Fox-Leon to one month in prison with a suspended sentence. The probation Leon was sentenced to is supervised probation. During the probation period, he not only needs to abide by the laws and regulations, but also needs to report regularly to his probation officer to state his recent situation.

This is much better than having to report every time you leave Boston during your bail period. The period of regular reporting is about a week. Leon only needs to spare a few hours a day every week to see his probation officer, and the rest is enough. He can go out to play with the team normally at all times. As long as there is no illegal record within two months, the one-month jail sentence can be waived, and everything will return to normal by then.

This was the ending that everyone wanted to see. After the judge pronounced the verdict, Khomeinis rushed up and gave Leon a suffocating hug. Because of this unexpected incident, she had lost a lot of weight in the past two months. Angie and Pagliuca also stepped forward to congratulate Leon for getting out of this incident, and media reporters also rushed up to interview Leon.

However, the criminal part of this case is over, but the civil part has just begun. Leon knows that this is the real battlefield of this lawsuit. If he loses the lawsuit, he will not be harmed personally, but he will face huge compensation. This compensation may not require him to pay all of it. The Celtics, insurance companies and Pagliuca will be responsible for a large part, but he is not willing to see Frank get a large amount of money so easily.

Therefore, on December 15, one day after the criminal verdict in the case of Fox-Leon injuring Frank, at 10:30 in the morning, the civil lawsuit in this case was heard in the Massachusetts State Court. Unlike the criminal case, the jury in the civil case was temporarily appointed by the court and tried to find citizens who had nothing to do with basketball to participate to ensure that Leon's identity as a coach would not affect the verdict.

Leon also saw Frank at the court hearing. His face still had bruises from being beaten, and he was wearing a corrector on his nose. His nose bone had been broken by Leon. This arrogant gang boss looks like a postman who fell half to death while riding his bicycle.

The trial did not go smoothly as expected. Less than half an hour into the court debate, two jurors were pointed out by the plaintiff's lawyer that they had participated in sports activities and might sympathize with Celtic head coach Leon. The Celtics were able to achieve good results and were assigned replacements by the judge. Such a substitution could be detrimental to Leon because, psychologically speaking, the replacement juror would try to be as unbiased as possible to Leon's side in order to avoid the problems that had arisen with the previous juror, and might even go overboard.

Different from the presumption of innocence in criminal proceedings, civil proceedings are based on liability. As a matter of fact, Leon attacked Frank, and compensation is inevitable. However, in civil lawsuits, the jury can decide both whether it is illegal and the amount of compensation. In the lawsuit, the plaintiff's lawyer tried his best to show the damage caused by Leon's punch to Frank, and pointed out that he was suddenly attacked without any preparation. For this reason, Frank lowered the previous compensation of tens of millions of dollars to $5 million. But this is a high enough number.

Leon's side pointed out the various crimes Frank had committed in the past to prove that Leon's motivation for the punch was not intentional injury, but self-defense and revenge.

In short, both sides are trying their best to win over the jury's emotional tilt, which is crucial to the final verdict.

The trial lasted for more than two hours, during which nearly half an hour was spent by the jury discussing whether Leon had violated the law and how much compensation should be paid, but they could never reach a unified opinion. The jury is not simply a minority obeying the majority, but must be an absolute majority. In Massachusetts, the verdict requirement is 10 to 2. 10 of the 12 jurors must agree before a verdict can be reached.

Due to fruitless discussions, the judge postponed the retrial and the next court appearance is expected to be in January next year.

After leaving the court, Leon looked in a hurry. He refused interviews with all reporters and left the State Court in a car with Khomeinis.

"You need to have a good rest. It's been hard on you these two consecutive days in court." Khomeinis said to Leon in the car. This strong woman who is already well-known in Los Angeles is as docile as a cat in front of Leon.

"No, I have already booked a flight and will leave at two o'clock in the afternoon." Leon refused because he wanted to go to the game with the Celtics. The Celtics left Boston yesterday to begin their road trip, so Carlisle was unable to attend Leon's court hearing.

"You don't have to do this..."

"The team needs me."

"I need you too……"

Leon looked at Khomeinis with a pleading look in his eyes. After thinking about it, he took out two tickets from his pocket and said, "So I bought one for you. Come with me. It happens to be the last stop." It’s Los Angeles…”

So, the two took a plane together to Minnesota, the first stop of the Celtics' road trip.