The Whip of the God of Basketball

Carlisle was rarely late for the team's pre-match training the next morning, and was sent back to the hotel by Leon after a drunken mess last night. As a former professional player, Carlisle is 6 feet 5 tall, half a head taller than Leon, which made Leon take a lot of effort to get him back, and the Pistons players and staff have not yet been alarmed.

The game will start at 7:00 pm. When the players were warming up before the game, Carlisle's face was still obviously tired, and he was suffering from a drunken headache. He secretly regretted in his heart why he drank so much alcohol. Knowing that there is still a game to play against the Celtics the next day. Although it's just a regular season, the Detroit Pistons are currently ranked seventh in the Eastern Conference, and may fall outside the top eight at any time. The Celtics are competitors in the Eastern Conference. The result of this game is still quite critical. Carlisle even had some doubts, whether Angie deliberately got him drunk, so that the Pistons had no masters, so that they could cope with the game more easily.

Thinking back to when he was in Celtic, Auerbach used all means to win. Carlisle felt that the behavior of accepting the invitation yesterday was a bit reckless. He should resist the temptation to stay in the hotel for one night. Even if you want to drink, you have to wait until the game is over.

"Rick must feel cheated, but whoever made him drink was so... so stupid, and now he must be wondering if we are ganging up on him and making him unable to command today." In the Celtics On the bench, coach Carroll said to Hart. Neither of them drank much last night, and they only saw Carlisle drinking himself glass after glass because Angie kept toasting him. They have all worked with Carlisle for a long time, and they know that Carlisle is not good at drinking, but he is really a straight person, and he can't stop drinking. Although the United States does not have a culture of persuading alcohol, it is not enough to refuse other people's toasts!

"I think Rick is really not in good spirits today. I guess he won't drink with us next time he comes to Boston." Hart sat on the bench and sorted out the player data sheets. Hart likes to read the data sheets before the game. Set expected data for this game, especially in suppressing the opponent's scoring and shooting percentage. If the scoring is lower than 100 or the shooting percentage is low, he will be very happy. On the contrary, the Celtics players will know that, Mr. Hart is going to be angry today.

"Where is Leon? I have a question to ask him." Hart looked at the data sheet and asked Carroll. He had some questions about the team's defensive statistics. This kind of data-related question asked Leon is the best because he can give you the answer just by looking at it.

Carroll pointed to the court and said: "Still discussing tactical details with the players."

After having a drink last night, Carlisle's words seemed to have given Leon a lot of inspiration. This is the case with many things. Compared with knowledge and experience, experience is often decisive. One or two sentences from experienced people can unravel many confusions and mysteries. Although it is only a small turn in thinking, the changes brought about are often unexpectedly large.

"Is he still instilling his inside offense and screen theory to those kids? Do you think this kid's philosophy will be effective?" Hart continued to ask, as an old-school basketball coach, he was a little bit "toothful" to Leon. Hart still has reservations about the tactical concept of deviant.

"I don't know, but his tactical training plan convinced me, and I don't know why O'Brien didn't adopt his idea at the time. Although it was a bit wild, it was well-founded and very organized. The content of our recent training is nothing more than It's just part of his plan." It seems that as the team's head coach, Carroll still has a more overall vision. This is also the reason for delegating power and handing over tactical construction and training to Leon. He knows that one day the position under his butt will belong to this guy.

From the beginning of training in the morning, Leon began to modify the tactical formation based on some opinions put forward by Carlisle. The key point is to adjust the active position of the inside support players from the low position of the bottom line to the free throw end line, and adjust the low position of the ribs to the free throw circle. Such adjustments may seem small, but the impact on the formation is huge. First of all, the cut-in line of the three-point line player in the bottom corner is changed from passing in front of the screen player to passing behind the screen player. This change makes it more difficult for the cut-in player to directly receive the pass from the outside player and go to the basket. Because There is a screener between the receiver and the passer. The second change is that the outside ball holder directly breaks through the middle to attack the inside line and is blocked by the screener. It is not so flat. If the ball holder wants to go directly to the basket, he needs to bypass the attack from the side.

Judging from these two points, the introduction of inside screeners seems to have hindered the team's rapid offense. For the fast-paced, tall and strong NBA game rhythm, a one-second delay and congestion of more than ten centimeters of space will be of great concern. lead to the failure of an attack. Therefore, although there are also tactical routines about the inside screeners in the second fast break, they are all follow-up changes, and basically let the screeners stand in a higher position without making a move.

However, Carlisle's drunken remarks reminded Leon last night. He mentioned the two concepts of "pull" and "squeeze", which gave Leon a new understanding of the ideal tactical routine in his mind. Generally speaking, the core purpose of basketball tactics is to create shooting space for players, and the main means of creating space are divided into two types. , to win zero defensive offensive opportunities for players, such as Princeton tactics and UCLA tactics belong to this type of system. A major feature of this type of system in the starting hand is to launch an offense through 1-4 positions, and 1-4 positions are a very flat offensive formation, in order to flatten the opponent's defensive formation , To make room for the court and create opportunities for players to move and cut.

The other type belongs to the "squeeze type". The representatives of the squeeze type are inside-out and triangle offense. Players in this type of offensive formation are often well-organized and each plays their own roles. Personal offensive power attracts double-teams, or forms a favorable offensive situation in a small area through covering, running, and passing the ball. This tactical formation is not particularly pursuing the offensive opportunity of zero defense, but through extrusion and deformation, looking for defensive gaps to forcibly and quickly launch an attack. Anyway, a goal scored by someone defending and a goal scored by no one are the same. .

For the Celtics, lacking pass masters, it is almost difficult to find tactical opportunities through formation pulling, because if they find it, the ball cannot be passed; if this is the case, why bother to pursue air cuts in the second fast break Baskets and open threes? The second fast break is played as a positional attack, but the attack must be completed as quickly as possible. The significance of bringing the screener up in this way is to add a transfer station for the upper line and the bottom line.

If the upper line decides to attack directly, then the screener can quickly provide cover. If it decides to pass once and create opportunities for the bottom line, then this transfer station, as the common point of the two triangles, can undertake the task of distributing the ball. If the transition point is going to attack directly by itself, then near the free throw line will be the best attack initiation point.

For this reason, since the training in the morning, Leon has been pulling Antoine Walker, Anderson, Tony Batty and Dalembert endlessly. In his heart, every inside player on the team should have such awareness. Perhaps the team may not necessarily follow this routine every time they attack, but Leon is obviously instilling the concept of "coming out of the three-second zone and the bottom line" to the team's young big men.

The game started on time at 7:00 p.m., and the Celtics still sent out the starting lineup of Batty, Walker, Pierce, Reid and Arenas. This lineup has strong shooting ability, average defense, and poor passing. Facing the lineup of the Pistons Ben Wallace, Cliff Robinson, Jerry Stackhouse, Atkins and Michael Curry, this set is obviously insufficient in personal attack power. Kehouse is a strong point of attack, and he puts defensive players on both the center and shooting guard.

The game started in favor of the Celtics, as the Pistons got into foul trouble early, and it looked like they were not prepared enough to come to North Shore Gardens, after all, their coach was drunk.

Leon's tactics used in training began to take shape in the game. With the whole situation going smoothly, Arenas and Walker began to increase the tempo crazily. Their offenses were basically completed within three passes. This made the Pistons extremely uncomfortable. The biggest advantage of Tony Batty's screen is not that Leon thinks that the team's fast offense is more organized, but that it gives Arenas and Walker countless times to pass beyond the three-point line, and then An opportunity to catch the ball straight up and throw it.

Fortunately, their hands felt hot tonight. It seems that all the shots missed in the last game against the Spurs were made up in this game. The two threw 14 three-pointers from the outside and made 8 of them. It's a tactical windfall. Let the screener pass the ball, and then give a screen. The outside players pick it up and throw it. It's simple and rude, but once it feels good, the effect will be great.

As a rookie, Arenas's performance outside the three-point line is still quite unstable, and he often has 0-for-0 performance. But the Celtics, with Walker's leadership and the permission of the coaching staff, are quite tolerant of players throwing three-pointers, so once the feeling comes, Arenas will indeed perform amazingly.

The game was shattered in this way, and Rick Carlisle's on-the-spot command felt always slow, and he was tortured by headaches. In the end, his mind no longer thought about how to command the team to reverse, but hoped The game is over soon so we can go back and rest.

Carlyle swore he would never drink in Boston again.