The Whip of the God of Basketball

Leon is like a high-speed computer, constantly evaluating the situation on the field.

The game has progressed to the middle of the second quarter, and the scores of the two sides remained deadlocked, 47:49, and the Chicago Bulls still led by two points. The Bulls with the twin towers played cautiously, walking fairly steadily step by step. The young Tyson Chandler and Eddie Curry looked young and mature, and they played very well inside. Chandler grabbed 6 offensive rebounds in 15 minutes of playing time, which made the Celtics Fans have to start to miss the days of having Dennis Rodman.

And Eddie Curry scored 11 points under the Celtics basket with his shotgun. Tony Batty couldn't contain Curry at all. . But Leon doesn't seem to be in a hurry at all. So far he has only called two timeouts, a long timeout to give the players a little breathing room to adjust, and a short timeout to adjust personnel.

"I bet, if I go back to 30 years old and play inside the Celtics tonight, I can get 20 points and 10 rebounds in halftime." Charles Barkley looked at the weak inside of the Celtics Defensive performance, can't help but boast. However, the 30-year-old Barkley was the year when he went to the Suns in 1993. Few people would question what he said. If anything, it would be Kenny Smith.

"The premise is that the Celtics have lost Dennis Rodman. After the lack of the best defensive player, the Celtics have not only lost rebounds, but also defensive passion and toughness. I don't know. What does their head coach think?" Undoubtedly, Rodman's retirement is a blow to the Celtics. The Celtics were able to reach the Eastern Conference finals last season, and the big bug made outstanding contributions.

"Three hundred and sixty-five days a year, I can handle Dennis Rodman every minute!" Of course, Barkley was not convinced, and countered Smith with Rodman's evaluation of Malone.

And when the two were bickering, Jaylen Rose missed a jumper at the top of the arc, and Eddie Curry grabbed an offensive rebound and tried to force a dunk, but was slapped down by Chris Anderson. The ball did not fly away, but was pushed to the floor by two big hands at once. With Curry's 300 pounds of fat on his body, it was too late to bend over, and Anderson quickly grabbed the ball with his eyesight.

"Give me the ball!" Anderson heard Arenas shout, and he passed the ball towards Arenas without the slightest hesitation.

After Arenas received the ball, he started to run again. This time, Antoine Walker rushed in front. Arenas followed the principle taught by Leon, and did not easily pass the ball in a wide range, but rushed all the way with the ball. At the basket, Walker had moved to the bottom corner at this time, and Arenas scored the ball.

Walker still stood one step inside the three-point line when he received the ball, dribbled the ball one step back after receiving the ball, and made a zero-degree shot outside the three-point line in the bottom corner!

Leon's heart tightened. In his calculations, the bottom corner was not Walker's good shot point, but looking at the arc and strength of the ball, he knew that the ball was likely to go into the basket.

"Shua!" Walker hit a three-pointer! This is the first three-pointer made by Walker in this game, and it is also his first attempt at a three-pointer.

After the goal, Walker drooped his eyebrows and pouted his mouth and began to dance, like a cannibal in an African tribe, looking extremely funny. The fans of North Shore Garden also jumped and cheered excitedly on the sidelines, which has been a repertoire of North Shore Garden in recent years.

"I believe there will be many fans every night. The purpose of buying tickets to enter the North Shore Garden is to watch Walker dance." Barkley was also grinned by Walker's iconic ugly dance, and Walker's nickname of "comedy" is not a waste In vain.

"We should note that this is the first time Walker has tried a three-point shot in this game, and in the first two seasons, his three-point shots per game have reached an insane 8 times...Charles, you are in the Rockets and Suns At that time, he was already the king of three-point shots, but your average shots per game are not half of Walker's. But today we will see that Walker seems to have restrained his desire to shoot three-pointers, and his efficiency so far Very high." Kenny Smith can still make a calm analysis when necessary, as long as Barkley on the side does not make trouble.

Walker has scored the Celtics' highest 11 points so far, and is the only player to score in double figures, and his shooting percentage is 5 of 6 shots, including this three-pointer, which is surprisingly efficient.

"Come on, boys, put more energy into your defense!" Leon did not forget to remind the players to strengthen their defense, and let Walker return to normal by the way. Although Walker was efficient on the offensive end, his performance on the defensive end was really bad, and he couldn't stand Chandler at all, allowing Chandler to grab six offensive rebounds.

Fortunately, after replacing Chris Anderson, the Celtics' interior defense situation improved a bit. Anderson looks thin, but he has an extraordinary talent in blocking shots. He has sent two blocks in six minutes of playing. It's just that compared with his master Rodman, his talent for protecting backboards is still far behind.

As soon as Leon's voice fell, the Bulls found an open shot at 45 degrees from the outside through careful conduction. Donnie Marshall made a three-pointer, but the ball missed, and Paul Pierce struggled to grab the rebound. But this time Pierce did not pass the ball to Arenas, but he dribbled the ball all the way to the Bulls penalty area. With a speed that was not considered very fast, he sent the ball crookedly into the basket and fell to the ground, causing the Bulls to Defensive foul!

The decibels at North Shore Garden reached their first peak of the game, and Pierce sat on the ground waiting for his teammates to pull him up while enjoying the cheers of the fans.

Leon calmly took out a note from his pocket, on which a table was drawn, divided into two lines, with 20 grids in each line. Leon put a tick in one of the boxes, and then put a cross in the next row in the same column.

There are several similar tables in Leon's pocket. This is a simple table for judging the offensive and defensive situation on the field. The upper and lower rows represent the offensive rounds of the two teams. The attack failed. Through such a table, Leon can roughly predict the game status and trend of the two sides.

In the table of the first quarter, the distribution of hooks and crosses of the Bulls was relatively even, and there were very few offenses that missed more than two consecutive attacks; and in the second half of the second quarter, crosses began to appear consecutively, although Chandler's offensive rebounds The bull's attack was rescued, but Leon could sense that the bull was a little tired.

Yes, when a team that puts the twin towers on the field is constantly running after the opponent, tiredness is inevitable. Although it is very inconspicuous, it cannot escape Leon's eyes. The reason why Pierce was able to return the foul just now is that the Bulls’ defense has already started to play tricks, because the Celtics’ second fast break is too fast, and the second reason is that they can’t keep up with the fast pace of the Celtics. .

The rhythm of the Celtics in the first quarter and the first half of the second quarter was controlled by Arenas, who was the key to the team's acceleration. Now, it's the turn of a star like Pierce to take over the game.

With Pierce making a free throw, 53:49, the Celtics overtook by 4 points, Leon sat back on the bench again, put away his form card, and continued to observe the situation on the field. It will be very important for the Celtics.

Before the game, Leon had carefully studied the Bulls team. Among their new head coaches was Bill Cartwright, the main center for the first three consecutive championships in the Jordan era, a very good inside player. The Bulls invited him in the hope that Cartwright could train the team's two potential young insiders. Cartwright also complied with the management's request and arranged the starting lineup for the Twin Towers.

Based on preseason observations, Leon concluded that the Bulls will definitely play at a slower pace, and the Celtics will definitely suffer a bit in the paint. But the Bulls will encounter two big problems. One is the problem of retreating when facing the Celtics' assault style of play. Curry's 300-pound weight is a sharp weapon in offense, but it is a burden when returning to defense.

There is also the physical problem of the Bulls players. There is no team with poor physical fitness in the NBA, but it does not mean that all teams can run as fast. Offensive positional warfare consumes a lot of energy while fast break consumes less, and defensive positional warfare consumes less energy while defending fast attack consumes more. In this way, both offensive and defensive Celtics are the one with the least energy consumption, but the Bulls often follow behind to eat ashes.

It wasn't obvious at the beginning of the game. The Bulls played well, and once gave people the illusion that they would play steadily after dropping 10, but they couldn't stand the Celtics' quick attack regardless of their shooting percentage. Their legs and feet began to slow down. It's even starting to affect their offense.

With less than two minutes to go before the end of the second quarter, the Bulls called a timeout. Cartwright wanted to give the team a little respite. He replaced Curry with Marcus Fizer, hoping the physically strong The power forward can keep up with the Celtics' quick pace.

On the other side, Leon also made an adjustment. He took Arenas and replaced Steve Kerr. Obviously, while pursuing speed, he hoped that the team's offense would be more aggressive in the last two minutes. safe. Cole is undoubtedly more proficient in cooperating with Pierce. Sure enough, when the timeout came back, the Bulls missed another shot. The Celtics' defensive strength was insufficient but more than tenacious, which caused the Bulls' shooting percentage to plummet even as their physical fitness declined.

"Antoine got the rebound, passed it to Cole, Cole made another quick push, and the Celtics' offensive speed was amazing...Pierce slipped the baseline, received the pass from Cole, and the mid-range shot...Bang! Hit!" Smith also had to lament the astonishing speed of the Celtics' second fast break. They did not pursue the "Easy-ball" to throw off all the defenders, but when the opponent had not yet organized a defensive formation, Complete their offensive coordination.

"Their passing chemistry is astonishingly good. It looks like they have been working together for ten years." Barkley, who made jokes for half the game, finally said something that hit the nail on the head. The Celtics' pass coordination is really good. But the Bulls didn't seem to find a way to deal with this kind of cooperation. As the saying goes, there are only exhausted cattle and no plowed land, so the Bulls will not have a good next game.