The Whip of the God of Basketball

This was the first time Boris Diaw had played with the score so close midway through the third quarter, but he didn't look nervous at all. Unlike those rookies who have been playing in the NCAA and have just come into contact with professional basketball, Diaw has played in the professional league in France for three years before entering the NBA. He is also 21 years old this year, not one of those young guys who haven't even reached the age of 20. Although European professional leagues cannot be compared with the NBA, it is a professional league after all, and receiving a salary is a real job, unlike college students who participate in clubs.

So he has a better mentality, which is better than another rookie Daniels. When Dennis came on the court in garbage time for the first time, he couldn't even tell which side his own basket was.

Moreover, Leon also discovered that this boy was born with good psychological quality and always looked indifferent. Whether it was training or competition, he never showed nervousness or uneasiness and did whatever he was asked to do. Of course, he doesn't train particularly hard. He also has a rich spare time life in Boston, where life is relatively boring. Recently, he has become obsessed with sailing. It's just because of team regulations that he doesn't go sailing on the sea on rest days. But he has decided to use his salary for the new season to buy himself a boat he likes.

Wang Zhizhi seems to be more calm. After training last season, Wang Zhizhi has adapted to his role very well, and has also perfectly completed the integration of the national team role and the club role. In the national team, he is the absolute main force. He is an absolute substitute for the club, a pillar for the national team, and a surprise player for the club. It is not easy to be able to integrate like this. Leon spends a lot of time taking care of Wang Zhizhi's daily life. A comfortable mood is conducive to normal performance in the team.

These two foreign players have some technical similarities, and some of them are advantages, such as their team-playing style, they have a keen view of the overall situation, their passing is pretty good, and their playing style is also outside. There are also some shortcomings, such as poor defense, lack of confrontation experience, and average physical fitness.

After the game restarts, the two will face Jermaine O'Neal and Al Harrington respectively. No matter how you look at them, they will be torn into pieces by O'Neal and Harrington. The first attack after the timeout seemed to confirm this. The experienced Anthony Johnson directly let the team open up and handed the ball to O'Neal in the low post to beat Wang Zhizhi.

O'Neal Jr. firmly stuck in position, using his strength and jumping advantages to directly turn over and shoot a jumper while carrying Wang Zhizhi. He didn't even lean back because he felt it was not needed. Because the shot was too close, Wang Zhizhi couldn't guard it. O'Neal Jr. hit a two-pointer and the Pacers equalized the score.

"Is Wang okay? I think it's a little difficult for him to fight against O'Neal..." Carlisle asked with some worry. Although this guy is an assistant coach, he cares about the head coach and always has a lot of questions to ask Leon.

Leon was too lazy to pay attention to him and replied, "Ask Cowens."

"It shouldn't be easy to handle, but it's not that simple for O'Neal to get everything he wants from him," Cowens said. Cowens has never relaxed his training on defense and strength for Wang Zhizhi. Although he knows that Wang Zhizhi cannot become an interior defensive player or a rebounding machine, he does not want him to be just a big man who can shoot three-pointers.

After Wang Zhizhi returned to China in the summer, Cowens still called Wang Zhizhi every week to urge him to carry out strength training, especially the strength of the lower plate. No matter how physically gifted a player is, he will improve after a long period of unremitting practice. Cowens' supervision is effective. Now Wang Zhizhi at least has no problem one-on-one against those black players.

Looking back, Wang Zhizhi began to play an important role in the offense. This is something Dalembert and Chris Anderson could not do, that is, he became an important point in the break-zone offense.

Starting from the last game, Leon decided to officially conduct actual combat drills on the folding area attack during the game. Due to the impact of the summer accident, the team's offensive training was delayed to a certain extent, and the defensive training was even delayed. They had to Explore these tactics in actual combat. In the last game against the Kings, the sudden attack in the fold at the last moment had a very good effect. On the one hand, the attack was unprepared, and on the other hand, the Kings were unable to defend well.

But now the Pacers' lineup clearly wants to strangle the Celtics on the defensive end and establish an advantage in the third quarter. Leon decided to take the risk and decided to give it a try and sent Diaw and Wang Zhizhi onto the court.

The reason why Leon favors the folding zone attack is that on the one hand, he is influenced by Carlisle, who has recently done a lot of research on this tactical concept from Europe; on the other hand, this positional offensive tactic matches well with his own secondary quick attack tactic. , in the past, once the Celtics' second quick attack was blocked, the positional battle would be lackluster. If the team can skillfully use the break zone offense, the team that is blocked on the fast break can quickly switch to position mode.

Generally speaking, there are three general directions for cooperation in the folding zone attack. The first one is to use the low-post screening and high-post support capabilities of positions 4 and 5 to ensure that a certain backcourt player can find offensive opportunities while running and let the point guard When the ball player passes the ball to his hands, there are generally four passing options; the second is to use horizontal baseline interspersed runs and vertical upper line cover runs to stretch the opponent's space and make full use of space gaps and defense. Change positions to look for offensive opportunities, especially mismatched opportunities; the third is to use the simplest baseline screen to run away the defense, and create space with three people outside the three-point line, creating a pair for an attacker One offensive opportunity.

The general direction of these three tactics, the first is the most difficult, the second has the most changes, and the third is the simplest, roughest and most effective at critical moments. Now Leon hopes that players will run in the first way on the court. . One of the characteristics of the fold zone offense is that one of the players in position 4 and position 5 must be outside the three-point line, or both players must be outside the three-point line, and they must be on different offensive sides. This requires that the four players must be on different offensive sides. The player at the fifth position has sufficient shooting ability and good passing ability in the offense.

Wang Zhizhi and Diaw undoubtedly meet this condition, and Wang Zhizhi also has a three-point shot that the opponent cannot ignore. This is also a possible change in tactical coordination. After all, no offensive tactics are static.

Sure enough, the Celtics began to play a different offense than before, and it quickly produced results.

Wang Zhizhi and Arenas stood outside the three-point line together, Diaw was in the low post on the right, Pierce and Reed stood on the two bottom sides respectively, Pierce on the left and Reed on the right; Arenas threw the ball directly to Wang Zhizhi, Xiao O'Neal had to step forward to defend. O'Brien warned him to be careful of Wang Zhizhi's three-pointer; Arenas did not sneak into the penalty area as usual, but went down to the low post to set a single screen for Diaw. Diaw brought it up and came. Reaching the right corner; facing Harrington's follow-up defense, Diaw carefully maintained his position and steadily received Wang Zhizhi's pass.

At this time, Wang Zhizhi started to go down and provided a screen for Arenas who came back from the baseline. In this way, Arenas circled back to the three-point line and came to the position where Wang Zhizhi was standing. Diaw passed the ball back to Ali. Nas. At this time Arenas had the opportunity to fire directly, and in fact his opportunity did come out. The Pacers were unprepared for such tactics, and Anthony Johnson did not follow closely.

But the Celtics continued to use tactics. At this time, Pierce, Wang Zhizhi and Reed stood in a line on the bottom line. Pierce used Wang Zhizhi's cover to sneak into the penalty area, while Reed stepped on the bottom line and used Pierce and Wang Zhizhi to go around to the left bottom line. Corner, the Pacers' bottom line was in chaos for a while, and three Celtic players had offensive opportunities. Arenas chose Reed because Jackson was about to be squeezed out of the bottom line by Wang Zhizhi.

Reed received Arenas' pass, and Jackson pounced on him, but Reed's shot was too fast. In an instant, the ball was thrown from his fingertips, and in a not-so-pretty arc, the ball still hit the basket. basket!

"Perfect coordination!" After scoring the goal, Leon couldn't help but stand up and applaud. In such a confrontation, it was really perfect to be able to complete this coordination and score the ball.