Lenny Wilkens isn't the best coach in the league, and while he has a ring on his hand and the changes he brings to the team are always immediate, his team tends to fall short in the playoffs.

For example, he used to be the head coach of the Portland Trail Blazers, with Wharton like an iron bucket formation, but it was never successful, Jack Ramsey took over the coaching whip and fully tapped Wharton's strategy talent, developed the Trail Blazers' offense, and won the championship in the first season, if it weren't for Wharton's injury, 78, 79 years, the Trail Blazers definitely have the strength to continue to win the championship.

Wharton's injury also indirectly contributed to Wilkens, as he led the SuperSonics to the Finals in 78 and 79, and led the team to win the championship in 79, becoming the last championship team in the NBA's "dark years".

However, Wilkens is indeed a good coach, a manager who has led the team to a championship, and it is impossible not to have two brushes.

After the NBA entered the golden age in the eighties, the SuperSonics lost important players one after another, and gradually entered a period of transition and reconstruction, Wilkens was also invited to coach the Cavaliers, Wilkens' arrival brought the system, defense and discipline to the Cavaliers.

Now, facing the Portland Trail Blazers, the top spot in the West who have just suffered a big defeat with an incomplete roster, Wilkens is also very eager to beat his opponent to further boost the morale of the Cavaliers.

The Cavaliers are a very orthodox team in terms of lineup, neither the twin towers of the Trail Blazers nor the tall guards of the Lakers, and their starting lineup, center 7-foot Doherty, power forward 6-foot-10 Larry Nance, small forward 6-foot-6 Mike Sanders, shooting guard 6-foot-6 Ron Harper, point guard 6-foot Mark Price.

It can be seen from the height that this is a very standard starting lineup, and every position is a standard player in this position, unlike Gan Guoyang, who was originally a center who should play forward, nor like Vinnie Johnson, a point guard and a shooting guard who swings at any time, and there is no multi-position wizard like Magic Johnson.

It's such a standard lineup, which is in line with the appetite of Lenny Wilkens, who pays a lot of attention to team cooperation in offense, and at the same time he is a coach who attaches great importance to defense, and the Cavaliers' results have skyrocketed this season, and Wilkens has definitely contributed to the team's defense.

In the face of the visiting Trail Blazers, Wilkens and his Cavaliers seemed very calm, and the team's gratifying results this season gave them full confidence, but on the surface, in the pre-game Cavaliers' training, Wilkens still extended the training time and practiced offensive and defensive tactics against the Trail Blazers.

Unlike other coaches, Wilkens is a coach who is more rigid in his use of soldiers, or rather more rigid in coaching than Jack Ramsay, who is obsessed with his 1977 championship dream, but who is very focused on developing the talent of his players on the offensive end, while Wilkens prefers to adapt his players to his defensive system.

Therefore, when Gan Guoyang stood on the court on the 24th to play against the Cavaliers, he felt the temperament of this Cavaliers - this is the first time they have played each other this season, they are indeed different from before, the lineup is strict, the running position is standardized, the players are not talented talents, but they all have strong combat effectiveness, and they are a perfect team.

Gan Guoyang in tonight's game, rarely received the defensive treatment of the orthodox center, Wilkens did not let Larry Nance go to the opposite Gan Guoyang, but let Doherty defend him, obviously, Nance in the past when the Suns defended Gan Guoyang performance was seen by Wilkens, but dare not let him go to death.

Of the five first-choice centers from 1983 to 1987, Doherty should be the least talented, as a North Carolina graduate, he has many of the characteristics of an orthodox center, especially his passing ability is excellent in the center, but defensively, blocking is his shortcoming, and his lateral movement speed is a little slow.

In retrospect, Gan hasn't played against an orthodox center in a game for a while, and in the 1988 season, in the Trail Blazers' game against the Cavaliers, Gan Guoyang singled Doherty under the basket as if it were playing.

However, tonight, in the face of the knights who are on the right path, Adelman has made some miscalculations in the use of Gan Guoyang.

The Trail Blazers are an open team on the offensive end, paying attention to sharing the ball, sharing shots, and at the same time not excluding the players' individual offense, so from the perspective of the field, the Trail Blazers pass very much and very fast, but after a game, the team's assists are not too much, and the passing often creates not direct scoring opportunities, but gives players individual offensive opportunities.

This trait has been strengthened after having Sabonis, who is really strong in finding opportunities, and Gan Guoyang has also integrated into this offensive mode, becoming a free man in the front court, with excellent shooting skills, able to attack anywhere.

Now, Adelman has made restrictions on Gan Guoyang, not wanting him to be a free man anymore, hoping that he can fix his own area and appear where he is most threatened and needed, this idea is undoubtedly good, but after such adjustments, the first opponent they face is really not quite the right one.

The Cavaliers' style of play is too traditional, slow-paced, grinding positions, Wilkens never makes dangerous moves, is one-on-one defense, occasional pinching, more passes and more shots in the offense, if he is replaced by the fully open Gan Guoyang, he can run Doherty alive.

But the problem is that Gan Guoyang has made changes, and Adelman is also unusually stubborn, believing that such a positional style of play must be adhered to, even if the Trail Blazers play very the court.

Gan Guoyang can still score in the low and high positions, but his destructive power to the Cavaliers' defense is gone, Wilkens later put Doherty alone, how to attack and how to attack, Gan Guoyang swept 44 points on Doherty's head in the whole game, but his teammates failed to break through the Cavaliers' iron bucket formation, from the first quarter onwards, the Cavaliers' defense was almost leakless, and there were few mistakes, and the Trail Blazers could only rely on pure personal ability to score.

The fast break is gone, the combination of inside and outside is not played, the impact of the second team is eliminated, and Gan Guoyang's high score has no decisive impact on the game, because he is only active in a small sector.

Before the start of the game, Gan Guoyang was still very supportive of Adelman's adjustment decision, but after the game, Gan Guoyang also chatted with Bellman privately, and he also had some doubts about such an adjustment.

In the next few games, Gan Guoyang became more suspicious of this, and he found that when he was only active in this fan, he could score, grab rebounds, and pass the ball, but his influence on the game became smaller, because he couldn't pull the opponent's defense, so he was just a data machine.

The bigger problem comes from his teammates, they are not used to Gan Guoyang's changes, Potter feels that Gan Guoyang's running position is flexible and changeable, and he can always appear in the right position, he passed the ball to Gan Guoyang is a scoring opportunity, and now he can only see Gan Guoyang at a few points, the original point where he can catch the ball and score, Gan Guoyang is not going.

Sabonis also complained to Gan Guoyang in training, saying that his position is too rigid, and the two can only swap high and low and high, and the power is far less than when the original flexible running position is great.

In terms of the team's results, the Trail Blazers suffered two consecutive defeats, and after entering March, they lost to the 76ers and Mavericks one after another, and in the game with the Pacers, it was also fought to overtime, Reggie Miller scored 29 points on 4 of 7 three-pointers, almost beating the Trail Blazers twice.

If the last time the Trail Blazers had a crisis in January came from the outside, from other teams targeting the Trail Blazers, then this time the Trail Blazers encountered problems were more like their own death, and Adelman was under pressure from the management to continue to maintain his previous style of play and not change the way he used Gan Guoyang.

Situ Inman also chatted with Gan Guoyang, hoping to persuade Gan Guoyang to change back to his original appearance and give full play to his offensive talent.

In this case, Gan Guoyang first suppressed the whispers of his teammates, and secondly, withstood the pressure of the management, saying that he would continue to support Adelman's approach.

The reason why Adelman has such confidence is because in his plan, the player who supports Gan Guoyang's tactics is still on the injury list, and on March 12, the Trail Blazers face the Cleveland Cavaliers again, and the player is about to return.