On October 10, 2001, four days after training camp began, the Celtics' first NBA preseason game of the 2001-2002 season will be played at TD North Shore Garden against the Charlotte Hornets.

At five o'clock in the morning, Leon left home for the training gym, which is training on match day, so he has to arrive early to prepare for the evening competition.

He arrived at training at six o'clock, along with Jim Young, who also had a lot of work to do as the team's video editor. The team's strength trainer, Uther Dick, has also started training in the strength room, and as a strength coach for the players, he must make use of the equipment before the players arrive and experience first-hand what will be arranged for the players today.

Leon greeted his colleagues and went to his small office, where he made himself a cup of coffee, and on his desk were two documents that had been prepared yesterday — a report on the Charlotte Hornets' team this year, and a video of yesterday's practice.

There are a total of 29 teams in the league, and each team needs to be carefully studied, Leon is mainly responsible for the data collection of the eastern team, and the western team is handed over to Vogel. The information about the Wasp in front of Leon was a first-hand material that he had collected in his spare time all summer, and every word, sentence and data in it was typed out by Leon on his computer. He sipped his coffee and picked up the materials to look through them, stuffed the tape into the VCR, and began to look at Jim Young's edited tape, which, combined with the report in hand, began to lay out today's training plan on scratch paper.

The team's training plan is similar every day, after O'Brien has set the direction of the team for the whole season, all Leon has to do is add and delete the training plan every day for different situations, and today he decided to add joint defense training to the morning defensive training, which is a new change for the 2002 season. In April of this year, the league announced that it would begin to relax the joint defense restrictions next season, removing the rule of illegal defense and adding three seconds of defense. For now, the impact of this rule change is only theoretical, and the actual effect will not be known until the regular season officially begins.

During their summer at USC, Leon and Winter Sr. discussed this issue in depth, and they agreed that this rule change will have a significant impact on the team's style of play, especially the restriction on interior players and the release of outside players, especially the role of shooters, which is one of the theoretical foundations for Leon's draft and development of the team's training plan this year. O'Brien, on the other hand, doesn't think the opening up of the joint defense and the three-second setting of the defense will make a real difference, so his training is still conservative.

Leon spent ten minutes laying out the training outline on the draft, and it was time for him to go to the cafeteria for breakfast. Leon has always insisted on keeping pace with the athletes in terms of diet, never eating and drinking casually just because he is just a coach, and he always only eats salads, fruits and steamed buns for breakfast. That's right, Leon likes to eat steamed buns, but the chef in the canteen doesn't know how to make them, so Leon's steamed buns are all made and brought by himself, one a day.

While Leon was eating with a steamed bun dipped in salad dressing, the team's assistant player development coach John Carroll sat across from Leon with a dinner plate, and as a coach who focuses on the individual development of the players, he also had to rush to the training hall early in the morning to watch the individual training videos in the video room, and he has recently focused on the shooting options of Arenas, Joe Johnson and Michael Reed.

"A unique way to eat, I heard that this kind of 'steamed bun' in China is wrapped in something?" Carol watched Leon eat and wanted to find a topic to talk to.

Leon took another bite of the steamed bun dipped in the salad and said, "This is a steamed bun, there is nothing in it, only something in the bun." ”

Carroll joined the Celtics in 1997 with Pitino, having coached in the NCAA and spent several years as a scout in the NBA, where he has extensive experience in player development and is adept at coaching young players. Although he joined the Celtics at the same time as Pitino, he was not from Kentucky like O'Brien and Vogel, so he was not a direct descendant of Pitino. In a series of moves by the Celtics in the last two years, Carroll has been on the sidelines, on the periphery of the storm circle, and is comfortable being his player development coach. The team's draft, trades, and changes in sovereignty basically have nothing to do with him.

He is like a steamed bun, he has no fillings and no special talents, but he is real, full and nutritious.

Carol's breakfast was coffee and bread, and she couldn't accept Leon's strange way of eating. Leon and Carroll weren't very familiar with each other, so the two chatted a few words, packed up the dishes, and it was time for the coaching meeting. O'Brien was already waiting, and the meeting was in his office.

The coaching meeting just started as usual, everyone looked at the video of yesterday's training to discuss the progress and shortcomings of the two days of training, Leon reported the recent situation of the Hornets as the Eastern Conference team data gatherer, and O'Brien nodded in satisfaction. But in today's training plan, a contradiction arose, and O'Brien expressed dissatisfaction with the content of Leon's joint defense training.

"There's no need to engage in joint defense, just let the players get used to defending for three seconds, joint defense is such a thing, one or two drills are useless, and in today's three-point shooting is becoming more and more popular, joint defense is a waste of time." O'Brien didn't want his players to practice joint defence, thinking it was a waste of time.

O'Brien's words are not entirely unreasonable, with the three-second rule of defense, the power of the joint defense is cut in half, and then the NBA's three-point line is farther than FIBA's, and the joint defense is more difficult. Moreover, the joint defense needs a long time of training to form a tacit understanding, and a morning of practice can only give the players a basic idea.

"If we don't start training, we'll never be able to use it, and the joint defense will always play its part." Leon defended, but O'Brien didn't seem ready to listen to him, and he crossed out the joint defense section of the training plan with a pen and replaced it with a full-court pressing defensive exercise.

That's when John Carroll spoke, and he rarely spoke in the coaching session, saying: "Maybe we should do practice the defense, Antoine Walker and Pierce both mentioned to me yesterday in training, it's better to practice the defense tomorrow to get used to this new thing, and let them get used to the defense on the offensive end." ”

Carroll's words made O'Brien hesitate for a moment, he thought about it and felt that Carroll's words might have some truth, so he erased the original place with an eraser, and then said to Leon: "Organize a joint defense training in the morning, Hart, you are also responsible for it, let the substitute players carry out joint defense, and the main force will practice cracking the joint defense, forty minutes, only forty minutes." ”

Leon was too lazy to argue with O'Brien, but he didn't expect Carroll to come forward to help him speak, and even persuaded the head coach that the ghost knows if Walker and Pierce said they wanted to practice joint defense yesterday.

Today's training ended early at one o'clock in the afternoon, because there was a game in the evening, and the training intensity was not too high. Leon had a date with Ayatollah Khomeenes in the afternoon and left the gym early to return to Boston. The evening game was played at 7 o'clock, and the Boston fans arrived at the arena early to watch the first preseason game of the new season with unusual enthusiasm, and the Celtics did not disappoint the fans, as they swept the Charlotte Hornets 119-91 at home in the opening game, Paul Pierce and Antoine Walker were in excellent form, and the twin stars scored 38 points in the first half to seal the victory for the team.

In the next consecutive games against the Mavericks, Cavaliers, and Bucks, the Celtics all won, and throughout the preseason, the Celtics showed a momentum of momentum, giving fans great hope and O'Brien doubling his confidence in his new season. Several rookies also performed quite well, with Arenas, the technically mature Joe Johnson and the further Michael Reed all performing at full play in their playing time, but how to allocate the playing time of these guys has become a big problem for O'Brien.

Soon, on October 30th, the regular season officially began, the Celtics' opening game was held in Cleveland, facing the weak Cavaliers who were obviously inferior to themselves, according to last year's routine, a burst of old punches, and soon beat them to the ground, the Celtics won 108:90 on the road, and the 18-point advantage made a good start, and the Celtics were in high spirits, and they will return to their home court in the next game. It is worth noting that Dennis Rodman was put on the watch list because of his conflict with the head coach, and it seems that O'Brien has the intention of abandoning Rodman.

Leon has shown due diligence during this time, and has done his best to fulfill O'Brien's requirements, unlike Pitino, O'Brien and Leon have no personal grudges, so seeing that Leon is responsible and very good, he also puts his energy into team building and game command.

The first game at home on October 31 will be very important, and that is the opening game of the season for Boston, and winning this game is even more important than the previous one, and their opponent is none other than the New Jersey Nets.