As soon as he woke up on the morning of the 15th, Leon received a text message, which was from Khomeenes. To complete her dissertation, Khomeenes flew to Australia yesterday to conduct fieldwork with Maori tribes. The text message came from Khomeinith in the early hours of the morning, and he should have arrived in Australia.

In addition to reporting Leon's safety, the text message also ended the text message asking Leon to turn on the TV after waking up in the morning to watch a sports interview program on the ESPN channel, which will be broadcast every night after the end of the golden sports live broadcast time, and then rebroadcast in the morning. The object of the interview is often the popular fried chicken in basketball or some famous veterans who are about to retire or have retired. Although these interviews are often brief, they can always cause some controversy, and they are also an important window column for ESPN.

Leon lay in bed after reading the text message and turned on the TV to the espn channel, and sure enough, at seven o'clock in the morning, the cold time of the sports program was replaying a show from last night, a replay of the NBA classic game. ESPN's replay was the 1985 Western Conference Playoffs first round Dallas Mavericks vs. Portland Trail Blazers, the fourth game where the Trail Blazers eliminated the Mavericks, and the little-known Adair Norris hit a last-minute shot to take out the Mavericks.

At halftime, ESPN aired last night's interview with the current Mavericks owner, Mark Cuban.

Leon knew when he saw Mark Cuban that there was a good chance that the thing was going to make some strange remarks, and it was likely to have something to do with the Celts. Because ESPN is headquartered in Bristol, Rhode Island, west of Massachusetts, it was originally part of Massachusetts and was then divided into Rhode Island. It should be said that it is very close to Boston, and the team that will play in Boston in the past two days is the Dallas Mavericks, as a famous fan owner in the league. Mark Cuban will definitely come to Boston with the team, so it makes sense that ESPN will have an exclusive interview with Cuban nearby.

Cuban Leon has also been known for a long time, and when he first entered the league, he often saw that the owner of this team was not a boss, mingling with players every day, often bombarding the league before and after games, and fighting with Stern. And then wait to be fined by the Union. In the process of the Celtics getting Dennis Rodman through a trade in 00, Cuban was even more cynical about the Celtics, believing that the Celtics were "making a mistake that they once made", but he didn't expect Rodman to live well in Boston and retire successfully.

This time, Cuban brought his cowboys to Boston again, and naturally it was indispensable to make a big splash in the media, for no other reason, because the Mavericks and Celtics are now the two most popular teams in the league, and they are undefeated in the East and West. Topping the East and West tables, there must be a defeat for the two Tigers in this encounter, and there must be a team whose unbeaten record is about to be broken.

Leon put the remote down and watched the interview program with interest to see what the Cuban would have to say.

Sure enough, when asked by the moderator, "What kind of coach do you think Celtics' new head coach Fox Leon is, and do you recognize his coaching level", Cuban smiled slightly and showed his classic disdain.

"He's a coach with a very unique style. He doesn't like to call a timeout, he doesn't like to yell at the players. A lot of people say he's like Phil Jackson, and I think there's one thing he's very similar to Jackson, and that's that he doesn't learn and doesn't know how to play, and he plays purely on the superstars under him. Cuban not only belittled Leon in his answer, but also hacked Phil Jackson along the way, and the two men have been fighting for a long time since Mavericks invented the shark-cutting tactic.

Leon then turned off the TV. It's not that he can't stand Cuban's remarks, but it's time for him to go to the training gym to organize the team's training, and tonight's game is indeed a big challenge for the Celtics. The Dallas Mavericks have been building their organization for years, and the troika of Nowitzki, Nash and Finley has reached their first peak of form this year, and they have been chopping melons and vegetables since the start of the season. The average goal is more than 10 points per game. Compared with the Celtics, they have the same offensive style of play, but the attack points are more balanced, the inside and outside distribution is reasonable, the players are not inferior to the Celtics, and they are more experienced, and their coach is the former Celtics star and the famous Qiansheng coach Don Nelson.

In Cuban's interview, there is actually a passage that Leon misses and does not see, that is, Cuban pointed out that some of the routines that Leon is now using are just picking people's teeth, and the object of his plagiarism is Don Nelson. As early as the Warriors in the 90s, Nelson designed the outside troika, the offensive combination of Hardaway and Mullin and Garrychmond, which also provided a historical basis for Cuban to accuse Leon of plagiarizing Nelson's outside trio of Arenas and Reed Garpierce set for the Celtics.

Of course, Leon will not care about these accusations from Cuban, although he has also heard of Don Nelson's tactics, but now the Celtics' style of play is set by him according to the current trend of the league's tactical rules, the team's staffing and his own understanding of basketball, and many people may not know that this style of play is far from being formed in Leon's heart, and this system will continue to evolve and grow as the team's personnel change and grow.

Either way, tonight will be the first real tough game the Celtics have faced since the start of the season, and it will be a major test for Leon and the young Green players.

……………………

"Good evening guys, I'm Brad Nesler, and welcome to the live broadcast of the 2002-2003 NBA regular season on ESPN, and with me tonight's game are our old friends Tom Tolbert and Bill Wharton, hello, Tom, Bill." The Celtics and Mavericks game qualified for national live broadcast, and it was undoubtedly the most watched game in the American basketball world today. After the signing of the new broadcast contract, ABC, *** and ESPN divided the NBA live broadcast rights in the new era, and the original NBA live broadcast supremacy NBC began to gradually withdraw from the historical stage, but the new broadcast contract has not brought high returns to the league for the time being, on the contrary, the salary cap has fallen this year.

However, in the coming days, the benefits brought by the live broadcast contract will undoubtedly be greater and greater, because of the healthy competition between the three new TVs, and the continuous innovation and progress in program production. It will bring more audiences and higher commercial value to the alliance. Not to mention anything else, in terms of commentators, various TV stations have begun to use the strategy of retired stars, and it has achieved good results. Because the audience is not only happy to see these superstars who have been on the pitch come to the commentary booth to tell the inside stories on the pitch, but also these players who have really fought on the pitch. Undoubtedly, he has more professionalism and professional knowledge than a simple commentator who just loves basketball.

Charles Barkley, Kenny Smith, and Bill Wharton, who just joined ESPN, are good examples, and Wharton, who just made the switch from NBC to ESPN this year, will begin his fourth game commentary of the season, and in just three games, the former legendary center has begun to be popular with the audience, and his words are witty and humorous, although sometimes exaggerated, but he can give unique insights when professionalism is needed. undoubtedly injected a breath of fresh air into the originally slightly silent ABC TV commentary.

What is even more interesting to the audience is that from the first game, he and his old partner, Tom Tolbert, who jumped ship to ESPN together, started an all-round fight without dead ends. From the result of the game to the beauty of the cheerleading team, they have to pinch and taunt each other, which has also become the characteristic of the two commentators. And tonight, the two are undoubtedly going to start pinching again.

Before the game even started, Bill Wharton first made it clear that he supported the Boston Celtics, and the reason was very clear, because he had played for the Celtics. And it was a fantastic championship and it was a perfect season for Wharton.

And Tolbert naturally wants to support the Dallas Mavericks. And for good reason, because the longest time in Tolbert's career was with the Golden State Warriors, and the Warriors' head coach at that time was none other than Don Nelson.

"Your argument for supporting the Mavericks is really far-fetched, you say you are a player coached by Don Nelson, but Nelson is still a Celtic! Could he have lost this game against Celtic? Wharton points out Tolbert's "logical" error. He also said that tonight as a game at North Shore Garden, he should support the Celtics.

Tolbert, of course, ignores Wharton's fallacy and does not hesitate to praise Don Nelson with his own praise, saying: "Nelson is the most creative coach I've ever met who is good at unleashing the individual potential of his players. He doesn't give you a fixed role to complete a fixed task, he will let you play to your heart's content, see what you fit in, and do it. For example, although I am only 6-foot-7, and my main position is forward, Nelson often asks me to play center, and during my three years with the Warriors, I often had to face those league super centers, like Ewing, Olajuwon, Robinson, which is incredible for other coaches. But that's what happens to Nielsen. ”

"That's why you guys don't make the playoffs, a 6-foot-7 center, three rebounds a game, tell me how do you win in the nineties?" Wharton deliberately frowned and wondered, Tolbert's career is quite mediocre compared to Wharton, and his best three seasons with the Warriors are just a substitute with an average of 8 points and 3 boards per game.

"That was 10 years ago, and the NBA is different now! You look at the Dallas Mavericks, look at their starting lineup, who is the center? Nowitzki? No, Nanahura! Although they have Bradley on the bench, Nelson is going to use Nahura as a center! Tolbert generally retorted to Wharton while introducing the starting line-ups for both sides.

In the first five games after the start of the season, the Mavericks used five different starting lineups, in addition to the troika of Nash, Finley, and Nowitzki, in the scoring guard and center positions, Bradley, Nahula, Griffin, Lafrentz, Eschmeier and others took turns to play, and no one could figure out what was going on in the head of the legendary coach with the title of mad scientist. In this game, he sent a starting lineup without a center, bringing the 6-foot-7 Mexican Nahura to the center position, and seemed to want to use a small lineup to deal with the Celtics' fast offensive system.

But it looks like the new coach of the Celtics isn't a fuel-efficient lamp either, so let's look at the Celtics' starting ...... Point guard Arenas, shooting guard Michael Reed, small forward Paul Pearce, and power forward Antoine Walker...... And their starting center is the abandoned general of the Mavericks, Wang Zhizhi from China! When Bill Wharton saw the Celtics' starters, he also said he couldn't read it. (To be continued.) )