When Carlisle returned to the hotel, his mind was full of rumors, both the effects of alcohol and the effects of Leon's words. Leon's words seemed ordinary and ordinary, but they broke Carlisle's embarrassing situation with the Pistons at this time. For one thing, he wasn't very popular with the players, and although the players respected him, he was never the kind of "coach of the players"; On the other hand, he is not liked by the boss, not only does he not like it, but the relationship between the two parties is also very stiff.

Carlisle's stubborn temper hates most of the fact that the executives of the management team point fingers at the team, and the layman guides the insider. Including the incident of letting the Pistons participate in the exhibition game, the conflict between him and the big boss Davidson became more and more intensified. Davidson is not a blind boss, but he has to choose between his officials and the head coach, and it is clear that Carlisle is not in Davidson's long-term plans.

Although Carlisle is now leading the team to concentrate on the playoffs, Leon's words turned out the things that made him bad from the bottom of his heart, so he regretted going to Leon's house for dinner.

Thinking of this, Carlisle hurriedly went into the bathroom and took a cool shower to calm himself down, and at the same time he began to think about what strategy should be used to deal with the current layout of the Celtics in tomorrow's game.

At this stage of basketball development, the general tactical program and system have been roughly formed, and what is changing is the rules, the players, and the details, and how to combine these elements to complete a perfect game is the lifelong pursuit of every coach. Both Leon and Carlisle were still walking on this difficult road, and they could only see a glimmer of light, whether it was the dawn of the vast sky or the lonely fireflies in the dark night.

And it is these two young and talented coaches who are racking their brains to create a better tactical environment and conditions for their players to win the series.

Compared with Carlisle, Leon's cards are undoubtedly better, although the Pistons have the first place in the East in the regular season, in fact, they have not opened a grade gap with other teams in the East, on the contrary, in Leon's eyes, the real opponent in the East is only the New Jersey Nets, and the current Pistons are not qualified.

However, that doesn't mean Leon can let his guard down, and the end result of letting his guard down on the Pistons is the Orlando Magic.

In the evening, Leon invites Carlisle to dinner, both because he really wants to catch up and chat, and because he just wants to disturb Carlisle. Leon is a typical coach in the league who takes the grassroots route, he has little to do with those bosses, celebrities, stars, and tycoon presidents, and the biggest boss he has a close relationship with is Ayatollah Khomeinith's father-in-law, and his quasi-father-in-law is just one of the Celtics' bosses.

On the contrary, the scouts, agents, assistant coaches, and journalists who form the foundation of the league are Leon's position, and almost every team in the league has scouts or team staff members he knows, including the Spurs, Nuggets, Lakers, and Pistons. Some of them were friends Leon had made during his time on the scouting team, some had been friends he had met during the regular season, and some were a group of industry insiders who had expanded his network.

They may not serve Leon or accept Leon's employment, but it is okay to provide some gossip and help a little favor. The contradiction between the head coach and the owner of the Pistons, whether big or small, was known to some senior reporters in Detroit, but it did not spread in the mass media.

Leon did learn from a basketball worker in Detroit that although this person was engaged in basketball in Detroit, he was a Bostonite and a Boston fan, so he told Leon about the news that it was of some use, and Leon also used him well.

Of course, Leon will not pin his hopes of victory on Carlisle's dizziness, and in order to truly make Carlisle's brain dizzy, he must be completely overwhelmed tactically!

……………………

On the evening of May 10th, there was a bit of a sparse crowd at Boston's North Shore Garden Arena, and it was clear that the division semifinals were far from satisfying for Boston fans, who didn't come early to take their seats and didn't wave white towels. However, when the game was about to start, the stadium was still packed with fans, and the atmosphere began to heat up.

"This is the place to play basketball...... Leon thought as he stood on the sidelines and listened to the familiar cheers of the North Shore Garden Arena, where the unique echo structure makes the sound particularly grandiose, and he likes to direct the game here, in a sea of green. He hated the mechanically dull blue-gray of Auburn Hills, with a hint of a not-so-bright red. Conversely, at the North Shore Gardens, the vibrant greenery seems to be magical.

Leon quickly noticed a change in the Pistons' starting lineup, with the Pistons' starting small forward changing from Michael Curry to Skinny Bamboo and Tyshawn Prince. This is a very noteworthy change, in the previous game, although Curry was the Celtics' starting small forward, but in fact, he was born as a guard, only 6-foot-5 tall, and it is quite reluctant to play small forward.

However, he is physically strong and experienced, and it is no problem to come up and top Pierce, and in the Pistons' rotation, he is only a pseudo-starter, and Prince, although he is a substitute, has played longer than Curry.

Now Carlisle directly put Prince, who is 6-foot-8 tall and has an amazing arm span and is also quite thin, on the court, this move obviously has a strong tactical pertinence and tactical prediction. In contrast, the Celtics are still the same starting lineup, and this time Leon did not emphasize who should be the main attacker, but demanded that he must start from the defense and seek to speed up the attack after stabilizing the defense. This is undoubtedly a more conservative strategy.

After the game started, Leon found out that Carlisle actually asked Pulis to play against Walker in defense, and he didn't know what kind of medicine Carlisle was selling in his gourd, so he asked the rookie small forward to score 35 points in the last game, almost breaking Wallace's All-Star power forward. However, in the first offensive round of the Celtics, Walker failed to attack with the ball.

He easily got to the position, then ran over Prince and squeezed in, Wallace stepped forward to make a defense, Walker tried to pass the ball, only to find that his passing path was blocked and had to be moved to the right corner in a wide area, Reed took the ball and forced a three-point shot to miss.

The Celtics' positional attack was much more lackluster than their agile, changeable and rapid counter-attacks. It's nothing more than a low-post single from Pierce and Walker, which attracts firepower and then shifts widely, and a dry shooter on the weak side, such as Reed, Arenas, and Cole, is ready to catch the ball and shoot. Or, the high post carries out continuous blocking and pick-and-roll to attack, Walker responds or attacks directly in the high post, and Arenas breaks through to carry out the second processing of the ball, with the obvious shadow of an eagle-style attack, mixed with some principles of the triangle offense.

But because neither Pierce nor Walker are really inside low-post attackers, their low-post offense is often not deep, so they can't move the ball. At the same time, Arenas was severely suppressed by Billups, almost becoming a top pitcher and a pure blaster on the offensive end, which made the Celtics' positional offensive tactics suffer a lot of resistance.

Sure enough, halfway through the first quarter, the Pistons led the Celtics by four points at 14:10, and Leon called a timeout first. Pulis had a good effect on Walker, Walker seemed to underestimate this thin young man, although he couldn't withstand Walker at all in terms of strength, but there was a big cover behind him, and he was very confident.

At the same time, Prince has an extremely long arm span, and the other Pistons players are also very attentive to Brown's help defense, and there is no more situation where the two of them teamed up to penetrate the Pistons' interior in the last game.

Leon knows that the moves from the last game are old and Walker can no longer be expected to explode, and Wallace's return to his familiar position as a co-defense player will cause problems for every Celtics player who enters the Pistons' interior line.

Leon was certainly prepared for this, and he decided to throw that magic card again in the playoffs. (To be continued.) )