Pierce looked at Leon's face in amazement, his hair grew long again, slightly disheveled on his head, and his jet-black curls resembled Hollywood star Orlando Bloom. The face that was always shaved cleanly, with an extra circle of beard, extending to the sides of the neck and chin, although not thick, made people feel that Leon was at least five years older. But even with the beard, those small scars on Leon's face could not be concealed, and they stubbornly stayed on his face.

"What's wrong with you? Didn't you go on vacation? Why does it look like hard labor? Pierce stared at Leon's face for a moment and couldn't help but say.

"It's just a different style...... It's nice to see you again Paul, I wonder how your groin is, will you be able to play tomorrow? Leon didn't explain much about his hairstyle and beard, but was concerned about Pierce's injury.

A groin strain is a common injury for players and is generally not a major problem, and if Pierce is unavailable tomorrow, the Celtics will certainly be lucky against the Spurs.

"No problem, don't you think I'm here to train today? It's just that some other things haven't been going well lately, there's always some negative news staring at me, and this morning I went out and ran into the police, warning me not to drink and drive, but I swear to God, the bottle of champagne I got at the bar last night was only opened after I got home! Pierce complained to Leon about his recent troubles, annoyed by the pervasive gossip reports in the Boston media.

At the beginning of the season, he restrained himself and focused more time and energy on basketball, and with the team's excellent record, a lot of negative news was insulated from Pierce. So some of the recent reports and bad luck made him wonder what was wrong, and of course he didn't know that the culprit who made the news was standing in front of him and listening to him.

"You know, readers always like to read negative news about public figures. On the contrary, those positive and touching things are always passed by, and only when they see the stars in front of the spotlight make mistakes, they will be as excited as hungry wolfdogs who see meat to join in the rush to eat. It's something that never changes, but there's a law beyond it that goes forever, and that's victory. Leon said as he stared at Pierce, his eyes making Pierce feel something different. It was a passion that burned like a flame under a calm gaze.

Pierce swallowed, and now he felt that all the negative news was no longer a problem, and he was going to put in the best of his breath to train and prepare for tomorrow night's game. That's right, as long as you win, everything is not a problem.

………………

Waltham's training gym was fully seated at 9:30 a.m., the first practice session for the Celtics to welcome back Fox Leon after losing their head coach a month.

Dave Cowens arrived a little later than Leon and he doesn't seem ready to hand over the whip. It stands to reason that the assistant coach will come a little earlier than the head coach.

"Assemble everyone!" Cowens shouted to the players and trainers who were training on the court, and it was Cowens who would give pre-training sessions before every training session throughout the month, and the players put down their basketballs and gathered together with sweat.

Dave Cowens looked at Leon, who stood there as if he didn't mean to speak, so Cowens spoke: "Today is the first day of Fox Leon's return, let's welcome him...... This month, I'm excited to be able to lead you all on the right track. To live up to the mission, now we are all together. Paul Pearce is back with a third of the season and playoffs still waiting for us, so it's time to go all out! ”

There was a slight sense of loss in Cowens's tone, and it was true that the secret condition that the Celtics invited Cowens to be an assistant coach in the summer was that when Leon proved to be unsuccessful, he could replace him. However, this is not something that Angie can decide alone, but a commitment made by Auerbach himself. Otherwise, Cowens wouldn't have left his old grudge and returned to Boston.

During his time as an assistant coach for Leon, Cowens, who had been the team's general manager, could sense the outstanding coaching talent of this young man, and he was impressed by his genius intelligence, calm handling and exuberant energy.

And in the month of Leon's absence, although Cowens led the team to a good record. But Cowens knew in his heart that these victories were based on Leon's tuning, and he hardly needed to lay out offensive tactics for his players, just need to defend well, because those offensive routines had been deeply rooted in the players' nerve cells under Leon's training.

Cowens doesn't simulate training without the ball, the players complain that they can't improve their tacit understanding, Cowens can't calculate the data at a glance, the other assistant coaches feel that the workload has increased, Cowens can't accurately describe the players' technical movements and tactical movements, and the efficiency of training and watching videos has become low.

Cowens' only advantage is that he has a lot of experience in basketball, he has a lot of experience, he understands the psychology of the players, he will yell and get angry, he will yell at the referee, he will drive the team's momentum, but these things, who knows how quickly Leon will learn.

So, Leon is back, everyone else may be a little excited, only Cowens will feel a little lost, because he knows that during the month of Leon's absence, he can't erase the mark that Leon left on this team and put his own label, so from now on, he can only be an assistant coach, can only teach the players the basics, teach them how to fight hand-to-hand under the basket.

After saying this, Cowens turned his head to look at Leon, who was standing in front of the players without saying a word, his hands crossed on his waist, and he looked unusually majestic after growing his beard, although he was about the same age as PJ Brown.

"Good morning, ladies, and it's a pleasure to see you again. I've been standing here since eight o'clock and watching you guys practice for almost an hour and a half, and you've made 987 baskets and made 675 of them, which is just a warm-up before the official workout, but it's an intolerably low level in terms of shots and shots. I want to tell you that when you come to the training gym, you have to give it your all, starting from the first second. "Before the start of the official training, the players came to the stadium and saw Leon's reaction was to come forward to greet him, and then giggled and began to warm up, they didn't expect Leon to give everyone a dismount as soon as he came back." I think everyone should know that there has been a lot of criticism of Celtic lately, with people saying that our players like to get into trouble everywhere, Chris Anderson, Gilbert Arenas, Antoine Walker, Paul Pearce, more or less negative news. Those ubiquitous reporters are eager to blow up all the things you did when you picked your nose in class as a kid for those boring readers to enjoy. And, of course, on the pitch, in the past month we have degraded a little bit in attack, but we have strengthened defensively, we have dared to fight, we have clashed with some teams, so some people say we are dirty. Here, as an unprecedented head coach who has been banned by the league for 15 games and knocked over NBA players with his fists, I'm going to tell you, go *** this, we just want to win! When Leon said this, the training hall fell into extreme silence.

The Celtic players, especially the youngsters, had a grimace on their faces, as if they weren't in a training gym but on a parade ground. There has been a lot of bad news that has plagued the Celtics' players lately, Arenas is drunk, Chris Anderson is smoking marijuana, Antoine Walker is prostituting, both true and false, in short, it has embarrassed the Green Army.

Cowens tried to talk to each player to defuse the negative emotions, but it didn't work, Leon was good at this, and directly turned the negative emotions into energy, which is exactly the effect he wanted.

However, Leon himself is not very clear about what direction such an approach will take the current Celtics, and whether the basketball team model he once longed for and ideal can still be realized in the Celtics. (To be continued.) )