"You little bastard, you said you let the players rest and rest? Who gave you this power? Are you paying the players? You know what the media is saying right now? Say that you deliberately refrigerate the star for fear of failure, so that even if you lose, there is a reason! ”

In Boston, in the small office of the Celtics at the North Shore Garden Arena, Danny Angie is slapping the table at Leon and getting angry. In the last game against the Detroit Pistons, Leon unexpectedly had number one star Paul Pearce sit on the bench for the entire game. The Celtics also lost the game 93-98 at Auburn Hills Palace, ending a three-game winning streak since Leon's comeback.

Before the game, there were no injury reports related to Paul Pierce, in fact, Pierce's body is still relatively healthy, except for last month's consecutive campaigns that caused a groin strain, Pierce's knee injury, which has been troubled before, has not tormented him this season, and he does not even need to wear a knee brace in many games.

Therefore, Leon's refrigeration of Pierce is even more incredible, not to mention that the opponent is the Pistons, the current contender for the first group in the East, and the top six teams in the East now have very close records, and the victory or defeat of a game may definitely lead to the final playoff qualification. After losing this game against the Pistons, the Celtics fell to fourth place in the East, tied with the 76ers in fifth, and relied on a narrow lead in the Eastern Conference to lead the 76ers in the top position.

The Detroit Pistons kicked the Indiana Pacers and took the top spot in the East, which caused the Celtics to suffer a lot of criticism, and Angie was very annoyed by this, and as soon as the Celtics returned to Boston, he called Leon to start training.

Leon looked indifferent, he took a mint candy from Anji's table and put it in his mouth, spread his hands and said, "You are becoming more and more unkind to me now, in fact, I was going to discuss it with you, but I made a decision on the fly." You know, three overtimes with the Nets, Paul played hard, I don't want him to have any accidents in Auburn Hills, the Pistons are still quite rough play. On the night of the Nets game, Reisert came to me and said he wanted me to increase the players' rest time for the sake of their health. I hesitated, and then in the Nets game, I simply let Walker rest, and he didn't play it anyway. I think you should know that Reisert came to look for it, and it was Arnold's meaning...... Don't tell me, you don't know about this, little mongrel. ”

Listening to Leon's words, Anji's face changed, his angry expression quickly disappeared, and he smiled and said, "Little bastard, it seems that many things can't be hidden from your eyes." Did Reisert say something wrong? That's exactly what Trent Alexander-Arnold meant, but ultimately it's up to you whether or not to rotate the players, and if you feel you can withstand the pressure from inside and out, you can let the players go off and fall outside the top four. Or you sloppy the main force, bring the Celtics to the first place in the East, stabilize your position and shut up a lot of guys. However, Reissert's advice is not made up casually, every team has injury concerns, and Celtic have been healthy for many years, but it is this that we need to be more careful. ”

Leon nodded, and then he said, "Why didn't Arnold call me directly?" There are a lot of things he can tell me directly without always beating around the bush, and I haven't spoken to Arnold on the phone for a while, and I don't know how he's doing. ”

Since confirming that it was Auerbach who leaked the transaction, Leon has discovered that Auerbach is almost everywhere on many levels, but everywhere, and he is always influencing himself through various relationships, but he is unwilling to contact him directly as before.

"Fawkes, I want to tell you that right now, no one is going to lift you up and guide you, and you're going through only trials rather than help. If you can stand the test, you'll naturally improve, and if not, you know. Also, some of your tactics in the last month have been pretty good, but I think that's caught David Stern's attention, including this refrigerated Pierce, who wouldn't like to see the team's star of the game not playing without injury. Of course, we'll take care of that in the league, and what you have to do is calm the players so that they can rest well and not have bad emotions. ”

Leon nodded again and got up to leave, when Angie stopped him again and asked, "You haven't told me yet, what did Reesert say wrong?" ”

"Reisert was a cautious, friendly man who never made irresponsible remarks behind his back," Leon said. But this time, he mentioned Cowens, saying that Cowens used the main force excessively. If it weren't for Cowens' permission, Reisert wouldn't have said that, and the only one who could make Cowens allow others to speak ill of him behind his back was Arnold. ”

After saying that, Leon left the office, and Angie sat on the stool and thought: "This guy is getting more and more difficult, I don't know if this is a good thing or a bad thing, isn't it too fast for Auerbach to mature him like this......"

……………………

After returning from Detroit, the Celtics will play a game at home against the Nets before embarking on a grueling road trip.

At 7 p.m. on March 18, the Nets visited North Shore Gardens, and this time Leon once again rested one of his main players, PJ Brown. Brown is a 32-year-old veteran who has greatly improved the team's interior defense since coming to the Celtics, becoming a pillar of the team.

At the same time, he has selflessly passed on his skills to Chris Anderson and Durham Porter in training, helping the two youngsters grow, and Brown has not missed a game this season, so Leon is very reluctant to let him rest.

But under Leon's insistence and persuasion, he still chose to obey. In addition to Brown, Steve Kerr on the bench was also put on Leon's injury list, and both were rested on the grounds of "leg pain from age." ”

Without these two experienced veterans, it was quite difficult to face the Nets Celtics, the Nets who were reversed at home in the last game came with a vengeance, they beat the Celtics 22:10 as soon as they started, Antoine Walker was ravaged by Kenyon Martin again, and received two big hats in the first quarter.

After that, the Celtics began to catch up, but at the beginning of the game, the Nets brought the rhythm of the defensive battle, and they always kept the point difference at about 6 points.

Until the last quarter, Leon sent Wang Zhizhi again, but this time Wang Zhizhi was no longer magical, Martin's concentrated marking made Wang Zhizhi lose the role of a surprise soldier, but was chased and beaten twice because of the unfavorable defense.

In the end, the Celtics lost the defensive battle with a 72-79 difference at home, a seven-point gap.

After the game, criticism of Celtic and Leon poured in, arguing that he randomly rotated players at critical moments in the battle for a playoff spot, causing the team to lose to important rivals, not only in the rankings, but also in terms of momentum and morale.

In the post-game interview, few reporters cared about the winners, the Nets and their coach, Scott, and asked a few hasty questions. And when it was the turn of the Celtics and Leon to interview, everyone rushed up, and everyone had to ask about the ugliness. "We had a very long regular season and my players needed to rest because they were all injured. If you say they don't have an injury, you can ask any basketball player and ask them if they have been around since the moment they stepped on the basketball court. I think I'm going to rest my players when I have to, otherwise why would a team give so many players? “

Leon's answer was unusually firm, and an even bigger storm of public opinion awaited him, and he would be under tremendous pressure until the end of the regular season. (To be continued.) )