The NBA regular season is still in full swing, and after experiencing the ups and downs, run-ins, injuries, and adjustments in the first half of the season, the tactics, lineups, and playing styles are basically finalized, and the goals of the season are slowly clear. Pen & Fun & Pavilion www.biquge.info

Those who are far away from the playoffs are starting to concentrate on training their rookies, and they will not hesitate to put on a bad roll to try to get a good signing next season. Those who can enter the playoffs will use the second half of the season to polish the lineup and strive to go further in the fierce playoff competition.

The Boston Celtics are a bit of an outlier by comparison, holding the top of the league but increasingly feeling like they are in the game.

Since a staggering 23-game winning streak, Celtic haven't won more than eight games in a row, and they always deserve to win the next wave and then lose in an unexpected matchup; Then they would go on to win, another streak of wins, only to come to an abrupt end at some point, without warning.

During the 23-game winning streak, there were constant predictions that the Celtics could become only the second team to reach 70 wins since the Chicago Bulls in 1996, and it is true that no team in the entire league looks like the Celtics are capable of playing against them. But as the number of Celtics' defeats continued to increase, such voices became quieter and quieter, until February 14, in the fifth game of the terrifying Western Conference seven-game losing streak, Sacramento, the Celtics lost 111-119 to the improving Kings, suffering their 13th loss of the season, and the debate about whether the Celtics could complete 70 wins came to an end.

But after the loss, there wasn't much disappointment in the eyes of the Celtic players, with head coach Fox Leon even saying in his post-game press conference, "It's an acceptable defeat and it's taught us a lot, something that doesn't matter the result." ”

This kind of Leon is different from people's impressions, in the past, he was so eager to win, thinking that no matter what kind of game, as long as there is a result, he must go all out to win.

"If there is always someone to win the competition, why is it not me who wins?" It's a phrase that Leon used to put on his lips.

In the past, through the media, he portrayed the Boston Celtics as a dark army that would do whatever it took to win, and would not hesitate to fight against the whole world, but now he wants to be a traditional team that "enjoys the game and learns from failure"? All of this was a bit of a surprise, and in fact it wasn't for nothing.

It all started with a training clash within the Celtics team at the end of January.

The Boston Celtics' intra-team training has always been known for its high training intensity, especially Fox Leon's off-ball simulation training, which is a huge test of the players' physical strength, will, brainpower, and detail control ability. They had to put their brains and bodies up to speed up with Fox Leon's computer-scary brain, and they had to put 100% of their hearts and souls into it, so some friction was inevitable.

In a high-intensity confrontation, Daniels, a rookie on the Celtics, angrily smashed the basketball into Garnett's head because he couldn't stand the trash talk from Kevin Garnett in practice.

As the highest-paid boss on the team, it was completely unacceptable to be smashed in the head by a rookie, and Garnett was stunned for a moment and punched Daniels. Thankfully, PJ Brown and Paul Pearce stopped them from causing a more serious conflict between the two. Later, in Leon's reprimand, the two died down.

But of course, such a thing will not end there, Danny Aangie quickly got the news, since this training session is not open to the public, so the media has not been heard. But Angie knows that in the United States, there is no shadow that journalists can't catch, and those well-informed media will soon get the news.

At that time, Angie happened to have a trade plan, he thought that the Celtics had Posey, Dio and Pierce enough at the forward position, and no longer needed a small role like Daniels, so he wanted to package Daniels with a draft pick in exchange for Nets guard Marcus Banks, and he thought the Celtics still needed to make some additions on the guard line.

However, the deal was immediately met with strong opposition from Leon, who believed that any changes and changes to the roster would be dangerous when the team was in good shape. And because of a clash between players, the newcomer was disposed of, which both embarrassed the Celtics and discredited Kevin Garnett.

Because of this incident, the relationship between Leon and Angie became tense again, and a series of events proved that Angie's worries were not unreasonable.

News of Kevin Garnett's boxing rookie in training was quickly revealed, along with a flurry of reports of Garnett "bullying newcomers" within the team. It's no longer worth mentioning the little things like getting a rookie to carry a bag, and when he went to a game in Minnesota, Garnett asked a rookie to go outside on a snowy day to buy himself headphones to listen to music — even though Garnett already had several pairs of headphones in his travel bag.

This kind of news has once again made things worse for the Celtics, who have been hacked in the past, and even the Celtics owner is under a lot of pressure, which has even shaken Kevin Garnett's All-Star vote - he has been steadily rising to the top of all stars.

Maybe Danny Ainge wouldn't be a good idea to trade Daniels, but at least it would make Garnett less hearty, because they couldn't send Garnett away, so they would have to send away someone who didn't like Garnett - a common practice for all teams with superstars.

However, Fox Leon did not want to do this, and two days after the negative news, Leon held an all-hands meeting within the team, in which Leon asked everyone to speak freely on a note about their views on the team and their expectations of themselves. He then read the anonymous notes in front of everyone, helping the players to communicate with each other in a more intimate way.

After that, Leon began to change his strategy for arranging his line-up during the match, no longer playing around with endless footage and developing a targeted battle plan before playing each opponent. He started to really focus on me instead of his opponent, and his goal started to change, no longer "what to make the opponent do, but how to make us." ”

He gave every player a goal of the game and started to increase the playing time of the players. For example, he began to really move Ragabel to the starting position, and let Michael Reed play the sixth man, increase Alstom's playing time at the point guard position, try to use Daniels as the outside defensive gate, and so on.

Of course, all of this turned out to be fraught with difficulties, such as having Reed play as the sixth man, and although he had been a good substitute in some games, he still wanted to be in the starting line-up. It wasn't until one time, when John Havlicek went to the North Shore Garden Arena to watch the Celtics play and said in a post-game interview that Reed could carry on his legacy, that Michael didn't have much to complain about his new role.

In this way, the Celtics have experienced a month of small ups and downs, no longer invincible and domineering during the 23-game winning streak, but have become diverse and fancy, with all kinds of routines and tactics emerging in an endless stream, and many professional ball critics believe that Fox Leon is playing with fire. It is believed that the Celts at this time were a little carried away, losing the root of their victory, and indulging in self-expression.

But Leon was unmoved, and until the All-Star Game was approaching, he sent the players a long vacation, asking everyone to enjoy this rare vacation. Because he knows that the so-called "wandering" during this period is to make the players really fit together. The way players can be combined is not only to win, but also to have fun playing together, which is the charm of basketball that is more fundamental than winning.

Leon has slowly learned to care not only about each player's performance on the pitch, but also about each and every one of them. When he did, the Celts' worst enemies, themselves, would cease to exist. (To be continued.) )