Passing is the most basic technique in basketball offense, and after becoming the team's assistant coach, Leon has always attached great importance to the team's passing training. However, during O'Brien's time at the helm, he asked his players to improve the speed and accuracy of their passes, so there was a lot of practice in training with four-corner passes and quick passes around the pile. However, Leon believes that in the absence of a way to ensure that every player has enough passing talent, one-sided attempts to improve the team's overall passing level by repeated training are ineffective.

Of course, he came up with the training plan and principles that O'Brien didn't appreciate, and then O'Brien left the class. During his time in Carroll's tenure, Leon continued to maintain the same passing training style as before, but with more emphasis on the details of short passing and small passing, and he knew that this team did not have a real master passer, and it seemed that it would be difficult to have a master passer in the short term. Their offense has become simple and brutal, often finishing with a single player after a small combination, which relies on the players' extremely high offensive talent.

Walker, Reed, Pierce, Johnson, Arenas, all of them have the strength or potential to score 20 points per game, but none of them can lift their assist count to 5. However, this does not mean that they will not be good passers, in Leon's plan, he does not expect a master of the field like Jason Kidd, but wants everyone to be involved in passing, so in the morning of the 2nd, Leon officially began the passing training he designed.

"From now on, I ask every player to keep two principles firmly in your mind when passing the ball. I believe that you have experienced many years of college basketball training and professional basketball edification, and have a deep understanding of many basic techniques and details of passing, but training and learning are never stopping, and the focus of many skills is not in the understanding of the mind, but in the habits of the body, and we must implant some basic habits deeply into your subconscious and motor nerve cells. Gilbert, Joe, Michael, Milt, come here, stand here. Before training began, Leon called Arenas, Michael Reed, Milt Palacio and Joe Johnson to the centre circle and asked them to participate in a passing drill.

The four of them walked out of the lineup, dressed in black training uniforms, Leon threw the basketball in his hand to Arenas, and then said to the three people: "Joe, now you stand on the center line, you can't cross this center line." Gilbert, you come here with the ball, you're in the free throw ring, that's your range of motion. Michael and Palacio, there is no limit to the range of activities for both of you. With the four of you on your feet, Gilbert gives me the ball back. ”

Arenas passed the ball back to Leon, who took the ball and said, "I'll pass the ball to Arenas later, and from the moment I pass the ball to him, he's going to get the ball to Johnson in three seconds." Johnson couldn't cross that halfway line, and Arenas couldn't get out of the free throw ring. Pay attention to the highlights, don't throw the ball hard at the back, and then let Johnson turn around and chase it, I'll blow you offside; Not allowing to give up the defense against Arenas to contain Johnson is a defensive violation...... Reid and Palacio were in charge of the defense, and you were going to start by about four feet, four feet, yes, three quarters of a foot away from Michael. ”

Leon had such a strong sense of distance that he could see with his eyes that Reed and Palacio were both standing four feet away from Joe Johnson and Arenas, and after fine-tuning them slightly, Leon nodded in satisfaction and continued, "Remember, you only have three seconds, okay, let's get started......"

After saying that, Leon passed the ball to Arenas, and Palacio, a small point guard with a height of 6-foot-1, pounced on Arenas like a little frog, and Arenas only had a few tenths of a second to observe Johnson's position, and he was also entangled by Reed. However, Arenas took a step back from the dribble before Palacio pressed on him, and then threw the ball at Johnson with one hand. A high toss in the hope that Johnson could get rid of Reid's entanglement and catch the ball in the air. It's a pity that Johnson can't compare to Reed in terms of bouncing, and he is not as strong as Reed, Reed squeezed Johnson away and robbed the ball.

"Beep!" Leon blew the whistle, and when the three seconds came, he didn't even look at his watch. He took the ball back from Reed and said, "It's okay, let's move on."

As he spoke, he threw the ball to Arenas, and repeated it four times, and finally on the fourth time, Arenas, as soon as he received the ball, passed to his left with a ground pass at the moment when Palacio had just pounced, and Johnson pretended to go to his left, but actually went to the right after a feint, and finally got rid of Reed's defense a little, and received a pass from Arenas, and they succeeded.

"Oh! It's harder than I thought, but it doesn't seem to bother me. "Arenas felt as if he had found the trick after a successful pass and his confidence swelled again. He also stepped forward to give Johnson a high-five.

"Tell me Gilbert, what's the trick?" Leon asked Arenas.

"The trick is speed, and tacit understanding, passing the ball must be fast, and then having a tacit understanding with teammates."

Leon didn't say anything about this, he stepped forward and patted Palacio on the shoulder to let him go down and rest for a while, then beckoned to Dennis Rodman and said, "Dennis, defend one." ”

Rodman took off his sports jacket and walked about four feet from Arenas with a loud roar, and took a small step back at Leon's direction. The former NBA's best defensive player stood in front of Arenas, and he was a little worried about his self-confidence, not knowing what kind of pressing defense Rodman would offer, Arenas was ready to play quickly.

"Alright, get ready to ......" Leon said and passed the ball to Arenas again, Arenas was highly focused, ready to step back with Rodman pressing him, he had already sketched out a few lines of the pass in his head, he was still observing Joe Johnson's expression, and the two made eye contact.

But the moment the ball was in his hands, Rodman didn't press it at all, instead he took two steps back, stood eight feet away from Arenas, spread his limbs, and covered Arenas like a spider's web. Arenas hesitated for a second, and he realized that the passing line he had designed was likely to be interfered with by Rodman's limbs, and it seemed that there was only one way to go high toss, but the pass in front of him proved that high toss would only be killed by Reed.

"Beep!" Leon's whistle sounded again, three seconds had passed, and the ball was still in Arenas' hands. Instead of pressing as close as he had hoped, Rodman stepped back and stood closer to the midpoint of Johnson and Arenas, blocking a possible pass between the two. In this way, Rodman does not have to mark people at all, because Arenas and Johnson are one fixed in the circle and the other is fixed in the line, and there is nowhere to run for three seconds. That's what the best defensive player does.

"OK, Gilbert, I can tell you, according to Dennis's defensive strategy, you don't want to pass any of the ten balls. As you can see, it's not that the closer a defender is to you, the harder it is for you to pass, and the farther away you are, the easier it is for you to pass. Sometimes it's the opposite, the closer the defender is to you, the more chance you have to pass, because if you're too close, he doesn't have the energy to care about your passing line and the receiver, he only sees you and the ball, and when the ball is gone, he doesn't get anything. So, I'm going to tell you that the first rule of passing is that when the defender is three feet away from you, it's the best time for you to pass the ball. This is the time when the defender has the least reaction time. Leon said, walked over to the court, took a step toward the sideline, and put a basketball next to the foot that stepped out.

"The distance from the sideline to the basketball is three feet, and everybody is in pairs, stand on either side, and feel the three-foot distance." The three feet given by Leon were basically the same as those measured with a ruler. All the players felt the three-foot distance in pairs, and in the days of training, Leon would keep mentioning the three-foot distance, and he could judge the distance between the two with his eyes. The players will be very sensitive to this distance.

After wrapping up the three-foot estimate, Leon continued, "In addition to three feet, I asked Arenas to pass the ball in three seconds. When our passes are quick enough, there are fewer opportunities for the opposition to adjust to the defense, and I'm sure that's clear to everyone. So how do we improve the speed of passing, whether it is to improve our reaction speed, to improve our tacit understanding or to improve our passing skills? I'm sorry, but these are the basic subjects, things that we have been practicing since the first day of training. Today I'm going to emphasize distance, and that's my second rule, which is to never let your nearest teammate go more than 20 feet, or closer than 15 feet, in a half-court offense. This distance is the key to ensuring that you can get the ball out quickly and not make mistakes. ”

Listening to what Leon said, Dennis Rodman couldn't help but cover his mouth and snickered: "Isn't this a triangle attack." ”

Leon glanced at Rodman, as if he heard him, and said, "No, it's not a triangular attack, because we won't have a deployment line." ”