Bowler has not been particularly conspicuous among the Celtics' rookie players in the last two years, and he doesn't have the arrogance of Arenas' rapid rise, the steady progress of Reed's step-by-step progress, and the comprehensiveness of Joe Johnson's multiple developments. He doesn't even have the ubiquitous passion of Chris Anderson, who has become a consistent interior bench for the Celtics since the start of the season, and his frenzied energy on the court is often reminiscent of Dennis Rodman in the previous two years, and more and more tattoos on his body are filling the tattoo void left by Rodman's departure.

Potter Dareham is just a tall Haitian center who lacks enough strength, his hardware is quite perfect, but the software is still lacking. This is the difference between an inside player and an outside player, a good outside attacker can often get a significant improvement in a short period of time, and this improvement will be reflected in the performance and average data per game; In addition to those talented super newcomers, many big men have to go through a long period of suffering, sitting on the bench, persevering in training and learning, in order to sharpen their edge one day.

Bowler has spent most of his time on the bench since coming to the Celtics, and he was able to occasionally get more playing opportunities and play well last season, but his lack of single function and experience makes him more prone to foul trouble. In the NCAA, he has a very high defensive efficiency, but in the NBA, he is a little confused by the taller, faster outside attacker and more powerful interior player

Over the summer, Durham Porter struggled to gain 15 pounds. The sweat in the gym made him look more muscular and muscular, but Leon as head coach after the start of the season gave more opportunities to Tony Barty, a center/power forward duo with enough offensive skills. His threat from mid-range is clearly more complemented by the Celtics' quick, agile attacking style.

However, in Game 5 against the Lakers, Leon unexpectedly promoted Durham Porter to the starting center position to deal with the Los Angeles people without Shaquille O'Neal.

………………

Arnold Auerbach was once again in the audience at the North Shore Garden Arena, wearing sunglasses and holding a black cane, and people couldn't see his expression, but the cardinal looked even older. A full retirement from the Celtics didn't make Auerbach look healthier or more energetic. On the contrary, idleness after leisure will make every old man look a little dull and sluggish, and Auerbach, who was once dominant, is no exception.

Before the start of the game, Leon walked over to Auerbach's seat. The old man stood up from his position, slid his cane, and beckoned to Leon, who stepped forward. Just hear Auerbach say, "Give the Lakers some color." Let them know that they can no longer do whatever they want here. After saying that, Auerbach sat back, his voice was not loud, but Leon, who had sharp ears, could hear it.

After entering the new century, Auerbach watched the Lakers, the Celtics' once biggest rival, complete the great three-game championship hegemony, but his team was still struggling in the quagmire, and the complexity of his heart can be imagined. Last season, the Celtics defeated the Lakers twice at home and away, but unfortunately failed to reach the Finals and reproduced the grand occasion of the yellow-green hegemony. Now, Auerbach has put all his hopes on Fox Leon. Celtic have won all of their last four games, but he hasn't watched any of them. This one will be Leon's debut in front of Auerbach.

The large square screen at the scene showed the scene where Auerbach and Leon were talking just now. Although the fans didn't know what the two said, such a scene symbolized the transmission of the mission of the characters of the two eras, applause and cheers began to sound, Leon had turned around and walked back to his team's bench, but the warm scene that burst into the scene made the atmosphere reach a high point for a while.

On the other side, the Lakers' players looked quite calm, wearing purple jerseys, all of them expressionless, with the composure that a three-time champion should have. O'Neal's absence has seen the Lakers lose three of their last five games, with the last game being a humiliating defeat in Cleveland, but Phil Jackson still looked easy, he didn't change the team's starting lineup, and continued to use the small lineup of Samaki Walker, Devin George, Kobe, Fisher and Robert Horry, with the 6-foot-9 Samagki Walker playing at center and Horry appearing on the court as a power forward.

The only thing the Celtics have changed is the center position, with Durham Porter starting in place of Barty and the others being Walker, Pierce, Reed and Arenas, as always.

"Increase the fight for rebounds in the frontcourt and don't miss any opportunity." Before going on the pitch, Leon grabbed Durham Potter and commanded. In previous games, Leon has always asked players to give up frontcourt rebounds and return to defense quickly. In the absence of a strong frontcourt rebounder, Leon chose to strategically give up frontcourt rebounds and use all members of the fast defense to prevent falling into the bad trap of "missing the quick counterattack and being hit by the opponent and quick counterattack".

However, this strategy does not work for all opponents, such as the Lakers tonight, Leon has noticed the Lakers' recent weaknesses, and without O'Neal, backcourt rebounding protection will be an issue.

The game officially started at 7 p.m. Eastern time, Damham Porter stood in the center circle and Samaki Walker jumped the ball, after the Lakers did not have O'Neal, the 6-foot-11 tall Damham Porter became the biggest player on the court for a while, but he looked a little nervous, in the jump ball he actually dialed the ball to the side of the Lakers player, Kobe Bryant got the ball, and the first offense was given to the Lakers.

Dareham Potter looked at Leon with some nervousness, and Leon motioned for him to hurry up and defend, and not to care about these unimportant details.

The Lakers' offensive model is different from other teams, and the passing of the triangle offense often feels meaningless, because unless the superstar on the interior is caught and passes, the Lakers' transmission tends to rarely pass open positions, and it is always the players who dribble or launch their own offense behind their backs to complete the finish. Only after a deep understanding of this tactical concept will you know that the ultimate goal of the triangle attack is never to create open easy-balls, but to allow players to find gaps to attack on their own, especially when superstars can get one-on-one singles.

But now the Lakers only have one superstar, Kobe.

The left side of the Lakers formed an offensive triangle, Fisher, Samaki-Walker and Kobe, Samaki-Walker was in the low post, Fisher passed the ball to Walker, Kobe Bryant began to try to get rid of it on the baseline, he pretended to go inside from the baseline, and wanted Reid to come over to block and then turn outside, but Reid was not fooled at all, but left the baseline empty for Kobe to go with him. Because Reed knows that the players who stand in the bottom corner of the triangle attack will not slip the bottom line casually, which will affect the formation of the triangle formation.

Sure enough, after getting rid of the invalid, Samaki Walker could only try to single Durham Potter. Dilhampo may be lacking in particular, but the ability to defend one-on-one is still there, Walker is not O'Neal, his strong attempt ended in the ball smashed on the edge of the basket, Antoine Walker got the backcourt rebound, and quickly passed the ball to Arenas to launch a quick counterattack.

However, the Lakers' retreat speed is extremely fast, which is the quality of a championship team, Kobe Bryant has become the arrow figure in the retreat, he has just been targeted by Reed, he has chased Arenas and started to bite, and he does not easily give Arenas a chance to play.

Arenas is not a master passer, his passing lines were pointed to by Leon and practiced repeatedly in training, and once he was defended one-on-one, his vision and concentration began to suffer. Apparently this was Jackson's strategy, slamming Arenas at the beginning and not giving the Celtics a chance to push back quickly in the opening game. Kobe Bryant's defensive ability is something Arenas has not experienced and encountered in the previous games, and that kind of crazy tenacity and unshaken close follow-up have not given Arenas a chance to play quickly at all.

The Celtics fell into the positional offense, Paul Pierce received the ball at the top of the arc, and in the face of Devin George, he tried a breakaway and then made a pull-up jumper, the ball also missed, Delham Porter rushed to the inside to grab the frontcourt rebound, but he was firmly stuck by the Lakers players, Fisher got this backcourt rebound, and the offense and defense switched.

Obviously, frontcourt rebounds are not so easy to grab, and seeing Durham Porter trying the court but getting nothing, Phil Jackson, who was sitting on the bench with a smile, couldn't help but sneer in his heart. When he saw Leon change his starting lineup and replace him with a taller, younger Dyham Porter, he guessed that he wanted to grab more frontcourt rebounds on the Lakers' heads, but Jackson wasn't worried about that in the slightest.

"You should really take a good look at the first few Lakers games and see if we lost on rebounding." This is what Jackson wanted to say to Leon at this time. In the first five games, the Lakers lost more and won less, but they lost in rebounding in no game, on the contrary, they outrebounded their opponents in several games. Especially in the backcourt rebounding protection, the Lakers relied on contraction defense and collective rebounding, and did not leak too many frontcourt rebounds to the opponent, only against the Portland Trail Blazers they conceded 18 frontcourt rebounds, and no other opponent had more than 10 frontcourt rebounds.

Immediately, Kobe Bryant hit a three-point shot from the outside, a frontal ultra-long three-pointer, hollow into the net, 3:0, and the Lakers scored the first goal of the game.

"Defend! Protect our rebounds! After Bryant scored, Jackson got up from the bench and shouted at the players, who he rarely shouted at the beginning of the game. He didn't say this to the Lakers players, but more like to Leon, in Jackson's heart, Fox Leon still seemed too tender and his ideas were too simple.

And Leon stood on the sidelines without saying a word, no one knew what was going on in his mind, but one thing was for sure, he definitely watched the first five games of the Lakers. (To be continued.) )