"We have to slow down and find our own rhythm! Keep the offense that worked in the first quarter and don't be distracted by the Celtics' speed! Jay, you have to learn to control the game, control the game, it's different here than the NCAA, we're going to play faster, but not to run around, you know what I mean, get a good grasp of the game. At halftime, Bulls head coach Bill Cartwright kept stressing to the players to get back to their rhythm and wanted the team's point guard, Jay Williams, to control the team's offensive pace.

From the second quarter onwards, the Bulls were unconsciously driven faster and faster by the Celtics, and the efficient positional offense that Cartwright wanted to see only lasted seven or eight rounds in the first quarter, and then their offense and defense were disrupted by the Celtics' speed. The reason why they have kept the score close and even leading is mainly relying on offensive rebounds from the inside. By the end of the second quarter, when they couldn't guarantee rebounds, they were overtaken all of a sudden.

In the last three minutes of the second quarter, they were hit by the Celtics with an 11-2 shockwave, from a one-point lead to an eight-point deficit, and they had hoped to maintain a slight lead at the end of the first half, but in the second half, Cartwright, who relied on a more steady attack to break down the Celtics, had to face the need to catch up in the second half.

Cartwright succeeded Bill Berry as the Bulls' interim head coach last year and slowly got on track with the devastated Bulls, finishing the '01-02 season with an acceptable result. Cartwright has more ideas for the team this season, and as the main center of the Bulls' first dynasty that year, he was also deeply influenced by Phil Jackson and the triangle offense. In the case that the team has two potential interior lines, Curry and Chandler, he hopes to create a positional war machine with interior offense as the core, supplemented by a triangle offensive routine, Curry is the main offense, and Chandler is the main defense and strategy, which is a perfect match in his opinion.

For the first game of the season. Cartwright has also done a lot of preparation, according to the Celtics preseason video, he believes that the Celtics' fast, no interior defense style of play, the Bulls will not be too difficult to crack, the only problem he needs to face is the hot state of the twin stars of Antoine Walker and Paul Pearce, many teams in the East fell under the strong attack of the twin stars last year.

As for Fox Leon, a rookie coach, Cartwright hasn't paid much attention to it, although he is also a rookie coach himself, but after all, he has been in the NBA for more than ten years as a player. He has won many championships as the main center on the best team in the league, and he still has that confidence. Judging from the information of all parties, this Leon is an out-and-out rookie coach, even if he is well-known in the scouting world, but scouts and coaches are very different jobs, and many people think that the Celtics let Leon become the head coach is just a compromise, a compromise with Auerbach.

Some of Leon's performances in the first half seemed to confirm the perception of many, with Leon calling very few timeouts and not coaching his players on the sidelines. Instead, he always bows his head and writes something on a small piece of paper, which is completely the professional habit of a scout or assistant coach. Although Cartwright didn't notice this detail, as the head coach of the Bulls, he also felt that this guy named Leon didn't seem to have a high sense of existence. Unlike other managers who like to shout from the sidelines, putting pressure on the referee and players on both sides. There are similar coaches in the league, such as Zen master Jackson, but Cartwright doesn't think Leon has that level of immobility, maybe he's nervous and doesn't know what to do.

But there was an intermission. Sitting in the locker room and recalling the whole process of the first half, Cartwright felt that this guy named Fox Leon was there. The moves from beginning to end are like a raging sword, although each time it only cuts a small hole in the bull's body, but when there are more and more openings, the bull loses more and more blood, until a certain critical point, the bull will fall down.

Cartwright feels lucky and experienced, aware of the tactics of the opposing manager, and he feels that he has found a way to crack it. Throughout the first half, Walker was the Celtic who scored the most, but the player who really played the best was Gilbert Arenas. The second-year point guard's performance in the first half made it feel like he was a player who had only entered his second season in the league, and his timing and distribution made people feel like a veteran who had been in the league for a decade.

So Cartwright decided to put the center of defense on Arenas in the second half, and he adjusted the defensive alignment, allowing Hassel, who had a better defense, to play against Arenas, freeing up Jay Williams' energy on the offensive end, allowing him to spend more time on sorting out the team's offense and reducing the pace of the game. Although Jay is also young and just a rookie, Cartwright is still full of hope and trust in the All-American Player, and Williams played quite well in the first half.

"Come on, boys! Get back what we lost in the first half! Cartwright encouraged his players at the end of the break that the second half of the game awaited them.

……………………

"I think the key player for the Celtics in the first half was Arenas, and he was really good at distributing the ball, nothing particularly amazing or brilliant, but only someone like me who has been a point guard in the league for many years and has been in the Finals knows that he handled the ball really well. I don't know what kind of training he did this summer, but I remember he was a stunned kid who only made a quick breakout and pull-up jump shot last season, and of course he broke through very, very quickly. Kenny Smith commented on the Celtics' performance in the first half before the start of the second half, and there is no doubt that Arenas' brilliant performance of 9 points, 6 assists and 2 steals has become the focus of the commentators.

In fact, only Arenas knew in his heart that his performance in the first half was entirely the result of Leon's passing rules and the quick reaction awareness brought about by the "Hawkeye off-ball training". Leon categorized the handling of the ball on the court into several types, giving Arenas the safest choices he could make in each situation, and asked him to keep these choices in mind and practice them over and over again in off-ball training. So Arenas didn't need to use his brain in the first half to play with his little passing creativity, everything just followed the route Leon was given.

This kind of routine does not last the whole game, once the opponent defends the target, everything is over, but how can Leon be stupid enough to use only this move?

The second half of the game has begun, the ball of the Celtics, Arenas once again held the ball quickly across the half, this time Hassell began to defend Arenas one-on-one from the circle, his hand has touched Arenas, with the help of hand-check, Hassell will master Arenas' every move.

But he didn't call for a block like in the first half, Arenas handed the ball to Paul Pierce who came to pick up, Pierce took the ball at the top of the arc, facing Jalen Rose, he just received the ball, and before his body turned around, he used his peripheral vision to see that Rose's position was not too good, so at the moment of receiving the ball and turning around, Paul Pierce suddenly accelerated to break through the middle, and then before the opponent came up to help the defense, he used his shoulder to push Rose who came up, and made a sideways half-backward jump shot.

"Bang!" The ball smashed into the inside of the basket and bounced into the basket!

Seeing this goal, Cartwright, who was sitting on the sidelines, couldn't help but feel nervous, thinking that the Celtics were going to change the focus of the attack in the second half? Thinking of this, Cartwright suddenly panicked, the defensive strategy that the midfield had just arranged, why did Pierce forget this? Even if he only scored 6 points in the first half, he is still the core player of the Celtics' offense.

Cartwright calmed down and watched the game unfold.

But when Paul Pearce scored six straight points in the third quarter and hit three mid-range shots, Cartwright knew he had to call a timeout! Three offenses, the Celtics played all positional battles, all Pierce singles, and the skinny Jalen Rose was completely inadequate in front of Pierce. This year, Pierce is stronger, his back, footwork and shooting are more skillful, and he is more experienced.

In the summer, Pierce was as low-key as the Celtics, he quietly completed a contract extension with the Celtics, and got a contract with a deserved maximum salary, although subject to the reduction in the contract amount due to the decline in the salary cap this year, but Pierce did not complain, did not hesitate to complete the signing of the contract cleanly, and did not get involved in any free agent rumors.

This low profile allowed Pierce to focus more on improving his personal abilities, and the brink of life and death two years ago taught him to cherish and focus, and compared to Antoine Walker's wanderings, Pierce has completed a higher spiritual evolution, but no one can see it, after all, the season has just begun.

Cartwright called a 20-second timeout, and the gap between the two sides was widening, and the crowd was already cheering for "MVP" and many fans holding up "The-truth" nameplates.

Leon is not a person who likes to be rambling at the timeout, he always believes that the key to determining the outcome of a game is the preparation and training before the game.

"Everyone's done a good job, it's still the same sentence, concentrate, I'll keep an eye on you, if you don't concentrate, I'll make you suffer in training. Also, remember to give the ball to Paul...... Paul, let them understand what the truth is. It was perhaps the most irresponsible moratorium in history, but Leon knew it would work. (To be continued.) )