Leon and his Celtics didn't have much time to stay in Boston to savor the joy of their first victory, which was a crucial one. Fans and media may see that they will soon forget about this ordinary and ordinary regular season and focus on more exciting collisions that follow, but only Leon and his coaching staff understand how much it means to win a game in their own way for the whole team to move forward in the season.

Before the start of the season, Leon and his coaching staff formed a certain degree of agreement, and they exchanged views through a summer trip to Katading Mountain, clearing some differences of opinion before finally deciding to follow the blueprint Leon had given. Together, they will build a prototype of a team that focuses on fast offense, supplemented by superstar singles and high-intensity pressing defense.

This tactic is becoming more and more tough in the league's defense, and the teams are undoubtedly bucking the trend at a time when teams are frantically hoarding interior lines, and the Celtics have historically been known for their tough defense, and the light and small secondary fast-break strategy does not seem to match the Celtics' heavy traditions.

Therefore, the management, represented by Danny Angie, still hopes to introduce strong interior players as soon as possible, so that the team can be more balanced in attack and defense, and become a truly balanced team. However, Leon has refused to sell the potential of young defenders such as Joe Johnson, Arenas, and Reed in exchange for some strong forwards before they grow up. The support of the coaching staff, two Celtics veterans, Cowens and Sigfried, allowed Angie to contain his heart in the summer, and finally kept the young Celtics backcourt.

But the only thing that can really give Leon support is victory, a hard-core veteran like Cowens with an impulsive personality and iron-blooded Celtic blood in his veins, and he must also agree with some of Ange's ideas about Celtic construction in his heart. It's just that as an assistant coach, and out of appreciation for Leon, he is temporarily on Leon's side.

There is no shortage of wait-and-see factions like Cowens in the Celtics, including those who were once famous in the Greens, and once Leon's strategic and tactical thinking proves wrong, it will not bring victory to the Celtics. Then León will be greeted not only by criticism, but also by the risk of a quick downfall. In the past two years, such a drama has played out several times.

This shows how precious the victory over the Bulls was, and the morning after the game, Leon rarely fell asleep on the plane to Washington. In the past, Leon rarely slept on short-haul planes as an assistant coach, and he would find time to plan tactics and study opponents. But this time the relaxation after the tension made him not sleep enough.

The Celtics have had an easy start to the season, with three back-to-backs in the first 10 games, accounting for 60 percent of the total. After the first game, they will start a three-game journey. The night we flew to Washington, D.C., was a back-to-back game against the Wizards on the road. Then I went to New York and Chicago.

Leon had already scolded the league for scheduling the Celtics' schedule so tormenting when he received the schedule, but there was no way, the long regular season was a huge test for the coach and the team.

After arriving in Washington, Leon canceled the team's scheduled afternoon training session and asked the players to return to the hotel immediately to recuperate. And he himself watched a game of the Wizards vs. the Raptors in the room. In the opening game, the Wizards lost 68-74 on the road, losing an ugly iron battle. Michael Jordan, the one-time basketball god, deigned to be a substitute this season. In this game, he only scored eight points on 4-of-14 shooting, losing to the Carter-led Raptors, and the old Flyers looked very old in comparison with the new Flyers.

Of course, this is a topic that the media and fans care about, and Leon cares about the Wizards' layout in terms of tactics and rotation. In a big trade in the summer, the Pistons and Wizards swapped main players. The Wizards sent away Hamilton, who clashed with Jordan in the position, to get the 00-01 season scoring champion Stackhouse. Jordan was put on the bench and started with Kwame Brown, Leitner, Stackhouse, Larry Hughes and former Jazz titan Brian Russell.

The Wizards' strength on paper feels quite strong, with talent and experience on the inside, and a singles spot with strong firepower on the outside. A 3-and-D player with a tough defense and a three-point hand, a talented ball-handling and offensive two-way guard, and a former No. 1 player on the bench. Before the start of the season, the media and fans were also optimistic about this team, even the embarrassing loss in the first game did not make people give up hope.

Leon didn't think so, and after arriving at the hotel, he watched the game video in his room for more than two hours, and finally came to the conclusion that this was not a complete basketball team, and it was not so much the Washington Wizards as the Washington Wizards paired with Michael Jordan.

Jordan, the greatest star of all time, has a charisma and influence that is so great that it can annihilate a team. Leon could be seen from the first game against the Raptors that even if Jordan became the team's bench, he was often above the entire team. If it was ten years ago, it would have been no problem at all, he could beat a team by himself, but this year he is 40 years old, maybe he still has the heart of a superhero, but he no longer has the skills of a superhero.

So Leon knows that the Wizards' seemingly neat and powerful lineup on paper isn't really pinched into a whole, and if Jordan isn't Jordan and retains the ability he has now, maybe he can become a powerhouse in the East under the tutelage of Doug Collins, Jordan's early Bulls coach.

Of course, that doesn't mean Celtic will be able to beat their opponents easily, and Leon has no reason or confidence that it will be an easy one, so with three hours to go, Leon called all the coaching staff for a simple pre-game meeting.

'We're going to try to build a double-digit advantage in the first half before we can get through the second half.' Leon spoke to several assistant coaches at the coaching meeting to ask for their opinions.

The Wizards, like the Celtics, are back-to-back games, and they must be tired. The difference is that they are back at home, and the advantage of being at home is that they can get a better rest and get higher morale. The disadvantage is that it is easy to relax. Leon decided that he could not use the tactics of the last game that started with a quick secondary attack, which would be a huge physical drain on the whole team, and he decided to turn around and focus on the one-on-one offense of the stars in the first half, hoping that the touch of the twin stars could establish enough advantages for the Celtics, and then start to consume with the Wizards from the second half. Wait for the opponent to fill the pit until the end of the game, and be sure not to let the opponent fill the pit.

Leon's strategy was endorsed by the coaching staff, but strength and conditioning coach Hess did think that the Celtics team as a whole might be more physical than expected, while Dick Hart felt that if he didn't play the offensive feeling at first, it would be a big problem to be able to withstand the counterattack in the second half, and if the twins were not efficient in the first half. Then the Celts are likely to be greeted by a rout.

Leon knew that Hart's worries were justified, but when the overall strength was not strong enough, he could only use his strategy to play to his advantage and avoid the disadvantage.

……………………

At 7 o'clock Eastern time, at the MCI Center, the home of the Wizards, the Celtics in traditional green jerseys challenged the Washington Wizards, and Michael Jordan was still able to get the cheers of the mountains and tsunamis at the MCI Center after a year of return. Leon watched the former basketball god in the dark, but he could faintly feel that the divine light on him was no longer so dazzling.

The game started on time. Compared to the first game, Leon's slightly nervous state calmed down early. He began to sit quietly on the sidelines and watch the game unfold.

The Celtics focused on Walker and Paul Pierce as soon as they opened the game, and the Celtics, who were successful in the first offensive jump shot in the opening game, handed over the attack to Pierce, who was in the low post, but Pierce's turnaround and jumper missed, and Brian Russell's experienced defense gave Pierce enough interference.

It didn't bode well for that, and sure enough, the Celtic offense was followed by a back-to-back miss. Pierce shot 1-of-3 and Walker made 1-of-4, and neither star seemed to find an offensive touch. Fortunately, their defense was hard enough, and the Wizards didn't have much of an offensive score, and the two sides were locked in a low-scoring stalemate.

The turning point came in the middle of the first section. Leon's substitution, he replaced the average Paul Pierce, replaced Joe Johnson, and the Wizards also replaced Michael Jordan, and the situation changed all of a sudden. In the first half, he continued to demand that the team finish the attack in a simpler way and avoid possible mistakes due to too many passes, and Joe Johnson was so successful in this tactic that he began to use the individual skills he improved in the summer to keep scoring. Of course, this situation only lasted about four or five rounds, and when Jordan started to defend Joe Johnson, Johnson, who was still quite young, quickly lost his skills.

However, Walker relented and began to take small steps to keep attacking the basket, and if the Wizards' starting lineup was weak defensively, it was Leitner, and the white power forward undoubtedly couldn't stare at the drunken footsteps of the fat head. The Wizards, who lacked an effective defensive strategy as a whole, were beaten by the Celtics all the way and fell behind by 11 points in the first half.

In the second half, the Wizards began to chase points, Stackhouse's attack was amazing, but his mistakes were equally amazing, thanks to Leon's "Hawkeye off-ball training", the Celtics' ability to catch mistakes and push counterattacks was quite strong, and the speed of cooperation was shocking. Last season, the Celtics were a team that relied heavily on individual players in the fast break, and this season it seems that they have suddenly become the Lakers of the show-time period, but they don't have a magic on the court.

The game moved more and more in the direction of Leon's prediction, and in the final timeout of the fourth quarter, Leon used one last defensive timeout, and with five seconds to play, the Celtics led the Wizards by two points. Leon bet that the Wizards' final shot would go to Michael Jordan anyway, and he boldly decided to make a three-man wrap for Jordan, setting up a triangular defensive trap near the right side of the free-throw line for Michael Reed to guide Jordan into the trap.

When Jordan broke through from the right side with the ball and then prepared a pull-up jump shot near the free throw line, only to be caught by three people suddenly coming forward to pinch him, Jordan paused and then forced the jumper. Maybe he could have thrown the ball in this situation and dragged the game into overtime, but this time it was the crisp "clang" sound of the basketball smashing on the front of the basket.

At 95:93, the Celtics won a tough win over the Washington Wizards on the road, making it two straight wins to start the season, while Jordan's Wizards swallowed the bitter fruit of two consecutive defeats.

Jordan's era is really long over. (To be continued.) )