On April 16, 2003, the last game of the NBA regular season was played in Seattle, and the SuperSonics defeated the Phoenix Suns 84-70 at the home key arena, which lasted nearly five months, a total of 2,378 games, and the long regular season finally came to an end.

The San Antonio Spurs won the regular season with a 60-22 record, taking all home-court advantage throughout the playoffs. A total of 16 playoff teams will have a more intense and brutal battle after a break of about 3 to 4 days. Starting this season, the first round of the NBA playoffs will also adopt a best-of-seven format, which will be a greater test of the team's physical fitness and energy.

While the media and fans alike are waiting for the playoffs to begin and the regular season awards are being debated, Fox Leon is leading his Celtics to intense training at Waltham's training gym. For Leon, he didn't care about the regular season awards, because basically the Celtics would not have a chance to win any awards, although Fox Leon once called for the NBA best head coach, but his "bad" behavior in the second half of the season, and the decision to take a rotation in the final game that caused the team to lose the first place in the East, erased him from the list of best coaches.

Leon wasn't interested in those awards either, and the players might need those accolades to get a stake for their next big contract, but for the coaches, the only way to prove they were to lead the team to victory, especially in the playoffs.

There are two days left before Leon's first playoff game, and on the first day of the regular season, Leon gave the whole team a holiday, and the next day, on the 18th, the whole team gathered in Waltham for the last comprehensive and systematic training session before the game. This time, Leon focused his training on fitness and defense, leaving it to Hess and Hart while he stood on the sidelines in silence.

Since Hess arrived this season, the Celtics' fitness level has been steadily rising, they have never dropped the chain at critical moments due to fitness problems, and their running and offensive rounds are among the best in the league. So Leon has a lot of trust in a physical training expert like Hess. Not to mention Hart, an absolutely trustworthy defensive guru who left all the details of the Celtics' defense to correct.

Leon himself was thinking about everything related to tomorrow's game. Yesterday, while the players were resting and relaxing, he pulled out all the video clips related to the Philadelphia 76ers, went through them all, and then relied on his extraordinary memory skills to store important things in his head. Now his eyes are on the Celtics as a team training, and his mind is on the Philadelphia 76ers and Celtics playing here.

Just as Leon was thinking, Dave Cowens walked up to Leon, handed a stat sheet to Leon in his hand, and said, "Hi Fox, this is the detailed statistics of the 76ers' last few games, which have been processed, you can take a look." “

Leon took this data table, this is not a simple player average statistics, but a combination of game situation and win and loss results, as well as historical statistics to obtain high-level data, this set of models is jointly constructed by Leon and Morey, which is quite complex. Leon will find some clues from these data, and then combine the video and experience to formulate the team's battle plan. "Fox, do you regret not taking Detroit in the last game and ending up facing the 76ers in the first round instead of the Magic?" Cowens asked Leon in a light-hearted tone.

If the Celtics finish first in the East, then their first round will be the matchup with the biggest record gap against the Orlando Magic, not the Philadelphia 76ers, who have the smallest record gap in the hard bones. For Celtic, the first round can be described as a semi-final-level matchup.

Leon knew that Cowens's words were not malicious, he was just afraid that he was too nervous. Although from the initial suspicion that Cowens was a spare tire that Angie put in to replace him, to later knowing that he was just a pawn on Auerbach's testing path, and now, after the hard work of acting head coach, Cowens has fully recognized Leon's coaching level, and the relationship between the two is becoming more and more seamless.

Although Cowens's coaching skills are average, he is more experienced, knows all aspects of joints, and is a second-generation veteran of the Celtics, who can speak anywhere, and is undoubtedly a very good work assistant. Leon knew what Cowens meant and said directly: "I know it's not looking like us right now, but I think it's a good thing, I think my players have learned how to win games in doubt. “

In the second half of the season, intentionally or unintentionally, the Celtics suffered a lot of negative press, and the players were under a lot of mental pressure. Taking this opportunity, Fox Leon condensed the will of the whole team and made the will quality of the whole team have been greatly improved, and many people are not aware of this. "I agree with you, but as a conservative old guy, I still think it's much safer to win the first place in the East." Cowens smiled and said, after nearly two months of ups and downs, Cowens could understand the meaning of Leon's words.

Leon looked at the statistics in his hand, while thinking about the difficulties that the Celts were going to experience, his heart moved, and he suddenly recited two lines of poetry: "Although it is hard to find thousands of waters, blowing all the wild sand to the golden ......" "What are you talking about?" Cowens asked, stunned. He knew that Leon spoke Chinese, and he didn't know why Leon was so good at Chinese, because he heard Wang Zhizhi say that Leon's Chinese level might be better than his English. "It's nothing, the playoffs, it's going to be when our gold shines!"

……………………

Two days flew by, and at 7:30 p.m. on April 20, the Boston Celtics ushered in their first game of the playoffs, playing at home against the Philadelphia 76ers.

In the playoffs yesterday, the Eastern Pacers defeated the visiting Hornets, the Nets beat the Milwaukee Bucks at home, and in the West, the Mavericks and Kings defeated the opponents Trail Blazers and Jazz respectively at home, while the Spurs, the league's No. 1 Spurs, unexpectedly lost to the Phoenix Suns in overtime at home. Marbury's magical three-point shot in the final moments gave the Suns, who are in eighth place, a glimmer of hope for the Black Eight.

Just before the start of the Boston Celtics and 76ers game, another game in the East was over, with the eighth-placed Orlando Magic also beating the Detroit Pistons on the road in their first game. Such a result made public opinion in an uproar for a while, and the top names in the East and West all fell in the first game of the first round of the playoffs, and had to let the media start hyping and the gimmick of the Black Eight.

As for this round of the series between the Celtics and the 76ers, the two old rivals in history are also favored by the Philadelphia 76ers, who do not have the advantage in the regular season.

Before the series began, ESPN conducted a netizen prediction poll and found that 63 percent believed that the 76ers would win the series, while the remaining 33 percent thought the Celtics would win, and the rest were neutrals.

But such predictions were unlikely to dampen the enthusiasm of Boston fans, and by seven o'clock the North Shore Garden Arena was already full, and by the time the game was about to begin, the excitement threatened to completely overturn the small arena.

Reporters from various TV stations on the scene were pulling microphone cables and cameras for pre-game interviews and commentary, and the staff were constantly preparing for the competition venue, the lights were flickering on and off, and the national anthem ceremony was also prepared.

When the national anthem is sung, the away players enter, and then the lights go out, and the dazzling home players appear one by one in the high-pitched introduction of the DJ. The Celtics started with a solid five, PJ Brown, Antoine Walker, Paul Pearce, Michael Reed and Gilbert Arenas.

When Fox Leon was introduced, the lights were lit up again, and the audience erupted in cheers and applause, and Leon has become the head coach of Boston's most popular sports team ever since he lit the cigar of victory in Los Angeles.

However, before the game, one of the reasons why many people are optimistic about the 76ers and low on the Celtics is that Fox Leon is completely incomparable to Larry Brown in terms of coaching experience.

Leon has also heard this kind of rhetoric, and he dismisses it, because the person who said it definitely has a bad impression of the Celtics at the beginning of the season, and they are completely unaware of the changes and progress that the Celtics are going through.

As the game was about to start, Leon gathered the players together in a circle, and he said to everyone in a low, hoarse voice: "Some people say we will die of toughness, so we have to tell them today what toughness is." Some people say we're going to die defending, so we're going to tell them today what defense is. Some people say that we will die of experience, then we have to tell them that we have the most championships in history by going to TM experience! “”Go-celtcis！“ Everyone yelled. (To be continued.) )