Min Congda has tried his best to be meticulous, serious, and deliberate in the process of interviewing Mike Malone.

But it is very difficult for people to change their character, so it is difficult to change their destiny.

Impulsiveness and assumption are the biggest weaknesses in Min Congda's human nature.

No matter how carefully thought about it beforehand, no matter how profound the lessons of the past, in the face of momentary impulses and unrealistic fantasies in the mind, they will always disappear completely.

After a lunch at noon and a brief exchange in the afternoon, Min Congda was sure that Mike Malone was the kind of assistant coach he needed.

The second generation of coaches, who has worked in the circle for a long time, is proficient in basic business, has no talent, and can only earn a little hard work by working hard.

And Min Congda is very confident that in a team like the Clippers, raising him for half a season, he will definitely be successfully assimilated by the atmosphere here.

With a high salary, just eat well and wait for bankruptcy, with a salary of millions, what is the hard work every day.

In this way, Mike Malone became Steve Kerr's successor, and the Clippers and Cavaliers, the two Finals opponents, completed the coach swap.

This exchange, looking at the history of the NBA, is also quite explosive, and no one understands what kind of operation this is.

But as it turned out, it was a win-win swap.

Kerr's build on the Clippers has been largely successful.

With his ambitions, it was only a matter of time before he left.

Staying with the Clippers is just a brush of honor, and his dream of becoming a head coach is unattainable.

The Cavaliers do need an offensive coach to further develop the team's potential.

Due to the salary space, it is difficult for the Cavaliers to continue to make reinforcements.

Besides, it's already such a good lineup and it's still being strengthened, so I can't talk about it.

Kerr's arrival introduced new tactical and strategic thinking, and the Cavaliers continued to remain very competitive in the East against the Galactic Battleship Heat.

As for Mike Malone, his assistant coaching career has also reached a plateau.

At the Knights, he had learned everything he could, and there was no room for improvement.

Leaving the Cavaliers and embarking on the path to becoming a head coach is a must-take step for Mike Malone.

Now it's just a little bit ahead, it's all in his plan.

For the Clippers, Malone's arrival is also significant.

That's that they really need a good defensive coach.

On the third day after signing his contract with the Clippers, Mike Malone left early in the morning.

The Clippers ended their game in Salt Lake City last night with a comfortable win over the Utah Jazz on the road.

With a team like the Jazz in the process of rebuilding, it would be easy for the Clippers to win.

However, the score of this game was 112:104, and a relatively poor team like the Jazz scored 104 points on the head of the Clippers.

That's not good news for the Clippers.

Because the Clippers were about to play a home game soon, Tyronn Lue gave the players a day off when he returned to Los Angeles.

During the day on the 29th, only the Clippers' coaching staff and scouting team came to the training center in the morning to meet with Mike Malone for a coaching meeting.

Malone is still a little nervous in his heart, the two teams were still opponents in the finals last season, and the coaching staff intrigued with each other to study each other's weaknesses.

Just a few months later, Mike Malone is going to help the Clippers work on tactics in turn.

The assistant coaches are familiar with each other, so they don't need to introduce themselves, and sit in the office to discuss them.

Kim Hughes first briefly analyzed the current situation of the Clippers.

The team has had a number of injury issues lately, with Randolph suffering a recurrent knee injury on the inside.

This has had a big impact on the Clippers' interior and offense, and Fat Lan's role on the team is unquestionable.

Then there's Curry's ankle injury, which has been treated well by previous surgeries, but he still has some habitual sprains in recent games, and the team takes this very seriously, and while actively treating it, he has made him give up certain games.

Curry and Randolph are the two sharpest knives on the Clippers lineup.

If they are affected by injuries, the team's attack will be greatly reduced.

As for tactics, Kim Hughes gave another set of data about the team's shooting percentage, 100-round scores, interior scores, and offensive efficiency.

The Clippers' offensive stats have slipped in the last 10 games, with injuries being one of the reasons, and the bigger problem is that teams are increasingly targeting the Clippers.

But as long as the champion team is the champion, the opponent will definitely give it his all and be well prepared.

In particular, some young teams take pride in beating the champions or playing well in the game.

The Clippers are not only champions, but they also have this year's champion show on the team.

Therefore, every time the Clippers play, they will be strongly blocked by their opponents.

29 teams, 29 coaching staff, hundreds of pairs of eyes staring at you every day to study you, and if you see a little loophole, you have to catch up and bite.

The NBA court is a jungle society, it is a group of lions on the prairie, there is no lion king who does not rely on biting the previous generation of lion kings to the throne, and there is hardly any lion king who can stand until the end without being bitten to death by the next generation - Michael Jordan and his bulls are an exception.

The Clippers are the new lion kings, and other lions are eyeing each other, rushing up and biting at the slightest weakness.

Of course, the Clippers are still young and can still repel most of the attacks even if they have a slight glitch.

But it's certainly not going to work without defense.

When you didn't become the lion king, you were staring at others, sneaking up on attack.

If you become the lion king, you will become the target of everyone, and you can't just counterattack and attack, you must be able to defend.

'We had some problems defensively, but I think it was the attack that was not good and it was being dragged down. When Randolph is not there and Curry is injured, we need to develop more tactical routines..."

Lao Kim expressed his opinion, and the other assistant coaches agreed.

Tyronn Lue clasped his hands on his chest and pretended to be deep and did not speak.

It's not that he doesn't want to talk, it's that he doesn't have many ideas in his head.

How to design a few tactics?

By the way, there is Mike Malone, why not ask Malone.

This guy has been an assistant coach for more than a decade, and there is something about it.

So Tyronn Lue asked, "Mike, what do you think?" ”

Ma Long is holding a notebook in his hand, and Lao Jin's data is still very important.

The use of big data in the NBA is becoming more and more frequent and common.

Coaches can no longer rely on intuition and experience alone to make strategic adjustments, data is important.

However, Malone is new to the city and is not familiar enough with everything.

Instead of answering Tyronn Lue's question, he rhetorically asked, "Well, can I understand what the Clippers are thinking about when they are developing their tactics?" ”

To thoroughly understand a team's tactical strategy, you must first understand their core thinking.

In this day and age, tactics are common, and everyone has all the information.

What Triangle Offense, Princeton, Hawks Offense...... As long as you want to learn, there will definitely be materials for you to learn.

Tactics are not martial arts cheats, there are tactics that no one else can do.

The key is the combination of tactics and execution.

Execution depends on the ability of the players.

And the combination depends on the core idea of the team.

For example, on the offensive end, if you take the idea of fast attack, then you may use a combination of V-shaped attacks, some counterattack routines that open up space, or high-position blocking and dismantling tactics.

Correspondingly, the fast offensive line will not be enough to protect the backcourt rebounds, because forwards and guards must quickly put in counterattacks.

So it's a good interior rebounder to provide plenty of ammo.

It's still just an offense.

In short, a core idea will affect all aspects of the team's offense and defense.

The head coach is to establish the core idea according to the characteristics of the players, the version of the situation, and their own understanding and wisdom, and then combine to build a tactical system.

Since Malone has come to the Clippers, if he wants to participate in the discussion, he must first understand the tactical ideas.

Faced with this question, Tyronn Lue replied: "The core idea of our team has always been that everyone has the ball. ”

When Malone heard this answer, he thought Tyronn Lue was joking, everyone has a ball? What is this line of thinking?

Is this the idea of basketball? It's a political idea, right?

"Don't kid Tyron, I'm serious."

"I'm really serious, the core idea of the Clippers is that everyone has a ball."

Ma Long couldn't react for a while, and was stunned for several seconds.

He thought for a moment and said, "Uh, how can everyone have a ball?" ”

"To put it simply, the Clippers don't have a real core player, or rather, everybody is the core."

"That is, team basketball?"

"Uh... It's not simple team basketball either. It's everybody who has the ball to play, including the players on the bench. As you should know, we have been on the bench for quite a long time. ”

Mike Malone certainly knows that.

In his understanding, the Clippers are taking the team route, and at the same time, the Clippers have many young talents and strong bench strength, so this is so.

I didn't expect it after playing, because the core idea of the Clippers is "everyone has a ball to play", and I have never heard of such a team building concept in my life.

"Who came up with this?" Malone asked curiously.

"Mr. Smart, of course, has been championing this team building philosophy since he joined the Clippers in '09. Of course, we never hyped it up......"

Malone has seen that the Clippers are really a wonderful team.

After understanding this, Ma Long calmed down his emotions and thought about the question just now.

He replied: "Mr. Smart asked me a similar question during the interview before. I always had the idea in my mind that the Clippers needed to build a more solid and efficient defensive system. ”

"Of course, I know the Clippers aren't bad defensively, and the team is very resilient defensively. And the defensive talent of a couple of guys up front is good. But you guys... No, it's because our system is still incomplete. Once some players are absent, the team's defense will suffer. A good defensive system is very solid, and it is the best weapon to deal with the long and fierce battles of the regular season. ”

Mike Malone's words were unanimously agreed by everyone.

In fact, Tyronn Lue and others have similar thoughts, but they are not masters of defensive system construction.

Mike Malone has been an assistant coach for many years in the East, and the Eastern team has always been good at defending, and the Cavaliers were also a heavy team that took the defensive route at the beginning.

And Mike Malone's father, Brandon Malone, is an expert in defense, and the head coaches he assisted, Chuck Daley, Jeff Van Gundy, are all top defensive masters who started the sect in the 90s.

It was their contribution in the 90s that made the NBA gradually enter the era of offense and defense from the 80s to the era of offense and defense.

Mike Malone has been in the thick of his father and Mike Brown, and of course knows how to build a defensive framework.

Seeing that everyone had no opinions, Malone continued to express his opinion, saying: "The Clippers actually have very good defensive resources, and I'm studying you... Oh, I should say, when I was with the Cavaliers and studied you, I thought the Clippers probably had the best defensive resources in the league. The biggest flaw, the guard line, is indeed a big problem, Curry and Harden are not high-quality defensive resources. I think a less mature suggestion would be to put Harden back on the bench that he knows and make him the sixth man like Ginobili. ”

Malone's idea intrigued Tyronn Lue and said, "You go on, what else do you think?" ”

Malone continued: "In fact, the Clippers' starting lineup, the offensive ability is a little overflowing, and the bench is actually a little lacking in firepower because of the departure of Jamie Lin. James Harden is versatile and imaginative on the offensive end, and he can carry the offensive burden of the whole team by himself. Putting him and Curry on the court at the same time is a waste of resources. I think Leonard or Jimmy Butler, one of them, should be mentioned as a starter, and Paul George should be combined to better control the opposing team's backcourt offense. Harden, as the team's sixth man, is leading the second team's offense, I don't know how? ”

I have to say, Mike Malone really has ideas.

The combination of Curry + Harden is indeed powerful.

Especially in the '11 playoffs, two sophomores played the Spurs howl.

But as the two continue to grow, there is only one ball on the court after all.

When the ceiling is only 100 points, it is a pity that two 80 points on the court will each sacrifice the ability to score 30 points.

It's just that according to Steve Kerr's idea, Harden and Curry are on the court at the same time, and they can maximize the Clippers' spatial-pass-cut play.

And Mike Malone let Harden go to the bench, which will weaken the firepower of the starters to a certain extent, but make the offense, defense and deployment of the whole team more balanced.

After unanimous deliberation, everyone quickly came to the conclusion: this is a good suggestion!

Advice is good advice, but how do you implement it?

Mike Malone asked with some concern, "Is he willing to let James Harden play the sixth man?" ”

For NBA players, starting is not only a matter of style of play, but also a matter of honor and status.

It is impossible for most famous stars to agree to be demoted from starter to substitute, especially if their ability has not declined, and they must occupy a starting position.

Like Ginobili, starters, substitutes, starters, where they need to go, there are very few black American stars, and generally only European and South American players are willing, they don't care.

Tyronn Lue doesn't have much idea about tactical building, but he is confident in political ideological work, which is his forte.

He packed the ticket and said: "Don't worry, no problem, Harden will play the sixth man in the next game." Oh yes, specific defensive system and drills, Mike, you work hard. ”

Mike Malone nodded, feeling comfortable, it seems that the Clippers' coaching staff is in a good atmosphere, and everyone is friendly.

Since I have such a big contract and so much money, I have to work hard!

(End of chapter)