First in scoring

Chapter 480 478. Is this the confidence of a team ranked in the top ten in both offense and defense?
Carlisle and the coaches discussed until late at night but still couldn't make up their minds.

In fact, after having a direction, this group of coaches discussed more deeply than Zhang Yang, Nash and the members of the Big Boss Gang, and saw more problems.

Due to perspective, acumen, experience and other reasons, coaches sometimes cannot discover problems as quickly as players. This is one of the reasons why veterans with actual championship experience are popular. But they are professional coaches after all, and they look at problems more professionally and comprehensively.

But when it came time to discuss solutions, trouble arose.

Randy Brown is a tough guy, a businessman, very slippery, afraid of taking the blame, and basically doesn't offer any opinions.

England only focuses on player development, talking about who needs to improve in which aspects.

The advice Vincent offers focuses primarily on tactics themselves.

The old coach Paul Silas was active in offering suggestions, but although he was an excellent assistant coach with rich tactical reserves, even Carlisle felt inferior to him and often sought advice from him. However, he had been a coach since 80, 29 years had passed, and he had been the head coach for only 10 years. He was only a transitional coach and his ability to coach a team was indeed insufficient.

After discussing for half a night, Carlisle gained nothing and became even more troubled.

He noticed that even his good friend Vincent was very cautious about this matter.

Their biggest problem is that there are only 19 games left, and they are 5 wins ahead of the second place. Even if they do nothing, they can still secure the regular season top spot.

The others are assistant coaches, and they are all more willing to focus on the present. Winning the regular season championship will definitely be a highlight in their assistant coach resumes.

But as a head coach, he is considering not only this game, but his entire coaching tenure.

He was worried that they would make no progress in three years, just like the Suns did from the 04-05 to 06-07 seasons.

After the Suns started the run-and-gun storm in the 04-05 season, their peak performance in the regular season was the long winning streak around Christmas 2004. After that, the Suns made almost no significant progress for two and a half years.

Later, the team's strength continued to improve, but it was basically due to the improvement of the personal abilities and cooperation of the three core players Nash, Stoudemire and Marion, as well as the maturity of role players such as Barbosa and Raja Bell. The tactical system itself basically stagnated.

Now Carlisle thinks back, Steve Kerr's decision to trade Marion for O'Neal like a fool makes some sense. At the time, the general manager probably saw no hope of winning the championship, and the management and fans must have put tremendous pressure on him, so he made the deal in a panic.

The improvement in the Suns' system in the early and middle stages of last season that Nash mentioned was only felt by them themselves. Carlisle didn't see it, and he felt that the Suns' general manager certainly couldn't see it.

After the assistants left, Carlisle pondered for another hour until late at night.

He did think of some methods, but they all had their drawbacks, and the few remaining hair roots fell out again.

There is no way, when in doubt, just shake the old man!

Katu once again opened the phone book late at night and dialed one by one...

At 4 a.m., in a villa on the Capitol Forest Fourth Avenue Riverside area northeast of Temple Square on National Street in Salt Lake City, one of the wealthiest areas in Utah, a cell phone rang.

Sloan was awakened, picked up the phone on the bedside table, looked at the display of 'Rick', and suddenly felt that trouble was coming again... He wanted to turn off the phone!
But it wasn't possible. If the students he taught led a team that was a favorite to win the championship, he would be proud of it. If he could help, it would strengthen the connection between the students and his lineage.

He would also be embarrassed if the student team failed to win the championship because he did not help.

At about the same time last year, he was thinking - this student had been fired twice, and if he was fired again this time, it would be embarrassing for him as a teacher.

Sloan: Why the hell did I believe Bill Fitch's evil trick to make this guy an assistant coach?
...

On March 3, the Bobcats' second day off, Zhang Yang arrived at the Turkish Airlines Arena early for extra practice.

At 9 o'clock, the preparation meeting began, and Carlisle announced the start of the "deep adjustment in the second half", which was to modify Felton's slogan of "restarting the second half".

The word "restart" sounds too serious. "Deep adjustment" actually means the same thing, but it doesn't sound as intense. However, it can clearly tell the players that they need drastic adjustments now.

Then, Carlisle explained in detail the content of the "first phase of deep adjustment". In short, there are currently three goals.

First: Increase the roles of Felton and Millsap as tactical cores.

Second: Increase the execution of tactics around shooting by role players with special skills, such as tactics around Mike Miller who can run, shoot, and pass the ball to the wing, and team coordination tactics around Pietrus who has sharp cutting skills.

Regarding these two goals, Carlisle said: "Our main tactical coordination has been done very well. Before the playoffs, our focus is on the training of young players and the targeted strengthening of tactical connection points."

Third: Reduce Zhang Yang’s tactical role in regular time, further functionalize him, and transform him into a pure puzzle player like Kobe and Jordan.

He acted immediately after the meeting. Carlisle personally led the team and launched the adjusted training plan.

There were 4 training sessions in total, including two in the morning and four in the afternoon. Carlisle gave the players a wave of intensity today, allowing the concept of "deep adjustment" to take root in the players' hearts.

After a day of training, the Bobcats players were exhausted. Most of them shouted that they wanted to go have a drink to relax or go home to sleep. Most of them left as soon as the training ended.

The five members of the Boss Gang did not leave immediately, but instead gathered around a basketball hoop and chatted.

Hill sighed: "Instead of asking the players to take on more responsibilities, they were given more opportunities. This change in concept not only did not make the players feel pressured, but also increased their enthusiasm for taking on responsibilities. In today's training, everyone was very active in showing their abilities and wanted to get more opportunities to perform in the game... Rick is really amazing."

Okafor echoed, "Yes, but not only that, Rick's adjustment direction is also very clear. Whether it is letting Raymond and Paul take on more offensive tasks or expanding the options for finishing points, it can help reduce Jack's pressure. He has shot too much recently, so much that even he can't guarantee his scoring efficiency. The opponent can easily double-team him. Rick's 'deep adjustment' plan solves our two most difficult problems at the moment."

After Felton understood, he said proudly, "I told you, professional matters should be left to professionals, right, Jack?"

Zhang Yang smiled and said, "That's right, he is worthy of being our boss. Rick is the best coach in the new era. It's right to hand it over to him."

Katu, who was pretending to help pack up but was actually eavesdropping, couldn't suppress his smile: I'll talk to the teacher in detail about the follow-up plan of the deep adjustment tonight, and let the teacher check if there is anything missed.

Far away in Salt Lake City, Sloan: My precious hair has been lost again...A-choo, who is talking about me? Could it be that unlucky student again?
...

The next day, at 3:15 p.m. on March 7, the Hawks and Bobcats entered the Charlotte Turkish Airlines Arena one after another.

The Bobcats fans were particularly excited tonight, with boos and cheers being very loud.

They lost consecutively to the Suns and Rockets. This was their first losing streak this season, and they lost after 19 consecutive wins. You should know that even in the first month when their record was the worst, they had never suffered a losing streak!
Moreover, so far this season, among all the teams in the league, only two teams have not suffered three consecutive losses. One is the Lakers in the West, and the other is the Bobcats in the East. The fans don't want to fall behind.

The cheers and encouragement from the home fans are always inspiring. Zhang Yang is very excited at the moment, but he knows that this also means that he has the responsibility to make sure that the fans come to the stadium with hope, spend money to buy tickets to watch the game, and leave happily after the game.

He looked at the big screen, which showed the two teams' records, team statistics, key player statistics, and so on.

老鹰队目前打了64场比赛，战绩是40胜24负，反超39胜24负的公牛队来到东部第五，全明星周末后的12场比赛9胜3负，东部第二好，比骑士队、魔术队、公牛队的7胜4负都要好。

乔-约翰逊赛季至今打了55场比赛，场均18.6分4.4板3.2助攻1.4抢断；

皮尔斯和毕比都是全勤，前者场均18.1分6.3板4.5助攻1.7抢断，后者场均15.5分3.5板6助攻1.2抢断。

Horford, a sophomore, averaged 13 points, 9.1 rebounds, 3 assists, 0.8 steals and 1.4 blocks per game. His biggest highlight... he had the highest playing time on the team, averaging 37 minutes per game. He already looked like a core player in the interior, especially in the 12 games after the All-Star Weekend, in which he performed at an All-Star level.

The Hawks have a good chance of getting more than 50 wins, and the Bulls have a chance as well. If both teams can get 50 wins, there will be five 5-win teams in the Eastern Conference, which will set a new record in the 50st century!
Zhang Yang remembered that the last time more than three teams in the East won 3 games was in the 50-97 season. In the past 98 seasons, the East has mostly had two 10-win teams. The only time they have been able to have three stable teams was after the rise of the Bobcats. In the 50-3 season, only the Pistons won 02 games, and that was exactly 03. The players of the two teams did not communicate much before the game, and their eyes looking at each other were full of hostility.

In fact, there is no grudge between the two teams, but Bibby is aloof and cold, Joe Johnson is a taciturn person, and Horford stands low-key and steady behind the three big stars... Pierce is the face of the team.

Pierce can't stand everyone, and he is not as sinister as Turkoglu. He has a loose mouth and can criticize anyone no matter who he plays against. He offended all his opponents when he was on the Celtics, and he didn't get the FMVP that helped him turn around his reputation... When he came to the Hawks, he brought all the hostility of his opponents to the Hawks.

At 8 o'clock in the evening, the game began.

Okafor beats Pachulia to win the jump ball, and the Bobcats attack first!
Felton received the ball and just after passing the center circle, he encountered Bibby's melee defense.

Pierce and Horford also fought against the forwards on the wings.

This defense against Felton looks familiar...isn't it the same defensive style used by Lowry + Battier + Yi Jianlian the night before last?
The Hawks did not use Pierce, the best forward defender, to defend Zhang Yang. Instead, they used the relatively inferior Joe Johnson, obviously wanting him to pass the ball to Zhang Yang.

Some time ago, he really passed the ball, but now, the first thing he saw was Pierce and Horford's tendency to double-team Zhang Yang!

Woodson's defensive formation arrangement is not inferior to Thibodeau's! The four coaches who have been praised the most for defense this season are Mike Brown, Van Gundy, Thibodeau, and Woodson.

Felton protected the ball, carefully advanced to the top arc, broke through with the help of Okafor's screen, was blocked outside the elbow area, and passed the ball to Millsap.

Read the error-free version at 69shuba! 6=9+shu_ba is the first to publish this novel.

Millsap didn't have a good chance to receive the ball, and Pierce switched defense, but he didn't look for Zhang Yang first like before, but instead turned sideways and broke through Pierce!
When he got to the inside and was double-teamed by Pachulia, he had no good chance to pass the ball. Millsap chose to force his way through the confrontation and made a layup... but missed!
Horford grabs the defensive rebound!

The Bobcats' finishing choice was beyond the expectations of Hawks head coach Mike Woodson.

But he immediately guessed the other party's intention...

As soon as Joe Johnson reached the three-point line, he encountered Zhang Yang's melee defense!

Wu Tu: Hey, we haven't even started a physical fight with your Zhang San yet, but your Zhang San is fighting my Contemporary Jordan first?
Pierce and Horford, who followed closely into the three-point line, were also subjected to physical defense by Pietrus and Millsap.

Only Pachulia and Bibby were not involved in the melee. The former was unnecessary, and the latter was not effective in melee. Felton did not want to waste his energy on useless efforts.

The White Devil's muscles are so strong that the power freak Peter Pan and the muscle man Fish were ineffective in defending the White Devil in the Western Conference Finals. In 7 games, Bibby shot 44.5% and averaged 22.7 points per game, beating the two guards of the 96 class. Webber was not as good as Bibby in that series. If Peja, who averaged 21+ points in the regular season, had not shot an outrageous 30.4% and averaged only 6.7 points, the Kings might not have needed to play Game 6 with the Lakers.

Bibby played one-on-one against Felton, changed direction and broke through to the left, avoiding the direction of Zhang Yang, attracting Millsap's double-teaming, and passed the ball to Horford. Horford retreated to the baseline to receive the ball and took a mid-range shot... missed!
Zhang Yang in the middle got the defensive rebound, but was blocked by Bibby. Felton followed up and pushed forward, but was blocked by Pierce and failed to increase his speed. The Hawks successfully dragged the Bobcats into a positional battle.

Woodson breathed a sigh of relief, and then envied... When the team's offensive state is not good, they focus on defense, and let the role players who have been in a slump recently take the lead on offense! Is this the confidence of a super team with both offensive and defensive strengths in the top ten of the league?

In just one round, Woodson saw through Carlisle's intention.

Woodson's on-the-spot command ability is not good, but he is very well prepared. He is a typical Larry Brown-style coach. Popovich also had this style in the first 12 years of his head coaching career. Of course, Popovich's on-the-spot command ability is far stronger than Woodson's. The only very obvious shortcomings in on-the-spot command are his poor response to adverse situations and lack of tactics for key balls. He can only rely on Duncan and Ginobili. What this means is that the ability to prepare for a game is greater than the ability to command on the spot.

To have such preparation capabilities, strong analytical skills are a must. Woodson is just not good at quickly coming up with ways to develop targeted strategies.

Woodson wanted to replicate the Rockets' victory tonight. He made improvements on the Rockets' successful defense... Now it seems that he cannot achieve his ideal goal, and he can't think of adjusting his thinking, but he is not anxious about it.

Having already accepted his inability to command on the spot, he chose to simplify things in the face of such a situation - isn't it just a matter of defense? The Hawks are sixth and the Bobcats are seventh, so who is afraid of who!
Just leave the on-the-spot offensive response to Bibby!

It is a very good quality for a coach who is incompetent to have self-awareness. At least he will not hold capable players back...The Eagles have been proving this this season.

In the following time, the two teams started the defensive fighting mode.

On the Hawks side, Bibby, Pierce and Horford led the offense, and Woodson directed the defense; on the Bobcats side, Zhang Yang, Okafor, Perkins and Hill who came off the bench led the defense, and Carlisle directed the team's offensive adjustments.

After the first quarter, the Hawks led the Bobcats by 21 points with 18 to 3!
Woodson's confidence is not without reason. Among the top seven defensive teams, except for the Cavaliers who are leading by a large margin, the defensive strength of the other six teams is roughly the same.

The Bobcats forced a team offense when the role players were in poor condition, increasing the number of shots of players other than the three young players, and the offensive efficiency was very low.

But Carlisle chose to persist!
Ever since the back-to-back game with the Magic, their offensive efficiency has been declining. The best way to adjust is to insist on coordination no matter how the offense goes.

But we were on a winning streak at that time, and couldn’t hold on. Our teammates subconsciously passed the ball to Zhang Yang…

Now, with the team suffering two consecutive defeats, Carlisle wants to seize this opportunity to make adjustments and he doesn't want to wait.

Zhang Yang also chose to support Carlisle and handed the game over to his teammates. In the starting phase, he mainly used the dual-core tactics of Felton and Millsap, and the rotation lineup mainly used the double-core tactics of Brad Miller and Mike Miller.

He only had two regular singles in the first quarter, and twice when his teammates had no chances he took the initiative to run up and take the blame and shoot. It is worth mentioning that his hit rate was really good after his number of shots decreased. He made 4 of 2 difficult shots, plus a counterattack that caused a foul and made both free throws. He played for 9 minutes and scored 6 points.

It was precisely because Zhang Yang's efficiency improved after his playing time and number of shots decreased that his teammates were motivated to persevere. Without anyone telling them, they all realized that it was their fault that Zhang Yang tied the God of Basketball with 20 misses in two consecutive games... They wanted to play better!

Subjectively, they had a clear goal and the effect was obvious. In the second quarter, the Bobcats' overall offense picked up. Millsap played for 7 minutes and got 3 assists. These 3 assists were all from three-point shooters. Mike Miller made two three-pointers and Jarrett Jack made one three-pointer.

These three goals directly increased the Bobcats' score, and the score in the second quarter was 3 to 23, narrowing the gap by two points. At the end of the half, the Bobcats narrowed the score to 21 to 41!

这一节张杨持续保持高效，4投2中，加上2中1的罚球拿到5分。

After the halftime break, the two teams continued to play in a tense match.

Due to Zhang Yang's high shooting percentage of 8 of 4 in the first half, and the fact that he only played for 18 minutes in the first half and was in good physical condition, the Hawks took the initiative to strengthen their efforts to cut off his reception of the ball in the third quarter.

In response to this, he chose to actively run with defense and create opportunities for his teammates.

Not to mention, the role players were really not effective in the third quarter. Felton and Okafor strengthened their personal offense in this quarter, and their scoring performance was not very good. With such a good space, their teammates only shot 15 of 6 in the quarter and only scored 15 points in total.

Fortunately, the opposing Hawks team made only 22 of 8 shots in the third quarter, including 7 of 2 three-pointers. Although they made all free throws, they only made two and scored only 20 points.

Moreover, Zhang San's shooting percentage in the few shots he took in the third quarter was even higher than in the first half, making 3 of 2 shots, including 1 of 1 three-pointers. In addition, he made the free throw after Pierce received a technical foul and scored 6 points!
21 to 20 in a single quarter, after three quarters, the Bobcats tied the Hawks 62 to 62!
...

Entering the intermission, the Bobcats players were all excited!
They played hard tonight, and it felt like they didn't play much better than against the Rockets, but they managed to tie the score little by little!

The main difference is the difference in shooting efficiency!
In the game against the Rockets, although Zhang Yang scored 22 points in the first three quarters, he took 23 shots and his hit rate was only 34.7%. In the first three quarters tonight, he scored 17 points, which was lower, but his shooting efficiency was frighteningly high! In this game where the overall hit rate of the two teams was about 40%, Zhang Yang made 11 of 6 shots, with a hit rate of over 4%! Higher than Pachulia who made 2 of 2 shots and Perkins who made 1 of shots, two pure centers who only eat cakes!

There is no need for the boss, executive vice-boss, or head coach to tell them to take on more responsibilities to relieve the pressure on Zhang Yang. They have felt the benefits of doing so through actual experience!

Of course they had the opportunity to have such a feeling, and Carlisle's adjustment of "changing concepts" was the key.

Katu is also very excited now, this adjustment direction is correct!

For a team like theirs whose offensive and defensive systems are already perfect and whose tactical reserves are rich, as long as they adjust the direction correctly and persist in execution, they will always be able to achieve immediate results!
After giving the players two minutes to drink water, dry themselves and communicate, Carlisle called the players together to make lineup adjustments and tactical arrangements. It was time to win the game.

We only played for 25 minutes and shot more than ten times in the first three quarters...it's time to close the door and let Zhang San go!
The intermission was over, and Carlisle seemed to hear the roar of a tiger when he saw Zhang Yang walking onto the field... Zhang San: Meow?
However, after the start of the final quarter, the first to start the harvesting mode was not the three young players... but the three eagles!

Bibby stole the ball from Felton as soon as he came on. Although there was no fast break, Joe Johnson received the ball and made a three-pointer under Zhang Yang's close defense!
(End of this chapter)