On March 3rd, US time, the Lakers played against the Celtics at home.
The Celtics' current record is still good, 40 wins and 22 losses, which is pretty good in the Eastern Conference. They also reached the Eastern Conference finals this season. They were eliminated only after encountering the Big Three Cavaliers. Therefore, they are considered one of the Eastern Conference players.
A strong team. At least much better than the Hawks, Bulls, Pacers, Bucks, and Raptors. These teams are either pseudo-strong teams, or they are already in decline and entering a period of reconstruction. Just because they are in the Eastern Conference.
Only then can we make it to the playoffs.
Brad Stevens is the head coach of this team, and he has a very high level of tactical knowledge. This season Thomas has been fully activated, and he should take a larger share of the credit. In addition, the Green Army's usual iron-blooded defense has been
He is gradually recovering, and everyone is actually very optimistic about the future of this eastern giant.
Yes, they were much better than the Lakers in the original time and space. Even in the 18-19 season, the Lakers were still half-dead underdogs. Their lineup was Thomas Jr. + Al Horford + Avery Bu.
Radley + Jae Crowder + Amir Johnson. They don’t seem to have very high star power, but the overall combat power is very good and full of resilience. In this Lakers game, Butler was unwell before the game, so Gary
Vitti suggested that he should not play in this game for the time being.
The Lakers are a team competing for the championship this season. They don't need to work hard in the regular season. Butler is the team's indispensable core outside force. Letting him rest completely may be more important than a regular season game.
Brown and the Lakers' front office thought the same way, so even if Butler took the initiative and said he could insist on playing, he was still rejected.
After all, the regular season is not that important compared to the playoffs.
Therefore, without Butler, the Lakers' outside firepower is even more worrying. After the Green Army received the news, "Young Coach" Brad Stevens took action and wanted to take the opportunity to win this game.
Game. Oh, by the way, let’s just say that the Green Army was a participant in the Eastern Conference Finals this season. At the same time, don’t forget that they were also the seeded team in the Eastern Conference this season.
East, first.
Won 2 more games than the Cavaliers.
Take a look at how "Young Marshal" Stevens arranged it. It's quite good, and you can tell he's very skilled at it.
In order to avoid a half-court offensive and defensive decisive battle with the Lakers, he made these arrangements. This is not because the Green Army's penalty area defense is not good, but because the Lakers have a "war beast" under the inside basket. So he must do this.
Make arrangements. Use veteran inside player Al Horford to keep an eye on No. 29's attack at the basket. Don't worry too much about the rest. Make changes on the spot when the time comes. Because when No. 29 gets to that point, you want to defend all his methods.
That's impossible in all aspects, so he only needs Al Horford to defend No. 29's attack on the basket. Because Horford is very good at defense and has sophisticated skills, even Embiid frequently suffered defeats when facing him, and the other
In the 13 time and space games, the shooting rate was once lower than 40%, only 37%, so Horford's defensive skills are still very good.
Especially for the use of defensive experience, he is quite knowledgeable. He is the core of the Green Army's defense.
The second arrangement is to go around and prevent No. 29 from receiving the ball comfortably from the beginning. There is no need to upgrade step by step. Tonight, the Lakers do not have Butler to attract from the outside. "Young Coach" Stevens just does it directly
With this defensive order, No. 29 must be restricted from the beginning of passing and receiving.
The third arrangement is to control the Lakers' passing, control their passing routes, create as many mistakes as possible, and engage in defensive counterattacks and chasing shots. Why he arranged it this way is also very simple. It's not like he gets hot on the head
It was decided, then he would not have such a high reputation in the NCAA basketball world. The reason is that without Butler on the outside, the Lakers' independent offensive ability will suffer a huge decline, and there are not enough independent offensive points. The Lakers will definitely
What to do?
Yes, it is to increase passing. Use passing to break the game and find the defensive openings of the Green Army.
The more independent attack points there are, the less the need to pass the ball. It is even similar to the triangle offense and does not pass the ball at all.
So all this has been taken into consideration by Brad Stevens, who is truly the leader of the younger generation.
The layout ability and targeting ability are very excellent.
If you observe carefully, you will find that basically these arrangements are also for No. 29, so there is the last point. That is, Brad Stevens emphasized in the locker room: This game must be
To suppress No. 29 of the Lakers, they lack independent scoring points from the outside. It is enough for us to expand our defense in time. As long as we lock No. 29, the winning rate tonight will be great. Because tonight the Lakers will not have
The rest of the people came out to help break the situation. At least that's the case under normal circumstances.
Moreover...Brad Stevens also expressed a point of view. Now that No. 29 is fighting with ESPN and Sports Illustrated, he expects that No. 29 will be the same as before in this game. Otherwise, he will mainly score.
If that's the case, how do you go about hitting the little faces of ESPN and Sports Illustrated, right? So just don't worry about locking it up.
Hearing their head coach peeling off the cocoon and analyzing it layer by layer, people like the Green Army secretly admired them. In fact, to be honest, how many people had been particularly optimistic about them before they started the game? Basically not. But this young handsome coach
It just changed everything abruptly. Now they are on par with the Cavaliers and are competing for the first place in the Eastern Conference. At the beginning of the game, even this group of Green Army players would not have dared to think so.
Last year they were only at fifth or sixth level, and there was no major change in the lineup. In this, the factor of the coach is indelible. So now everyone in the Green Army has special admiration for the "young coach". In this way
The emergence of emotions will allow the head coach's arrangements to be carried out efficiently without hesitation, thus maximizing the head coach's control over the team.
Well, you are really right. This year's Green Army is actually very similar to an NCAA team to a certain extent. The head coach has even greater influence on the team than the players. This is very common in the NCAA, but
In the NBA, it is a relatively special case.
So after the Lakers got the ball, they felt something was wrong at the first moment. When Rondo saw No. 29 waving for the ball in the low post, he handed it in due to inertia, and then... he was intercepted!!!
The Green Army seemed to have guessed the Lakers' offensive method. Avery Bradley went around and successfully stole the ball!
The Green Army team played quickly, and Thomas used to force a layup from behind. In fact, the opportunity was not particularly good. The Lakers' defense was already in place, but they were still beaten by the "Strongest 175 on Earth" who was in great shape during this period.
It went into the basket. And it was still a 2+1! Thomas waved his fist vigorously after landing. He really exploded this season, with a scoring ability of about 29 points. This... is already a quasi-super scorer.
Okay!
Last season, he only averaged 22 points per game.
Seeing that several passes to the inside were blocked, the Lakers changed their play style and began to go outside. However, without Butler, Robert Covington on the bench is a very good 3D player.
But his independent offensive ability... is not good. This allows him to replace Butler on defense, but on the offensive end, he is still far behind. If Butler would attack and hit the ball by himself, the opponent's defense is anyway
No. 29 is so tight, and the offensive pressure on his side is relatively small. But... Covington can't do this after getting the ball.
So after hesitating, he chose to pass the ball, but was interfered by the Green Army and went straight out of the sideline.
At the beginning, the Green Army relied on various accurate pre-match predictions and pre-match arrangements to slightly suppress the momentum of the Los Angeles Lakers. This scene was really not something that many people had thought of before. In everyone's mind, the Green Army's record
Yes, but there is still a gap with those giant teams.
Therefore, the Lakers quickly entered the first timeout.