Chapter 157: Jailcoach

On January 3, 2003, after a two-day break, the Boston Celtics ushered in their first opponent in the New Year at home, the son of Oregon from the northwest coast-the Portland Trail Blazers .
During these two days, Leon was not idle. First, on the afternoon of January 1, he held an emergency press conference in the press room of North Shore Garden to inform the media about his gambling and prison. Described.
The trickiest part of this matter is that the content of the report is true. Leon has indeed been to casinos many times and he has also been in prison. Therefore, he cannot accuse the report of false and slanderous reports, but can only clarify the truth as much as possible. Let the public know the real situation. Before things ferment, take the initiative to preemptively form a defense mechanism in the minds of the public. People are always like this. It is easier to forgive if you see an apology first and then understand the error than if you first know the error and then see the apology.
At the press conference, Leon also showed off his acting skills and admitted with a very sincere attitude that he had made some mistakes in the past, but now he has recognized these mistakes and wiped them out. From now on he is A positive and decent coach who dedicated his life to basketball. At the press conference, his statement was endorsed by Danny Angie. Angie enumerated how he met Leon in Marsfield and watched him step by step to today. He said, "A person has committed a crime. If his mistakes are punished, he cannot obliterate his achievements today."
It can be said that Angie was very reliable at the critical moment, withstood the pressure and supported Leon. Even if he has the idea of ​​taking Leon and replacing him with his favorite coach, he will never allow the coach of the team to be slandered by others and leave the team. What's more, the Celtics are currently in a good momentum, and Angie has no reason not to support Leon. .
On January 2, the Celtics team conducted an open media training. On the first training day of the new year, the Celtics’ entire training process was interviewed and filmed by reporters. Of course, Leon did not show his eagle. Eye training system, today is mainly physical training. After the training, several Celtics players were interviewed. Including Paul Pierce, Antoine Walker, the newly traded PJ Brown, etc., they all talked about their views on coach Leon. It shows that Leon is indeed a good coach who abides by the law. Although he occasionally scares people with his fists, he has never conflicted with the players.
After training on the afternoon of the 2nd, Leon also drove to participate in the "Caring for Children with Autism" activity at the Boston Orphanage. He spent two hours getting along with children with autism. Read to them and try to communicate with them. Everything is sending a signal to people: this is a normal, law-abiding, even caring good person.
On the day of the game on January 3, the real bomb fell. The famous New York newspaper "The New Yorker" published a long feature report on the theme of "criminal behavior in the NBA." The target was not Fox Leon, but started from Washington boxing Tomjanovich in 1977, telling the 60-year history of the NBA. Drugs, violence, and sex-emotion crimes that accompany the growth of the stadium. At the end of this report, I mentioned the current Portland Trail Blazers. They are now called rs, because this team is simply a concentration camp of problematic players, Jr. Stadamyer, Dalius Miles, Randolph, Patterson. Provoking trouble, drugs, and sexual assault, these things have destroyed the trailblazer's reputation.
And then at the end of the end. The report also "inadvertently" mentioned the Celtics' new head coach Fox Leon, stating that he was being harassed by gambling and jail messages. This is a blockbuster at all, and the timing of the release is just right. It happened to be published during the Portland Trail Blazers' visit to Boston, and it was just right. You can imagine how those venomous commentators will connect oach between the two teams. Let this event zoom in across the United States.
Leon really squeezed a cold sweat when he saw this report on the 3rd. Fortunately, he contacted Woj on the phone on the 1st. Woj reminded Leon to prepare for preemptive strikes and make moves before the real killer is revealed. drop to lowest. At the same time Woj also promised Leon that he would concoct a special report as soon as possible to describe Leon's experience as a head coach. At that time, he will interview Auerbach and restore a real Leon from the cardinal.
Even so, on the night of the game on January 3, some fans held up the Prison Team VS Prison Coach placard in the arena. Leon could only squeeze his fist right when he didn’t see him. You must remain calm. He warned himself that there is only one best way to survive these crises, and that is victory. Victory is the eternal strongest law in the professional arena. If you master victory, you will master everything.
However, the Portland Trail Blazers are not a good team to deal with. Although their team is chaotic, it must be admitted that this is a team full of talents, especially their striker has Rashid Wallace, Bunche- Wells, Scott Pippen and Dale Davis, in 2000, relied on the wheel fight to consume the Lakers to the last quarter of Game 7 of the Western Conference Finals. Sabonis, the former center post of the Blazers, has also returned to the team this year. In short, the Blazers are quite strong on the books and appear to restrain the Celtics. Because the Celtics are weak in the interior, how do you look at the strength and strength of the front line? All suffer from speed.
Sure enough, the game entered the pace of the Trail Blazers in the first quarter. The Trail Blazers head coach Cheeks played Antonio Daniels, Bunge Wells, Scott Pippen, and Rashid Wallace. In addition to Dell Davis, a tall, fast lineup without a point guard and a center. The real offensive controller of this lineup is Scott Pippen, because Damon Stoudemire’s play style is not favored by Maurice Cheeks at all, and the relationship between the two is very bad, so in the guard Cheeks simply put only Antonio Daniels on the line and let Pippen play the organization forward. If Sabonis is placed on the bench as an organization center, it can be said that the organization does not need a guard at all.
Morris Cheeks was once a legendary defender of the 76ers. He followed Dr. J through the 76ers' glorious 80s, so he was very classical in coaching style. He didn't like three-pointers. He emphasized confrontation, positional offense and inside attack. . Perhaps stimulated by the recent evaluation of "", the Blazers played extremely fiercely in the first quarter. Wells, Wallace and Dale Davis continued to attack the inside, while Leon did not put PJ Brown in the starting lineup. , But continue to let Blunt start.
As a result, the "weak" Blunt was hit by a fierce Trailblazer striker. The Celtics fell behind the Blazers by 11 points at 37:26 in the first quarter and dug a big hole for themselves. During the rest of the first quarter, PJ-Brown said to Leon: "Let me go to the coach, I am here to play, not on the bench."
But Leon shook his head and signaled Brown to sit on the bench for a while, take a closer look at the Celtics team's operation, and get familiar with it. This makes PJ-Brown angry. He is no longer a rookie in the league. No matter which team he is traded to, he is a good player who can play immediately and plug and play. The result is On his Boston debut, he was pushed on the bench by the coach and watched the team fall behind.
"Perhaps it should be PJ, he will be a great help to the inside." Assistant coach Dave Cowens reminded Leon, Leon still shook his head, he said: "We need a little angry power."
The power of anger. Leon is very aware of this feeling now, and he is very angry, because the recent series of attacks against him came silently, with needles hidden in the cotton, a seemingly simple report, a few simple words, But it can give people lethal lethality. Leon had secretly made up his mind in his heart, he wanted to let the Celtics continue to win, but also let the person who framed him eventually lose his golden job, if that person is Andy Miller.
However, he needs to focus on the game again, because of the bad things in these two days, he didn't prepare for the game, which caused the Celtics to dig a big hole to fill the game. He is not on PJ-Brown not only because of the so-called "power of anger", but also because he has not yet figured out how to play Brown's role.
At the end of the first half, the Celtics 49:61, 12 points behind the Trail Blazers, a bad New Year's first half, the Celtics need a new force. (To be continued.)