"Tracy, you and Tyshawn's double attack should be more fierce. Ace, you should shrink faster and interfere better with Greg's catch. Josh, your internal and external defensive movements should be faster.

...Josh, come down first and learn the timing of expansion and contraction with Rashid..."

Mike Woodson is coaching the new defensive movement. The two assistants and trainers Stockton and Malone have become part of the training. Together with the recalled Tony Allen and Ariza, they will serve as the 12-man team.

The players on the list were trained, and even Ostertag was invited to be a sparring partner, which was regarded as a job opportunity for Ostertag.

…

Two defensive training sessions, each session was 40 minutes, plus a 20-minute break, which was exactly 100 minutes. After the training, Mike Woodson came to Coach Kruger's office.

"Mike, how's the progress?" Coach Kruger has already drawn hundreds of tactical drawings on his desk, most of them are crossed out, and only a few are neatly placed in the folder next to them.

"I think it's going to go well," Mike Woodson said with a smile.

"That's good. Our time is too tight. Let's use the last few games of this month to experiment. If it doesn't succeed, there will still be room for adjustment later." Coach Kruger nodded.

The defensive end is left to Mike Woodson. Coach Kruger is not worried at all. Coach Kruger put the offensive tactics and movement training diagram of small ball play as perfect as possible last night and this morning. He feels that it is relatively perfect.

I took a few training pictures, communicated with Mike Woodson about the connection between grabbing defensive rebounds and pressing the defense and then counterattacking, and then went to ask the players to practice offense.

Switching to a small-ball style of play is not a problem for the Eagles on the offensive end, but it is more troublesome on defense.

For Liu Mang, Prince, Rasheed Wallace, Kwame Brown, Muhammad, Jason Terry and others, playing small ball is a very familiar thing.

The Eagles have a common tactic called the cavalry tactic. This tactic is somewhat similar to the run-and-gun tactic, but it's also different. It's not the same as small ball. It's not a team offensive tactic, but it has the same purpose. It's all about the lineup.

On the small side.

The biggest problem is that the Eagles used to play cavalry tactics, and their defense was traditional defense, with at most outside pressure. But now, except when facing teams with super inside players, they need to use traditional play to beat most teams.

Everyone must try fast-paced defensive changes, and the transition from fast-paced defensive changes to fast offense is what needs to be strengthened most now.

The offensive tactics are summed up quickly. Another reason is that although the Suns are still regarded as an alternative among fans, there are too few live broadcasts in the United States and not many people understand the charm of that kind of basketball, but in the coaching world, they are already very popular.

It shocked traditional coaches.

As for the Suns' running and gunning, Coach Kruger has already paid attention to the Suns' running and gunning after playing 20 days into the season.

After the Pistons' record became 9 wins and 1 loss, the Suns ranked first in the league with a record of 10 wins and 1 loss, and also refreshed the Suns' best record in team history created by Barkley in the 1992-93 season.

Start.

With such a strong performance, other teams will definitely pay attention.

But Coach Kruger, including Coach Kruger, is not optimistic about the Suns' mini lineup of Nash, Quentin Richardson, Joe Johnson, Marion, and Stoudemire.

The lineup is too small. The tallest Stoudemire is only 2.08 meters tall, and the two forwards are both 2.01 meters tall. This means there is basically no interior defense, and the rebounding is extremely poor.

The rebounding difference does not mean that the Suns have fewer rebounds. They rank first in the league with 45.1 rebounds per game, which is more than the Bulls' 44.3 rebounds per game and the Hawks' 43.6 rebounds per game. However, the Suns average 45.1 rebounds per game.

Conceded 47 rebounds, last in the league.

Their strength is that they have many shooters. The team's average three-point shooting percentage per game reaches 41%. They rely on fast-paced offensive and defensive transitions to achieve a super high shooting percentage. The overall average field goal percentage reaches 100%.

Forty-eight points were scored, second only to the Hawks' overall shooting percentage of 48.3 percent.

If the Hawks were to play purely run-and-gun like the Suns, Coach Kruger would strangle Liu Mang to death, but if he added defense and tried to create some changes, Coach Kruger felt that he could still give it a try.

The key reason why Coach Kruger tried to change is that this season the Eagles don't have any big advantage inside! After the start of this season, the Eagles' dominance is not as good as last season because the inside advantage has weakened.

The defense is okay. The interior defense composed of Rasheed Wallace, Kwame Brown, Muhammad and two rookie interiors is still very good, but the interior offense has become much weaker. Boozer and Rashe

Tom's departure caused the Hawks' inside offense to plummet. It's not that they scored less, but that their independent offense inside was basically gone. Only Liu Mang and Tracy McGrady have the ability to score independently under the basket. It seems that the Hawks' inside scoring has not dropped much. Mainly

It relies on the outside containment of Liu Mang and McGrady.

Last season, Boozer and Raheem posed a great inside threat. Boozer went to the Jazz this season. The Jazz traded for Bordelon Williams. Boozer became a big data brush.

He started averaging 22 points and 11.5 rebounds per game, and looked like one of the most skilled power forwards in the league. To be able to rack up such data, his inside scoring ability should not be underestimated.

Raheem has also started this season averaging 24 points, 8 rebounds and 3 assists per game.

This season, after ten games played, there are as many as 34 players averaging more than 20 points per game this season, which is more than twice as many as the same period last season.

Because the two teams have lost the forwards who averaged 20 points per game, the Eagles have spent more time focusing on the triangle offense this season to make up for the lack of independent scoring ability in the interior. Liu Mang, Tracy McGrady

Coupled with Kwame Brown's excessive cooperation, Kwame Brown has also become the team's leading scorer inside.

However, the triangle offense cannot fully take advantage of the Hawks' inside athletic ability, and can only rely on Liu Mang, Tracy McGrady, Jason Terry, Calderon and others to help create opportunities for the inside. Instead, it places a burden on outside players.

If the outside shot is not accurate, you will encounter a situation like the second game against the Trail Blazers. The athletic ability of the inside cannot be turned into an inside advantage, but instead becomes a drag on the offensive end.

So Coach Kruger has been considering changes, but the traditional style of play in the NBA and even the NCAA is deeply ingrained, making it difficult for Coach Kruger to get a clue of the changes. This is also a common state in the NBA. Not many teams are willing to play run and gun.

Give up defense, because pure running and gunning is too easy to be restricted in the playoffs. It was because Nelson asked the Mavericks to run and gun in the playoffs, which led to the Spurs and Kings being brutalized in the playoffs, and then had a conflict with Cuban.

Resign.

And this deep-rooted concept also allowed Steve Kerr to find a balance 10 years after the rules that were conducive to run and gun appeared... Mainly because the Warriors turned around after more than 20 or 30 years of misery.

Curry earns "child labor wages," the favorite for Defensive Player of the Year is a second-round pick who earns a minimum salary, and Klay Thompson is still in the last year of his rookie contract, giving the Warriors a large number of high-quality role players in the 14-15 season.

Then, seeing signs of collapse after being overturned 3-1 in the 15-16 Finals, the league's salary cap increased sharply, allowing Durant to be signed naked. It can be said that the character he had saved for 30 years suddenly exploded.

The Warriors' success model cannot be copied, and similar to Larry Bird's successors, they are all scammers.

But the Eagles are different, they have Liu Mang! At least until Liu Mang retires, there is no need to worry about role players. Every season there are undervalued rookies who fall to the end of the first round. In the second round, these college players are undervalued.

Because they did not perform well in college or were affected by injuries, they will not be overrated just because Liu Mang appears, at least most of them will not. Therefore, the Eagles can enjoy the rookie bonus of substitutes for a long time, and they can be copied if they have the opportunity.

, even stronger than Team Cosmos.

Liu Mang discussed unlimited defense changes with Mike Woodson as early as two seasons ago. This is something Liu Mang remembers that Cosmos assistant coach Luke Walton learned from the Warriors and Spurs.

The fusion of defense and efficiency is very good. The Lakers, who led the poor team, were able to play one of the top three defenses in the league. Liu Mang only roughly understood the concept, but Mike Woodson is a defensive master. After hearing the concept Liu Mang said,

, I was immediately fascinated by that advanced defensive concept, and I have been studying it, hoping to use it when I become a head coach in the future.

It's just that Mike Woodson will not leave the Hawks for the time being. As for the defending champion, who will give up the opportunity to defend the championship? The Hawks' lineup in the previous two seasons was very traditional, with a defensive center, a shooting power forward, and a powerful small player.

Forward, 3D shooting guard and a Langbi point guard, this also allowed the Hawks to continue to maintain the style of play of the previous two seasons at the beginning of this season, but the ability to score independently inside is indeed too poor. Now Coach Kruger is trying to

To change the team's offensive structure, Mike Woodson has always wanted to experiment with his own defense that integrates the small ball concept brought to him by Liu Mang, and he can finally start it!

The main training is to strengthen defensive pressure, speed up the frequency of defensive expansion and contraction, and force the opponent's rhythm to speed up and make mistakes. This defensive concept is very different from the traditional NBA defensive concept. Traditional NBA defensive teams are eager to suppress the defensive rhythm.

You have to be as slow as possible to consume the opponent's patience and make the opponent make mistakes in choices due to anxiety. The goal of the Eagles' current training is to make the opponent make decisions quickly and make the opponent make judgment errors in the fast pace.

The purpose of both defenses is the same, which is to cause the opponent to make shooting or passing errors, but if the pace is fast, it is very beneficial for defensive counterattacks.

This is where Mike Woodson needs to help the team develop.

Coach Kruger and Stockton, who are mainly responsible for the offense, need to make the cavalry tactics "bigger" to involve everyone and make full use of the current athletic ability of the team's interior. In the past, Boozer

Like Ratliff, as long as either one of them is on the court, they can't play the team's fast break. Both of them are slow. Now, it's different. Team offense is possible.

And because I have a foundation in cavalry tactics, training on the offensive end is much easier than on the defensive end.

During offensive training, a group of players who can run and jump ran very happily and were very active when positioning according to tactics. However, when training defensively, they complained endlessly. This kind of small-ball defense is too tiring.

Yes, it consumes a lot of physical energy. Fortunately, the lineup is deep enough and everyone practices for a while. The consumption is not too big and will not affect the game at night.

But when coach Kruger came to practice the offense, the whole team was in high spirits and ran extremely high.

And new tactics always make young players find it interesting, especially the style of play that may be similar to the legendary Suns where everyone on the team can score, making players who usually don't have many opportunities to perform excitedly get involved.

During training, although I complain about it, I am very active during training and want to show that I can do it.

…

…

"Ace, make sure for the last time. Once you take this step, there is no turning back!" McGrady was still so hesitant.

"Okay, Tracy, you go and tell the coach that you don't want to play small ball. Tell him that you were joking with him." Liu Mang gave a very challenging suggestion.

Maddie rolled her eyes at Liu Mang and ignored Liu Mang. Now he understood that he had been tricked again!

Although he didn't know what Liu Mang was thinking and why he always had so many weird ideas, McGrady knew that he had been deceived.

This chapter is not over yet, please click on the next page to continue reading the exciting content! How long have you been with the Eagles for only a few years now? I have been tricked countless times.

McGrady thought about Coach Kruger staying up all night and having bloodshot eyes during training in the morning. He was like an angry eagle during training. Now when Coach Kruger was catching up on sleep, he went to tell him that yesterday was a joke. McGrady felt that he

It's seeking death.

After Liu Mang and Coach Kruger left home yesterday, Coach Kruger first called Mike Woodson and then called McGrady. This kind of thing requires the consent of the other core.

At that time, McGrady couldn't stand the temptation of assists king and agreed. Now McGrady is starting to regret it again.

Got on a pirate ship by mistake!

This is how McGrady feels now.

At this point, McGrady can only choose to look more at the offensive movement routes and defensive flanking tactical movements. Other teammates who have the opportunity to play are also studying their new positions.

There was an offensive training session on new tactics and two defensive training sessions in the morning. There was no training in the afternoon to allow the players to rest and prepare for the evening game.

The Eagles' players, especially the role players, now have a clearer positioning. After the changes in the tactical system, they are closer to the role players of later generations. Each player has his own clear position on the offensive end.

Before the post-90s generation entered the NBA in large numbers and the average strength of role players had not increased significantly, it would be difficult to change to another team. However, the role players of the Hawks were all picked up by Liu Mang.

Talented role players, Tony Allen and Ariza can only level up in the Development League. This aspect is not a problem. Let the three rookies and Korver focus on one aspect of their abilities first, and their progress will even be affected by it.
To be continued...