From sparring to superstar

Chapter 132 130. The Hateful Defense

None of these 7 games were broadcast live across the United States. Except for the Lakers, which were broadcast live on local TV stations, other games only knew about scoring.

Beat the Raptors 85 to 104, the worst loss.

Beat the Celtics 89 to 96.

In the next 4 games, the opponent did not score 95 points.

106比88击败尼克斯队、95比86击败奇才队、80比91输给黄蜂队、79比85输给森林狼队。

It wasn't until the Lakers played that the opponent scored more than 95 points.

He took out a pen and a calculator and calculated. In the past 6 games, they only lost 90.3 points per game!
It's just 88.6 points per game... even the Bulls, the last in the league, are a little better than them.

Facing the Lakers game where OK gathered, Li Ao patiently watched the game. Their offense was bad enough, and they ignored everything for defense. It was 55 to 80 in three quarters. If the Lakers hadn't played casually in the final quarter, they would have scored more than 70 points against the Lakers' defense at most.

Seeing Li Ao writing and drawing, Vivienne put her head on Li Ao's shoulder, and rubbed Li Ao's face first. It felt so good to rub whenever she wanted. Before, I had to find a reason, but now I don't need it.

She asked: "Leo, what are you talking about? Our team's scoring average? 90.3 points, is it so low?"

"No, 88.6 points is our average in the past 6 games."

Vivian: "..."

Speechless for a few seconds, she asked: "I heard that Gentry is an offensive coach, right? Before he came to Los Angeles, he went to Dallas as an assistant coach for a year. It seems that he became famous for being an offensive assistant coach for Don Nelson. Baylor took advantage of his cheap price and signed him back. He actually played defense?"

"I'm also very surprised, but after Pat Riley opened the curtain of the iron-blooded era, the best way for a weak team to become a strong team is to play defense. Even the Mavericks coached by Don Nelson are not bad at defense. I remember that the Mavericks' defensive performance in the first month seemed to be ranked 15th, at a mid-level level.

The two chatted for a while about the team's possible defense, then took a shower together and held hands to sleep.

Apart from eating tofu with each other in the shower tonight, we didn't do anything else. It's not that we're tired, but it's just not as indulgent as the previous few days.

Li Ao's body can bear it, and he can recover his energy after training and using the physiotherapy function of the body every day.

But Vivienne is different. She kept asking for it at the beginning because she hadn't had a boyfriend for many years... And before she pushed Li Ao down, she didn't know how happy it was.

The same is true for the boyfriend I made in college a few years later. Just seeing her take off her clothes is already too much, and the main scene ends in a few seconds after the beginning.

These two romances left a shadow on her, and made her have no interest in this matter for the next ten years, and she was obsessed with studying. She just took a master's degree, and now she finally tasted the real happiness. At first, she didn't want to stop at all.

After two days of walking, her legs were shaking, and she began to think of restraint.

There was another thing she didn't expect - she thought that her family, Leo, wanted to play with her body at most. If Leo wanted it, she would just give it to her, and she could take the opportunity to have a baby.

Unexpectedly, as soon as she took the initiative, the other party fell in love with her, which made her unable to bear it. Fortunately, she knew the phone number of Jessica who occasionally dated Li Ao.

That time, it really hit her family Leo's enthusiasm a little bit, and then she could gradually restrain herself.

The main reason is that she really underestimated her attractiveness to men, and overestimated Li Ao's flirtatious nature. The unbelievable look in Li Ao's eyes when she slobbered for Li Ao that day made her feel guilty and guilty.

Fortunately, Jessica has good looks and figure, and is very proactive.

As for holding hands to sleep...

At first Li Ao didn't want to sleep with his arms around, but Vivian bit him a few times and demanded that he had to sleep with his arms around.

Then the next morning, when she woke up with sore shoulders and a stiff neck, Vivienne could only admit that the experienced people were right.

Now that desire is slowly under control, Vivienne plans to send her family Leo back to his small apartment after enjoying the pleasant feeling of sleeping together for a few days, and live together when creating life.

She enjoyed the way they got along before. They had spent more time together than many couples she had seen. Besides creating life, it is better to leave some private space for each other.

...

The next day, a new month arrived.

In the past half a month, Li Ao has made great progress!
He feels like he has improved a lot since the month before training camp started.

中投从86提升到了87、横移从88提升到了89、撤步从87提升到88。

In addition to the basic skills of going around the front that reached 89 before, his three main basic defensive skills, except for the step back, have reached the limit of first-class.

Other aspects that are not so strong, the emergency stop has been raised to 77, and the stride has been raised to 71...

There is also a new basic skill that has completed preliminary development, and the basic skill of leaning back has been raised to 61!
The combination of hard training + experience baby is perfect!

But it's a pity, from his basic skills of leaning back to post-60s, the comprehension he got from the explosive head was only +1, and not every time he could get the comprehension of reclining, once he practiced for two hours and didn't even get comprehension. Fortunately, he had achievement points, otherwise he would feel at a loss.

Even if his lateral moves and retreats are improved by using the afro as a defensive partner, he will still feel that he is at a loss.

His comprehensive evaluation has also successfully increased to 78, and he is getting closer and closer to his rookie season goal-an excellent comprehensive evaluation of 80+, and it may not even need to be the end of the regular season.

At 9 o'clock in the morning, Li Ao came to the Memorial Stadium to start training.

He will be able to participate in the competition the day after tomorrow, and he is a little excited.

Gentry was also very excited, Li Ao finally lifted the ban!
He came earlier than Li Ao, who trained for two hours, and he watched the whole process.

Gentry knew that Li Ao did not slack off during his suspension, and he came to train every day, at least half a day, and basically the whole day the next day.

Recently, the Lakers are in a continuous home game schedule, and most of their opponents are weak... These weak opponents include their Clippers.

Therefore, almost every next afternoon, Li Ao would pull Kobe to improve his single-defense ability.

This level of effort made Gentry awe-inspiring.

But he will not use this to urge other players.

In his 20 years as a teaching assistant, he has seen too much.

Once, when Larry Brown was coaching the Spurs, he often used Sean Elliott, who was always No. 1 in the team's training hours, to motivate the players. No matter who supervised training, he used Elliott as an example.

As a result, instead of becoming a role model for his teammates, Elliott bored his teammates and regarded him as a 'child of someone else'. David Robinson even alienated Elliott for a time.

But during his one-year assistant coaching time with the Mavericks, he saw Nash become a role model for his teammates by relying on hard training in the shrinking season, and the old Nelson never mentioned how hard Nash worked in front of the players.

In the same team, other people are not blind, they can see it.

Those who will be infected and work harder will naturally change.

Those who don't want to work hard will not change when they see it, but at least they won't feel bored with those who work hard, and may naturally develop respect.

...

At noon, on the noon news program of the US cable sports channel, the NBA officially announced the best award of the month for the first game month of the 00-01 season.

The best coach of the month, Rick Adelman of the Kings won the award, with a record of 13 wins and 2 losses in a single month.

The player of the month, Karl Malone of the Jazz won the award, with 10 wins and 5 losses, averaging 25.2 points, 9.8 rebounds and 4.4 assists per game.

月最佳新秀，快船队的李敖获奖，6胜3负，场均23.9分4.8板5.2助攻1.6抢断4.1盖帽。

A few days ago, the media were predicting who the rookie of the first month of the season would be.

Most people feel that even though he only played 9 games, he should still be the Rookie of the Month.

In addition to Li Ao, the best performer in the first month of this year's rookie is Mike Miller, who has meat beside Duncan and Tracy McGrady, averaging 15 points in 11.6 games.

Mike Miller’s 31-point progress is gratifying. When he first entered the NBA, his 34-point performance was not good, far less than the long 1.8-point accuracy, but he couldn’t stand beside Duncan and Tracy McGrady, and they were willing to let him shoot. In the first two weeks, his three-point shooting percentage was only [-]%.

However, no matter how good the performance is, it is only compared with the players in the same class except Li Ao.

Kenyon Martin's first-month statistics are better than Mike Miller's, averaging 13 points, 8 rebounds, 1 steal and 2 blocks per game. However, as a power forward, his shooting percentage is 41.6%, which is not as high as Mike Miller's 42.3% shooting percentage in one month.

The advantage of Mike Miller and Kenyon Martin lies in their full attendance in the first month, while Li Ao was banned for 7 games, less than half a month.

Li Ao was still a little worried that he would not get the award, and he didn't feel relieved until the award was announced.

After lunch time, other Clippers players arrived at Memorial Stadium one after another.

After playing the Lakers, they have two days off.

Normally, they will not arrange training on the first rest day.

But Li Ao has just lifted the ban and can participate in the game against the Nets on the 3rd. Gentry wants to add two defensive training sessions this afternoon, and he has the support of the players.

In the past half month, the whole team has been working hard to improve the defense, just waiting for Li Ao, the defensive core, to come back.

Seeing Li Ao, the teammates were very excited and chatted for a while.

They came back the day before yesterday, but when they came back consecutive away games, they only had one day off. When they returned to Los Angeles the day before yesterday, they went back to their respective homes. Li Aolai didn't see them in training.

Li Ao also stayed in the 'blacksmith's room' during yesterday's preparation training and did not disturb his teammates' preparations.

Li Ao actively participated in the two defensive training sessions and wanted to integrate quickly.

But when the training ended at 4 p.m. and his teammates left one after another, he found Gentry and raised his questions.

"Yes, we are going to take the defensive route, but you don't have to worry, the offense will not change around your shooting ability and coping ability, we will not abandon the offense for the sake of defense.

You probably watched the game between us and the Lakers. In yesterday's game, we didn't care about offense and only played defense. It was because you weren't here. We couldn't play offense well against the Lakers. Instead of taking care of both ends and failing to do well, we should play defense well.

After you come back, we may not be able to play the defensive efficiency of the past few games. Of course, it does not mean that your return will cause the team's defensive performance to deteriorate, but that you are back. We can execute offensive tactics well and will not put all our energy on defense.

We will find a balance point, focusing on offense or defense. "

After listening to Gentry's explanation, Li Ao understood that this top assistant coach who will not succeed as a head coach in the future did not make a decision with a slap in the head.

But he still had a doubt, and asked: "Alvin, I remember you hated Larry Brown. What made you decide to play defense? The Knicks? Or the Raptors?"

It was the first time for Gentry to think about this question. After thinking for a while, he replied: "I don't think so. Those two opponents may be an opportunity. The Knicks rank first in the league in defense, and the Raptors introduced Lenny Wilkens, a famous coach, to focus on defense and become a first-class team. It really inspired me, but the reason for my decision.

When we played the main offense before, although everyone worked hard on the court, not everyone felt involved, and some people felt frustrated because of it.

But playing defense, everyone can participate, and I like that feeling.

Of course, like you said, I've always hated this, but the last couple of games I've seen and seen everyone put more effort into the game, I have to love this. "

After listening to Gentry's words, Li Ao's confusion was finally resolved.

Choose the right style of play at the right time, this, Li Ao does not resist, defense is his strong point.

Just a little sympathy for Gentry...

On the second day, Li Ao continued to participate in the team's defensive run-in training.

As for the adjustment of the offensive end, there is not yet. The team is not in a hurry, and Li Ao is not in a hurry. Anyway, they have plenty of time, so just take it step by step.

At noon, the Nets came to Los Angeles, and the media had already started to promote tomorrow's game this morning - the duel between Spider-Man and the Parallel Champion!

The fans of the Clippers are looking forward to this game. Li Ao can finally participate in the game. In addition to this, there is another reason-the Clippers have been linked to the top pick of parallel imports in the past two seasons.

(End of this chapter)