Basketball Legend: When Pride Still Matters

Chapter 771 771 508 LeBron Be Like Frye_2

?Chapter 771: Chapter 508 LeBron, Be Like Frye_2 Chapter 771: Chapter 508 LeBron, Be Like Frye_2 However, the Lakers’ personnel assignment doomed their inside players to move outwards, making it no easy task to find a nearby teammate.

At this point, Kobe had to attempt wide-range passes.

And as a standard shooting guard by size, under Durant’s influence, it was hard to judge whether the passing route was risky.

This involved a multi-layered game of wits. Coach Lu hadn’t thought that deeply when he designed it, but the players brought their own creativity.

After probing for a while, the Lakers found that if they didn’t force the big men out, they’d have to let Kobe and LeBron go one-on-one. If they didn’t go one-on-one, the key to breaking the defense was getting Pau Gasol to consistently hit that damn three-pointer.

That was something the Lakers didn’t want to attempt, because Gasol was a player with a considerable shooting percentage but a low three-point output.

Was his low output because he didn’t want to shoot? No, it was because only at that output could he ensure his shooting percentage.

This is the deception in statistical data.

Without looking at output, everything is meaningless.

However, once the output increases, so does the defensive pressure on the shooter, the targeting by the opponents, and the personal load. Maintaining the same efficiency is impossible.

This is the key reason why the sharpshooter model is hard to succeed. Change the environment or the pressure for the same sharpshooter, and they might lose their divine touch. If a sharpshooter can’t create space to feed the main core, the resultant spacing congestion will backfire on the core itself.

Phil Jackson saw the deeper implications beneath the Supersonics’ tactical targeting, although he didn’t know how Coach Lu designed it, he had to admit it was cunning.

So, Jackson called for a timeout before the situation worsened.

On the Supersonics’ side,

Coach Lu was oblivious to the fact that his casual strategy had earned high praise from Jackson.

“Just play like this, their offense is already disjointed!” As long as the current tactics worked, Lu wouldn’t make changes, “Frye, sync up with KD, Kobe and LeBron have no way to handle you guys!”

Fei responded lightly.

Durant appeared nonchalant. A few minutes into the game, he didn’t have much possession, but he wasn’t in a hurry at all.

Fei thought to himself, if Durant’s sleepwalking tonight led to a shortage in firepower resulting in a loss, would they blame Scarlett?

Just then, the Lakers made an unexpected change.

They substituted Big Z for Pau Gasol and Artest for Jamison.

With that, the nominal five-out strategy vanished. Big Z’s range extended at most to the free-throw line area.

Fei guessed that they would focus on the mid-range game.

Coach Lu was a beat late in reacting. He was still figuring out the intention behind Jackson’s move.

Every setup targets a different system, and when the opponent changes, you need to keep up with adjustments.

Coach Lu was still green, having stumbled through the regular season, and had relied on the team’s overall strength to get by in the playoffs without facing much pressure.

Popovich’s failed menu ordering had given him the illusion of “It seems I have the talent to become a Hall of Fame coach,” but that delusion was quickly shattered by Jackson, known for not being swift at making adjustments.

With Pau Gasol on the court, the Lakers’ Triangle Offense was orthodox. Fans who had watched Jordan’s Bulls and the OK Lakers could see traces of the past, but once Gasol was benched, they would no longer play the traditional Triangle Offense.

The basketball philosophy of an offense that revolves around an inside pivot, robust low-post digging, and triangular formation with endless variations, where everyone has a chance, disappeared.

This was Phil Jackson’s compromise to LeBron.

Without Gasol, LeBron became the pivot. He couldn’t operate from the high post like an inside player, nor could he do the grunt work in the low post like Kobe. He wouldn’t change anything; that’s just his playing style, or rather, the style of a ball-dominant core always remains the same.

Everything centers around me.

Thus, under LeBron’s dominion, the Lakers’ Triangle Offense became an inverted triangle.

LeBron, as a tactical bulge on the perimeter, wasn’t much of a threat, but the presence of Kobe and others was enough to turn the tables within the three-point line.

Big Z sets the screen, Kobe cuts out, catches the ball, and takes the jump shot.

The Lakers shifted from an extreme three-point-plus-speed ultimate small-ball to a traditional playstyle, focused on mid-range, liberating the free-throw line space, which rendered the Supersonics’ previous defensive arrangement meaningless.

Before Coach Lu could react, the Lakers played their next move.

Artest matched up against Fei, but as soon as Fei took the ball past half-court or caught it in the frontcourt, one of either LeBron or Kobe would step up to double-team him.

Fei was the sole orchestrator for the Supersonics, the only reason their current system could function. If they sealed him off recklessly, the rest of the team could only spray and pray.

Up to this point, Fei had not tasted the bitterness of coaching.

In his first year with the Wizards, while unpleasant, Doug Collins was a wizard at adapting. Despite his off-court work being a pile of dogshit, his in-game coaching was the best Fei had experienced.

And there’s no need to mention Karl. Fei, as a ball-dominant core himself, was effectively half a coach. Karl did what he had to do; the rest couldn’t go wrong.

So, when the Lakers targeted him so specifically, Fei thought he’d try his luck first, and if that didn’t work, he’d wait for the coaching staff to call a timeout and adjust.

But all rookie coaches not formally schooled in coaching make one error: overestimating themselves.

They think coaching is a battle of wits among coaches. If they can’t solve the problem presented by the opponent, is calling a timeout useful? Yet disrupt the opponent’s rhythm with a timeout is an essential part of the game, something many rookie coaches overlook, particularly Coach Lu, with zero coaching foundation.