Maurice Cheeks, the second-year head coach, has been doing a pretty good job of trying to hold up the Blazers, who were about to collapse when Sabonis left in the summer of 2001, at least with this bearded man in attendance.

While the head coach with a ferocious face when he roared was still there, the Trail Blazers could at least maintain close to 50 wins every year. Once he left, the Portland Trail Blazers would become the Portland Prison Team.

Coach Cheeks always brings surprises to Trail Blazers fans. The former 76ers five-time All-Defensive Team and four-time All-Defensive Team star always comes up with weird tricks on the defensive end.

Generally speaking, most teams do not want their opponents to pass the ball offensively, and they do not want their opponents to play a smooth team offense. It is best for the opponent to keep playing alone.

Unless they are as strong as an OK combination, both of them are invincible players in their respective positions and can beat their opponents to death in isolation. Generally speaking, any team wants to play a team offense, and no one wants to do it themselves.

The opponent passes the ball and plays to coordinate the attack.

But today, the Trail Blazers really did just that, forcing the Hawks lineup to continuously pass the ball, and not giving Raheem, who has an absolute advantage in singles, a chance to succeed in singles. They just guarded the basket and quickly rotated defense from the outside, forcing the Hawks to

The team keeps passing the ball.

This shows Coach Cheeks's excellent defensive awareness as a player who was once the league's number one defensive player at the point guard position, and judged the weakness of the Hawks lineup that there is no player who can truly serve as the core of the organization.

On the first ball, relying on Muhammad's flash of throwing and passing, the ball was turned into a pick-and-roll without the ball. The Eagles played well in the first offense. In the second offense, Rahim was assigned to Prince.

Prince also made a shot, but after all, this is not the team offense that the Eagles lineup is good at. As time goes by, the shortcomings of the Eagles lineup without core organizational points were exposed.

Since the second half of last season, Jason Terry has less need to be responsible for organizing the offense, especially this year, so the organization of the offense has deteriorated a lot.

A team needs different roles. When a player comes to a team, especially a strong team, he also needs to improve and degrade for his role. When Jason Terry was originally selected by the Hawks, he was to be the core point guard.

After Liu Mang came, Jason Terry's scoring talent was more vividly displayed, and his passing skills began to show.

There aren't that many opportunities to perform. To be honest, the organization of offense has declined.

This is not about denying him the ball and allowing him to organize the offense. It is indeed a significant improvement in one aspect, while the other aspect will inevitably decline.

Just like Bosh, the core of the 361 combination, he needs to transform into a three-point inside when he cooperates with James, and then he plays very well as a three-point inside. He has made great progress in this aspect in one or two years, but rebounding, basketball

The defense became extremely poor, and after James left, it was impossible to restore the original style of play during the Raptors period.

This is a technical choice. When it is chosen to develop in a new direction, some of the original technologies will not be used for a long time, will decline over time, and then degrade.

Jason Terry averaged 20 points per game last season, which he had not reached in his 20-year career. However, his role in organizing offense has become less and less, and his organizational ability has begun to weaken.

At the peak of his organizational ability, he should have had seven or a few assists, but this season he has basically stabilized at four or a few assists.

Of course, because Jason Terry is still in the growth stage, and if he is allowed to focus on developing his scoring ability, it is very likely that his scoring performance will reach a level that would not have been achieved if he was fully developed.

In fact, there is Jason Terry, who averages 4 points and a few assists per game, and Raheem, who averages 3 assists per game. The organizational ability of the lineup is enough most of the time, and there is usually no big problem. The Eagles'

He averages 17 assists per game, and the two of them combined account for almost half, which is completely enough.

But the Trail Blazers' lineup is defensive enough, specifically targeting the Hawks' offense, forcing the Hawks' originally separated strong and weak sides together. This is the biggest problem for the Hawks. There are two in the lineup who are not very good at it.

On the inside, a rookie who is not very good at passing the ball can let them occasionally have a flash of inspiration and make a wonderful pass. DeAndre Jordan can also hit a mid-range turnaround jumper, but let them treat it as a regular tactic.

Came to call, and soon something went wrong.

Of course, this can only be accomplished on the basis that the Trail Blazers have a comprehensive defensive master like Rasheed Wallace and an experienced veteran like Pippen.

The first quarter lasted for more than 7 minutes. It seemed that the Eagles did make a lot of moves and passed the ball, but the ball always went to positions that the players were not good at, such as Muhammad's mid-range, Ratliff's

Jason Terry was often blocked from the bottom line and close to the basket. It seemed that the Eagles passed the ball well, but in the end it was difficult to score.

In turn, the Eagles' defense against the Trail Blazers was well prepared to defend the Blazers' offense, but today the Trail Blazers played very simply, with Rasheed Wallace's close single, Wells' breakthrough score and

He is strong in the low post and plays in a style that is completely beyond the expectations of the Hawks. The efficiency is extremely high. Wells' skills have become better this year. In the first year of getting a big contract, he must perform better.

Don’t get the impression that you are a player in the contract year. It’s not too late to wait for the second year to be lazy...

When the official timeout came in the first quarter, the Eagles were 7 points behind 9-16.

Liu Mang saw that the Trail Blazers had such a strange move, and secretly sighed that they were indeed a team that could not fall behind among the powerful players in the Western Conference. They were really strong!

The reason why coach Kruger did not make substitutions in advance, but waited until the official timeout, was because he wanted to study the Blazers' offensive and defensive strategies. Being behind by a few points in a few minutes is not a big problem. The game is still long.

.

"Ace, Tyshawn, Sharif, Carlos, Theo, you guys go on the court, Theo pays attention to the top defense inside, Carlos pays attention to blocking the opponent who cuts the air, Sharif, the help defense of the two baseline areas and the basket

I'll leave the assist defense to you, Ace and Tyshawn will do a good job in single defense on the outside..." Coach Kruger didn't arrange many offensive tactics. At this time, the offense can be left to Liu Mang, a guy who is always so unexpected.

Focus on deploying defensive tactics.
Chapter completed!