The Inglewood area outside Los Angeles is the most expensive SoFi stadium in the world.
In the stands of the 55th Super Bowl, the high-level friends were full of victorious friends, and a group of celebrities witnessed with their own eyes, and the Los Angeles Rams reversed the Tigers at the "home", although they once fell into the tiger's mouth, they could still escape death. The Victory of the Rams has made Los Angeles a new champion city in North American sports: the Lakers, Dodgers and Rams have won the NBA, MLB and NFL championships for Los Angeles in less than 2 years.
But the pair of partners who appeared in the box that day in a crisp white T-shirt, Kavay Leonard and Paul George, did not expect that their team would lie innocently because of this: It seems that every time there is a team in Los Angeles celebrating the championship, there will always be people who will go to the Clippers' scars, mock them as the only team here that has not even played the Finals, and hate to expel the Clippers from their Los Angeles household registration.
The Clippers are indeed one of the biggest unluckies in NBA history, and injuries and bad luck have haunted this team, including this season: Every recent Clippers game, Leonard and George, no different from watching the Super Bowl, can only be two eye-catching spectators, and their total number of missed games so far this season has reached 90 games.
Even the trade deadline, the Clippers have not been able to stop the return of injuries. After only 3 games to the team, but the strong new signing Norman Powell, who averaged 21 points per game, suddenly suffered a left foot fracture and the return date is uncertain. But just after everyone once again screamed "The Clippers are finished", they still did not sink the ship, with the Super Remnant League's second-ranked Warriors, the Clippers still firmly occupy a place in the top eight in the West.
If all the players on a team are injured in turn, then of course, the reason why they can always remain tenacious should be pointed to the only person who stands on the sidelines and directs every game: Mr. Lu, Coach Lu, Coach Lu.
In yesterday's game, the Clippers' absent players included Leonard and George, who also earned 39 million a year, Powell with 15.5 million, and even Luke Kennard with 12.7 million, and the salary of absent players exceeded the $100 million mark, while the Warriors standing opposite them were relatively complete, with only a core missing Dream Green.
But the game went beyond everyone's expectations, Curry has come up with a rare and excellent form recently, the Warriors are still being beaten back, Clippers guard Reggie Jackson said, "This game feels like we played Stephen Curry vs Clippers all team model, I am proud of the continuity of our whole team, especially against such a strong team." 」 ”
From the opening two throws, Curry found the sense of projection, the entire first half against the Clippers' change of defense system, Curry has been in a hot state, only the first two quarters of 11 shots 9 shots down 26 points, but his other statistic at the time was the Clippers dream: Curry half 0 assists - the change of defense can not block Curry's personal outburst, but cut off the connection between him and his teammates, which is what Reggie said, they turned the game into "Curry vs Clippers".
Is it possible for a superstar to beat a team alone? Maybe it's okay, for example, in the Clippers' first two consecutive games against the Lone Ranger, Doncic once again found his state of eating, sleeping, and playing Zubac, scoring 51 points in the first leg to lead the team to win, but in the second leg, when Doncic "could only" score 45 points, the victory belonged to the Clippers.
The change of defense is the basic plate of the Clippers' defensive system, which is the winning formula designed by Tylen Lue for the team in the conventional state, cutting the connection between the opponent's core and the whole team, controlling the three-point projection of the role players, although the center's large number of changes to the outside line is easy to make the Clippers pay the price of defensive rebounding, but they still play the top 10 defensive level in the league by relying on this residual team.
Of course, Lu's current excellence is not only in tactical design, just a few months ago in the 2021-22 NBA general manager survey, Taryn Lu was named the most NBA coach with 37% of the vote, and his performance in the final and constant change of moves in the playoffs last year impressed many people. So in the second half against the Warriors, the variables appeared.
Through the first half of the game, Tyrone Lu sensitively captured that the Warriors except Curry had encountered a sense of ice and did not chase dreams, leaving the Warriors' offense very short of an important organizer, and tended to rely more on Curry's offense in the near future. With a wave of the flag, the Clippers began to pinch Curry more on the line, and relying on the supplements of Batum and Covington, the Warriors, who were known for their passing, could not find too many flaws in the Clippers after the pinch.
In the whole game, the Warriors, except for Curry, shot 8 of 28 three-pointers, shooting only 28.6%, while Curry faced a pinch in the second half, and the number of shots and shots plummeted across the board, scoring only 7 points on 2-of-7 shooting. The Clippers' cutting left Curry with only 2 assists in the game, but 4 turnovers.
The so-called impermanence of the soldiers, the impermanence of the water, the Clippers' strategy against the Warriors in this game has its own special features.
If the Warrior Green is in the lineup, the pinch may be ineffective, because Curry will quickly hand the ball to Green under the double encirclement, and Green will judge the situation and deliver the shells;
If the Clippers hadn't recently acquired Robert Covington through a trade, then this move may also be risky, batum alone is not enough to complete the space protection after the pinch 3 defenses 4, but Covington's addition makes the situation different, Lu coached after the game is also praised, "Covington in the second half seems to interfere with every pass of the opponent. ”
The Clippers eventually broke the Warriors, leading their opponents by 25 points in the fourth quarter, winning the season's first victory over this powerful opponent. In the face of the team's disorganized lineup throughout the year, Taryn Lue and his team have left their masterpieces this season against the top two Sun Warriors in the West, and it also shows that they have never backed down no matter how strong their opponents.
Battlefield confrontation has always been so cruel, it never asks how strong or weak the two armies are, but only the final victory or defeat. That is why the military geniuses who were able to create a small number of victories have reason to be remembered by history.
NBA so far this season, clippers players have been absent due to injury 279 times, its "degree of injury" in the entire NBA is only better than the Magic, if you want to count the salary income of player absences, the Clippers are at the top of the list because of the core large-scale injury, according to the salary professional website Sptrac calculations, the Clippers have been absent from the player salary has exceeded 52 million, and no other team in the league has exceeded 40 million.
It is such a Clippers that not only still has a place in the top eight in the West, but also played many famous games this season. Among them, there are the above-mentioned victories against the Sun Warriors, as well as several big reversals that people talk about: in January 2022, they first overturned the Nuggets with 25 points behind, avenging the reversal of the original playoffs; second, Tyrone Lu led the team to a 76er led by Rivers by a remnant 24 points behind at most, proving that the original reversal by the Nuggets was indeed the problem of the predecessor; and then the epic counter-defeat against the Wizards was won. Trailing by 35 points at most and still 7 points behind 20 seconds before the final, the Clippers were able to escape again.
According to statistics, the NBA has never had a team in the past 25 years, and it can reverse the defeat three times in a season after falling behind by 24 points, but the Clippers have done it in just 15 days. Although Tyrone Lu joked after the game against the Wizards, "I thought we were behind by 19 points, but in fact I was wrong, we were 29 points behind", but in essence, he first paralyzed the opponent when playing against the Wizards, quietly narrowed the point difference, and then frantically strengthened the rush at the decisive moment, causing continuous opponent mistakes in a short period of time - from strategy formulation, to on-the-spot execution, to the control of time, it really seems to be a famous style.
So the question is, Tyrone Lue has a good tactical literacy, and he also has a fairly strong on-site command ability, but is this enough to build a good coach? It's not enough, think about it, the Clippers not only lack the core of the team for a long time, but also the main players such as Marcus Morris, Ibaka, Batum are repeatedly injured, and Tylen Lu can find someone to top at any time, can this be done by drawing tactics alone?
Popovich's original words said, "Mastering the O and X in tactical books is only a small part of the reason for Tyrone Lue's success." ”
The Tarzan Beidou coach believes that Tyrone Lu's relationship with the players is the most important, "He has the ability to really care about people, the ability to let players thrive in specific environments, because he treats people sincerely and does not play dumb." He himself enjoys the feeling of being with the players, and his personality is able to accompany the players to walk a long way, so that everyone is naturally willing to listen to him. ”
This evaluation of Tyrone Lu is to the point.
In fact, coaches who are proficient in tactics in American basketball can find a lot of them in high school, but Taryn Lue has a lot of technical and tactical reserves, and he has excellent skills, and Billups, who was Luke's assistant coach last year, said, "He will keep in touch with everyone, make everyone willing to take their responsibilities, and never let you feel hurt." ”
Think back to how many players in the Clippers have been abandoned by other teams and looked down on, from the long-established Batum and Reggie Jackson to the young Haltenstein and Amir Kofi, some of them are the outcasts of other teams, some are homeless people in the league, and some are the lost draft that no one else can see, but under Lu's hands, they all bloom with dazzling brilliance, as if Tyrone Lue has a bit of a stone to gold.
Tyrone Lou is also very good at soothing people's hearts. For example, Reggie Jackson fell out of the rotation shortly after the start of the season last season, and was doubted whether he was on the verge of being eliminated by the team again. But Tyrone Lou kept in touch with him to make sure he was always ready for a positive attitude, and sure enough, Reggie was later entrusted with reuse, and by the time of the playoffs, it was a big explosion.
The same is true of Sergi Ibaka, now sent away, who was reduced to third center in the team this year, and Ibaka was also depressed for a while, but Coach Lu repeatedly praised Ibaka to the outside world, and at one point tried to make Ibaka and Zubac appear at the same time on the court, and his efforts made Ibaka emotionally stable, and shortly before being traded, Ibaka also made a great contribution to the Clippers in the Los Angeles City derby.
11 years of playing, many years of teaching assistant experience, Taryn Lue said that although he has accompanied countless superstars in various capacities, he has taught him more, not necessarily the people who are famous. "Coach Skyles, who taught me how to get people ready," said Scott Skyles, who was Tyrone Lu's coach at the Bucks in 2009, which was Also Lue's last year as a player, "he said to me at the time, 'We'll choose Luke Ridnor and Ramon Sessions, they're both younger than you, but you just have to be ready, and if you feel like you can find a better situation than here, feel free to tell us that this is our respect for you as a person and for the team.'" ’”
To this day, these nutrients that Tyrone Lue has learned in the past have come in handy, which has made him judge from all dimensions and has become one of the best coaches in the NBA.
I don't know if you have found that there is no coach in the NBA who is not scolded by fans, young and young like Nash, and successful as Cole, all of which are the objects of criticism by fans, including Taylor Jenkins, who brought the Grizzlies to the top three in the West in three years, and even a lot of scolding. Just like the former Lu coach, although he became the champion coach in 2016, he was still ridiculed by memes as the object of ridicule of "you still know the ball", but now it has almost conquered all kinds of fans, so that the world has refreshed the understanding of Tyrone Lu.
He should not only be active in memes, but also active on the sidelines of the NBA, because Tyrone Lu has already interpreted it with his strength, relying on luck by heaven and earth, even if it is by James, it is ultimately better to rely on himself. And the Clippers he coaches will also go to the Inglewood area that has just witnessed the Rams Super Bowl victory in the near future, can this be their dragon's place to ride the wind and waves? Can Leonard and George join forces to lift the O'Brien Cup for the Clippers?
To Tyrone Lou, it was as if nothing was impossible. After changing his life, he is also ready to completely change the fate of a team.