While the Suns and Pelicans series is over, there's still plenty to remember about this series. You have to admit that of the four teams in the play-offs, the last thing the Sun wants to meet is the Pelicans, and the Pelicans just meet the Suns.
The Suns are not worried about the Pelicans' momentum in the second half of the season, but about their head coach Willie Green. The head coach of the league's other 29 teams knows them best, willie Green, after all, it was Green who took them to the Finals a year ago.
I admit I misread Willie Green, and when he succeeded Van Gundy as pelicans head coach, I thought he was relying on only the experience of being an assistant coach during the Warriors and Suns, and the Pelicans' vision of choosing a head coach has always been bad.
When the Pelicans start with a 1-12 loss, I think Willie Green isn't that too. When the Fat Tigers didn't play in a season and the Pelicans made it to the playoffs in the second half of the season, I also think the main credit was that they traded to CJ and changed the main body of the lineup.
Even when the Pelicans won the Sun in Game Two of the Series, I would think the chicken soup that Willie Green said during the timeout didn't do much. But when the Pelicans drew 2-2 with the Suns at home, my impression of Willie Green changed completely.
Against Paul, who was a teammate with him and then coached, Willie Green knew that if Booker didn't play, the pelicans had a better chance of winning the game if Paul didn't play.
So he used Herbert Jones, a forward with amazing athleticism, and when Jones withdrew, he used Alvarado, an annoying defender, to annoy Paul, and the sixth elder began to harass Paul from the backcourt.
In the end, Paul scored only four points in the whole game, and Willie Green's strategy won a huge victory. Of course, many people put all the credit on Jones and the old six, the NBA head coach is such a role, the credit for winning the game is the player's, and the responsibility for losing the game is yours.
It is precisely because of such a plot that after the G6 Pelicans were eliminated, Green and Paul's embrace and crying seemed so emotional. Green played all the cards in his hand, and he hoarsely told the players not to do it, and they snatched two victories from the league's number one hand, enough to look up and leave.
Before hugging Paul, Green began to cry from the moment he hugged Monty. I guess the reason for the defeat occupies only a small part of Green's tears, and more of an emotion. The love is difficult to control, and the friendship between him and Monty may not be known to many people.
Willie Green was a mediocre player who couldn't be more mediocre, he played in the NBA for 12 years and only took more than 20 million. He hasn't won any awards and has a career-highest scoring season of 12.4.
Unlike many players who shined in college but became mediocre after entering the NBA, Willie Green did not experience much graft in college. He spent four quiet years at the University of Detroit, winning no national awards or leading the team to any good results.
He was selected by the Supersonics in the second round in 2003 and then traded to the 76ers. Monty Williams was a nine-year veteran of the League, battling serious injuries, and he met Monty for the first time when Green reported to 76ers camp.
In Green's words, Monty showed all the youngsters how to be a professional, and he did everything a veteran would do, including, of course, leading Green to a career path.
A few months later, Monti was traded to the Magic and subsequently opted to retire. The two were not too familiar at this time, but Monty always remembered the young man. Monti first became manager in New Orleans in 2010 and three months later he traded to Green.
It was then that the bond between Monty and Green really began to build, and they extended the connection to the field, and each other's families became intimate. At that time, Green began to play the role of the big brother in the team, and one of his younger brothers was named Chris Paul.
After Green retired, he first served as an assistant coach for three years as an assistant coach for the Warriors in those years, winning two NBA championships. He then accepted Monty's call to go to the Suns as a teaching assistant before reaching the finals again.
In Monty's words, Green played an important role in the Suns' team: "If we hadn't had Willie here for the first two years, our team wouldn't have reached where we are today. ”
Over the course of two years, Green and Paul and others have also developed very closely, and every weekend Green will exchange text messages with Paul, and Green has always referred to the sun as family.
The series with the Suns was sweet and tangled, with Green saying, "For a dozen days, we had to pretend we weren't brothers, not a family. When the battle was over, Green's antagonistic relationship with Monty and Paul was over, and they embraced each other again.
It is enough to have a confidant in life.