DeRozan said in his 16-year-old rivalry with LeBron in the Eastern Conference Finals,
"One round we ran a tactic and a teammate forgot how to run. LeBron then showed him on the pitch how to get to the running position. It's crazy, and you can tell from this how talented and focused he is. ”
David Griffin, the Cavaliers general manager he worked with for many years, also said:
"Each team will have specific defensive tactics for James, and James can not only remember most of the tactics, but even call out some of them.
Even in the NBA's 75 years, LeBron's "super brain" can be compared with Bird, Jordan, and creative point guards such as Magic, Kidd, and Nash.
It's just that his overly prominent physical talent makes people often overlook his exaggerated memory, keen sense of smell and the "God's perspective" of the stadium.
So he has shown maturity beyond age and control from the beginning of his entry into the league.
He can not only control the overall situation as an organizer and send a wonderful biography to his teammates, but also become the top front line with unparalleled breakthroughs in the early 21st century when the "front guard swing man" is the dominant.
Rookie Season 21+6+6 Best Rookie,
The next year it skyrocketed to 27+7+7, entering the All-Star for the first time,
The third year is 32+7+7, the league first, MVP selection second.
Then in the fourth year he led the team to the Finals, where he met a champion who played by his brain, the San Antonio Spurs.
They have the most silent and cold-joke-telling superstar on the planet, Tim Duncan.
They have two defender duos who are at ease in both the NBA and fiba – Manu Ginobili and Tony Parker.
They have a wayward old man who admires collectivity, sacrifice and on-court wisdom as the head coach - Popovich.
Twenty years ago, Popovich said, "What our team needs is the kind of person who can play with peace of mind and go home after training." ”
In fact, the origin of all this may also stem from the greatest player in their history, "Admiral" David Robinson.
In the 1986-87 season, The Naval Academy's senior center Robinson was already the ruler of 2.11 meters tall, ncaa averaging 28 points, 12 rebounds and 3 blocks per game. But when he was picked by the Spurs as a winner, he chose to refuse two years of $2 million in salary and go to the Navy.
He didn't come to the Spurs until 1989. In the same time and space, the 13-year-old Tim Duncan in his hometown of the U.S. Virgin Islands, but looking at the swimming pool destroyed by the hurricane, he could no longer do swimming training, he had to follow his brother-in-law to play basketball.
So in 1997, when the Spurs once again got the title and got the super rookie that the whole league had coveted for three years, robinson, who was already a regular season mvp, a leading scorer, and one of the four centers, felt that everything was fate.
He and Duncan would not discuss the beauty of the car and the wine mansion. Popovich recalls that the first time they met, they were discussing calculus! The pair, an 8-year-old duo, will then lead the Spurs to the top for the first time.
In the 1997-98 season, Duncan, who was still a rookie, averaged 21.1 points, 11.9 rebounds and 2.5 blocks per game, and was selected as an All-Star and League team, and the last rookie to do so was Larry Bird.
Robinson has accepted Duncan's arrangement as the team's number one attacker, because the young man who entered the NBA after graduating from the same senior year has a more solid interior offense, back-to-back singles and more sensitive and accurate transfer of the ball than he does.
So in the 1998-99 season, the second-year Duncan scored 27.4 points, 14.0 rebounds and 2.5 blocks in the Finals, helping the Spurs win the first championship in team history and also win his first fmvp. The admiral was 34 years old.
But at that time, I am afraid that even he himself did not expect that his promotion and humility to Duncan would be inherited by Duncan unchanged. Let the Spurs become the most harmonious team in the league, and until Duncan retired, it was at the top of the league.
In 2001, the French sports car Parker was selected by the Spurs,
In 2002, Ginobili, who had been selected by the Spurs with the 57th pick in the second round three years earlier, ended the United States' 54 unbeaten run at the Indianapolis World Championships and was late to the best team.
So in 2003 they ended the "ok combination" to hit four consecutive championships, only lost to Fisher in 2004 with a 0.4 seconds shootout, and in 2005 won the third championship in team history in seven games with the hard-core Pistons.
But starting in 2006, the Spurs began another round of power replacement.
Tim Duncan, a three-time champion +fmvp, two-time regular season mvp, and the number one striker in history, gradually handed over the team's scepter to Parker and Ginobili, who was not much younger than him, when he was only 30 years old.
The Spurs have also shifted the offensive center of gravity outward from the original traditional play style of playing with the super interior line as the core and the periphery as auxiliary, and the unlucky eggs at the beginning and end are LeBron James.
In 2005–06, Duncan averaged under 20 points per game (18.6) for the first time in his career, but Parker made his first All-Star.
In the 2006–07 season, Duncan scored 20 points (20.0) for the last time in his career, but he averaged only 16 shots per game in the Finals, with Tony Parker scoring 18.5 shots and 24.5 points. And he himself incarnated as a defensive gate to press the top star opposite, only 24 years old, single-handedly lifted the Cavaliers to the Finals LeBron James.
That year's 4-0 sweep was lackluster, and the young LeBron had no ability to fight back in the face of peak GDP. The most impressive thing is Duncan's "the future is yours".
Duncan, as the Admiral treated him with generosity, did not mind giving the center of the stage to Parker and Manu, and took a back seat to support the Spurs' defensive roots. From 1997-2016, spurs defense has always been one of the hallmarks of their wins.
What's more, within the framework of this "GDP" iron triangle, Popovich can confidently and boldly build the team's tactical play based on their competitive state. The Spurs' rigorous and joyful, determined and funny internal atmosphere has become a blessing for many players with solid style and diverse characteristics.
Bruce Bowen, who had been working for years at the Heat, Celtics and overseas in 2001, was here, and the guard, who had almost nothing but defense and bottom corner three-pointers, became the league's most feared outside gate. He played here until he retired in 2009 with three rings.
White dunk king Brent Barry spent most of his career doing almost nothing but dunks, but came to the Spurs at the age of 32 and won two titles as a backup guard until the age of 36.
Michael Finley, who had been fighting with the Mavericks for years in 2005, arrived and became the Spurs' striker in the final years of his career, finally retiring with the 2007 championship.
There are also international insiders such as Nestrovic, Split, and Oboto, and in other teams, they have almost lost their jobs due to various shortcomings such as lack of athleticism and lack of defense, but in the Spurs they have become the inner partner of the great Tim Duncan, and they have gained fame and fortune.
Even the "scraps" that Bonner, Blair and Neil can hardly play on other teams can only shine at the Spurs.
In those years, the West was also fiercely competitive, Kobe Bryant had gasol to join, coupled with the continuous maturity of Bynum and Odom, the Lakers finally restored the style of purple and gold giants. Not only did he win two championships in three years, but Kobe Bryant killed the Spurs for the first time in the playoffs without O'Neal by his side.
In 2011, the Spurs rose to the top of the Western Conference, but suffered an injury from Ginobili at the end of the season. Manu was named an All-Star for the second time in his career when he returned to the starting lineup that year, averaging 17.4 points, 3.7 rebounds and 4.9 assists, and his injury caused the Spurs to plummet. Eventually they were hit in the first round by tough Grizzlies 4-2 "Black Eight."
In 2012, when the maturity of the Thunder three youngsters was caught, Durant and Young Master Wei cashed out their talents in front of the Spurs for the first time, and James Harden, who played in a style very similar to Ginobili (the same left hand, also like three-pointers + free throws), stepped forward to become a Cavalryman. In the end, the Spurs won two games first, and were pulled out by the Thunder for four consecutive games.
In the 2012-13 offseason, Boris Dior, who had played the "fastest improving player" with Nash, was quickly recruited by the Spurs after being cut by the Bobcats.
The Spurs, which emphasize basic skills, emphasize the collective, emphasize passing, and hate the brainless three-pointer is simply Dior's natural home.
The offense here is manu and Parker, and the defense has Duncan and Leonard, and all he has to do is make the system more lubricated like French butter.
I'm afraid neither he nor Popovich could have imagined that he would become the secret weapon of the Spurs' Finals against the Heat and LeBron.
In 2013, the Spurs swept the Lakers, killed the young courage, and finally avenged the Thunder in the Western Conference Finals. Standing in front of them was the Miami Heat, who had won 66 and lost 16 that year and played the second-highest regular season game game in NBA history with 27 consecutive wins. Their home will be None other than LeBron James, who entered the league double with 26.8 points, 8.0 rebounds and 7.3 assists, while also winning his fourth MVP of five years.
But the Spurs gave the Heat a stick in the first game, and Parker cheated James's hit shot before the end of the game to help the Spurs take the next city 92:03.
In the second game, the Heat counter-attacked a 103-84 victory, and LeBron, although only 17 points, brought out the team's 10-of-19 three-pointer.
The third Spurs returned to San Antonio, also in 103:77 bloodbath. Danny Green, who will follow LeBron to the Lakers seven years later, scored 27 points on 7-of-9 three.
In game four, James and Wade scored 65 points to wipe out the Spurs at home.
In the fifth game, Popovich started with Dior and Ginobili, and received a miraculous effect. Dior only scored 1 point, 4 boards, 3 assists and a block, but he limited LeBron well, who was already weighing 120 kilograms, and James only shot 1 of 8 against Dior.
The 36-year-old Manu scored 24 points and 18 assists, as well as a game-high +19 plus-minus. Spurs 114-104 won the championship point.
Then came the classic sixth game, with 19 seconds left in regular time for Leonard to make two free throws and one for the Heat to trail by three-pointers 92-95. LeBron missed a long shot and Chris Bosh grabbed one of the most important frontcourt rebounds of his career. Thrown to Ray Allen in the bottom right corner, an epic-level three-pointer. Years of sworn enemies Ray Allen saved the Heat and LeBron that year.
In overtime, James made a mid-range shot and two assists to Allen and Bosh, and the Heat escaped 103-100.
The seventh game is another masterpiece of James' career. He faced Leonard's staring, and the Spurs deliberately contracted to put his mid-range shots on the tactics. He had 37 points and 12 rebounds, including five three-pointers plus four mid-range.
Since then, no one has thought that the COSCO shot is LeBron's death hole.
This time, in front of Duncan, the future was finally his.
But in 2014, the Spurs made a comeback, facing the Heat and LeBron, who were fighting for a triple crown and chasing Russell, Jordan, the "ok combination" miracle. They simply and neatly picked out 4-1, and the average net win of 14 points in five games also set the Finals record at that time.
This year, the "GDP" combination, which is already 107 years old, not only defeated leBron, the first person in the league at the time, but also found their Spurs "flag bearer" Kawaii Leonard, who was cold as a stone, but fierce was the iron-blooded front in the Finals against LeBron when the attack and defense were measured, three points saw blood, and finally lifted the 2014 Finals MVP.
Even after that year's Finals, LeBron himself left the Heat.
His ambitious "seven, eight, more championship ambitions" when he first arrived at the Heat were eventually overshadowed by the old men of Nowitzki, Tim Duncan, Manu Ginobili, Tony Parker and the great Popovich.