One Year Left to Play

Chapter 371 - 113: I Wish I Could Play the Celtics Every Day

After saying this, James Worthy saw Zhang Hao’s reaction, and he was finally satisfied.

He saw Zhang Hao’s eyes widen, seemingly glowing, as he said to the Magician, "Thank you for your help, Mr. Johnson."

Indeed, this treatment, at least after the Magician entered the NBA, no one else should have had it, right?

In terms of scoring, perhaps the Magician is not proficient in any particular aspect, but his comprehensiveness is undeniable. Combined with height and agility, he is indeed the best sparring partner.

When the Magician went to warm up, James Worthy began to explain defense to Zhang Hao: "During this period, I’ve watched every game of yours. Before I came back, I watched all your game tapes, the ones during your time with the Brooklyn Nets, all that I could find.

You have a huge misconception, you’re placing too much emphasis on defensive awareness, which is not what you should be focusing on right now. When you’re defending, don’t think about interfering with the opponent’s shot as much as possible; instead, make sure you’re between the opponent and the basket.

Your mind might have learned how to defend, but your abilities aren’t there yet. You can’t even do the most basic defense well.

Defense has three stages. The first stage is to become a defender who doesn’t drag the team down.

The second stage is to combine defensive awareness and engage in effective defense while being diligent and proactive.

The third stage is when the body already possesses instinct, and awareness has become a habit. There’s no need to deliberate, not even a moment of thought. When the opponent makes a move, your awareness instantly makes a decision, and your body instinctively acts under the habitual awareness.

Your current goal is the first stage: to become a defender who doesn’t drag the team down. During switching, man-on-man, help defense, and recovery defense, you should be able to position yourself between the defender and the basket smoothly, making it more difficult for the opponent to find space.

Fortunately, your mobility and confrontation are outstanding, and you work very hard on defense.

Now, we need to work on some of the most basic things. What you need to learn first is judgment ability, to predict the opponent’s next move in the attack. The basics are the hardest..."

"Now we start practicing footwork under the basket. You have excellent shot-blocking talent. When not required to move over a large area, staying in a fixed area greatly avoids your vulnerability to being fooled.

But you’re still relying on athletic ability and predicting the shot of penetrating players, and when encountering players with strong inside plays, your defense is very poor. Penetrating players mostly go straight; they have no extra energy to make too many changes below the basket. Those who can make many changes... even the best shot-blockers have a hard time defending.

Players with strong inside play have more space to operate when they’ve established position.

That’s when footwork becomes very important..."

After explaining a bit, James Worthy began teaching Zhang Hao small steps.

Zhang Hao listened intently, learned earnestly, and practiced even more seriously. With such a student, James Worthy taught with more enthusiasm.

Whether he can learn well or not is not important, but learning with such effort won’t lead to a bad outcome.

After a while, the Magician was ready, and they were about to begin practicing low-post defense.

Following the two top draft picks were the Lakers’ own filming crew, filming from three angles to capture the actual training process.

During training, there wasn’t much confrontation. Zhang Hao had to learn to judge the Magician’s movements, practice defensive movement, and keep himself between the Magician and the basket.

Even when close to the basket, if the defender’s body isn’t accurately positioned between the offensive player and the hoop, giving the offensive player even half a body advantage, it becomes an open attack for the offensive player. At that point, you can only hope the opponent’s shot touch is off or their layup technique isn’t good enough.

From 9:40 to 11:00, a total of 1 hour and 20 minutes; active training time was 30 minutes. After every 10 minutes of practice, the recorded footage was reviewed for explanation...

...

"As a competent basketball coach, guiding defensive skills is indispensable. Host may activate the ’Basketball Defense Fundamentals’ writing task, costing 90 days of lifespan. Would you like to activate it?"

"Activate..."

"The host has acquired foundational defensive knowledge and guidance skills from NBA historical mismatch defense master James Worthy. Beginning the defensive fundamentals knowledge study.

Learning Task: The writing of Basketball Defense Fundamentals has been initiated.

Task Goal: The host may perfect their ability to guide players in learning defensive fundamentals through learning from various famous figures, self-study, and self-development. If the host’s learning contents have successful experiences or have been practically verified in games, they will be recorded in the learning mode database, allowing the host to perform deep memory through learning mode.

Task Reward: Once the host perfects the learning methods for defensive fundamentals across all positions and successfully guides different position players to complete the learning of the defensive fundamentals of their main position to reach the first stage of defensive standards, upon completion for all five positions, a Bronze Medal in Mismatch Defense Mastery will be awarded."

"Remaining lifespan: 493 days, usable lifespan: 492 days."

Zhang Hao saw another book on the living room bookshelf titled "Basketball Defense Fundamentals."

Seeing his remaining lifespan drop below 500 days again... Zhang Hao felt a pang of heartache...