Lanny Wilkens is not the best coach in the league. Although he has a ring on his hand and the changes he brings to the team are always immediate, his team often gets a breath away in the playoffs.

For example, he was the head coach of the Portland Trail Blazers, who brought Walton to shape the iron barrel formation, but never succeeded. After taking over the coaching post, Jack Ramsey fully tapped Walton's support talent and developed the Trail Blazers' offense. He won the championship in the first season. If it weren't for Walton's injury, the Trail Blazers would definitely have the strength to continue to win the championship in 2018 and 2019.

Walton's injury also indirectly made Wilkens because the Supersonics led by him reached the Finals in 78 and 79, and led the team to win the championship in 79, becoming the last championship team in the NBA's "Dark Age".

However, Wilkens is indeed a good coach, a head coach who once led the team to win the championship, and it is impossible for him to have two tricks.

After the NBA entered the golden age in the 1980s, the Supersonics lost important players one after another and gradually entered a transitional reconstruction period. Wilkens was also invited to coach the Cavaliers. Wilkens's arrival brought system, defense and discipline to the Cavaliers. With the clarity of the Cavaliers' management's mind and operation, around Wilkens's thinking, the Cavaliers finally became a climate this season.

Now, facing the Western Conference's top Portland Trail Blazers who had just suffered a big defeat, Wilkens also really wants to defeat his opponent to further boost the morale of the Cavaliers.

The Cavaliers are a very orthodox team in the lineup. They have neither double towers like the Trail Blazers nor high defenders like the Lakers. Their starting lineup is 7-foot Doherty, power forward 6-foot Larry Nance, small forward 6-foot Mike Sanders, shooting guard 6-foot Ron Harper, and point guard 6-foot Mark Price.

As you can see from your height, this is a very standard starting lineup, and every position is a standard player in this position. Unlike Gan Guoyang, who was originally a center forward, he should play in front of the big shot, nor is he like Winnie Johnson's point guard, the shooting guard swings at any time, and there are no Wizards like Magic Johnson.

It is such a standard lineup that is in line with Lanny Wilkens' appetite. Wilkens pays great attention to team cooperation in offense. At the same time, he is a coach who attaches extreme importance to defense. This season, the Cavaliers' performance has soared to the sky, and the defense brought to the team by Wilkens is definitely an indelible contribution.

Facing the visiting Trail Blazers, Wilkens and his Cavaliers seemed very calm. The team's gratifying results this season gave them enough confidence. However, on the surface, in the pre-match Cavaliers' training, Wilkens still extended the training time and practiced offensive and defensive tactics to target the Trail Blazers.

Unlike other coaches, Wilkens is a coach with a more positive attitude, or his coaching is more rigid than Jack Ramsey. Jack Ramsey is obsessed with his dream of winning the 1977 championship, but he pays great attention to developing the players' offensive talents, while Wilkens prefers to let players adapt to his defensive system.

So, when Gan Guoyang stood on the court on the 24th against the Cavaliers, he felt the temperament of this Cavaliers - this is their first time fighting this season, and they are indeed different from before. The lineup is strict and the running position is standard. The players are not talented geniuses, but they all have strong combat power and are a very perfect team.

Gan Guoyang was rarely treated as a defensive treatment from the orthodox center in tonight's game. Wilkens did not let Larry Nans go against Gan Guoyang, but asked Doherty to defend him. Obviously, Wilkens's performance in defending Gan Guoyang in the past was seen by him when he was in the Suns, so he dared not let him die again.

Among the five No. 1 centers from 1983 to 1987, Doherty should be the least talented. As a North Carolina graduate, he has many qualities of an orthodox center, especially his passing ability is excellent among centers, but in terms of defense, blocking shots is his shortcoming, and his lateral movement speed is a bit slow.

Looking back, Gan Guoyang has not played against the orthodox center in the game for a while. In the 1988 season, in the Trail Blazers against the Cavaliers, Gan Guoyang played Doherty single at the basket just like playing.

However, tonight, facing the Knight who was on the right path, Adelman had some miscalculations when using Gan Guoyang.

The Trail Blazers are an open team on the offensive end, paying attention to sharing the ball rights and taking action, and not rejecting the players' personal offense. Therefore, from the scene, the Trail Blazers pass very much and very fast, but in a game, the team's assists are not too many. The passing often creates no direct scoring opportunities, but gives players personal offense opportunities.

After having Sabonis, this feature was strengthened. Sabonis found that his ability to chance was really strong, and Gan Guoyang also integrated into this offensive mode and became a libero in the frontcourt. With his outstanding shooting skills, he could launch an attack anywhere.

Now, Adelman has put restrictions on Gan Guoyang, not wanting him to be a free man anymore, but hopes that he can fix his area and appear in the most threatening and most needed places. This idea is undoubtedly good, but after such adjustments, the first opponent they face is really not very appreciative.

The Cavaliers' playing style is too traditional, slow-paced and sharpened positions. Wilkens never uses dangerous moves, just one-on-one defense, occasionally attacking, and more passes and more mid-range shots in the offense. If it is replaced by a fully open Gan Guoyang, he can kill Doherty.

But the problem is that Gan Guoyang has made changes, and Adelman is also extremely stubborn, believing that such a positioning style must be persisted, even if the Trail Blazers play very hard on the field.

Gan Guoyang can still score at low and high positions, but his destructive power against the Cavaliers' defense was gone. Wilkens later let Doherty defend alone, and he liked to attack and attack. Gan Guoyang scored 44 points on Doherty's head throughout the game, but his teammates failed to break through the Cavaliers' iron barrel formation. From the first quarter, the Cavaliers' defense was almost invisible and there were few mistakes. The Trail Blazers could only rely on pure personal ability to score.

The fast attack was gone, the internal and external combination was not played out, and the impact of the second team was eliminated. Gan Guoyang scored high scores but had no decisive impact on the game, because he was only active in a small fan.

Before the start of the game, Gan Guoyang was very supportive of Adelman's decision to adjust, but after the game, Gan Guoyang also privately chatted with Bellman, and he also had some doubts about such adjustments.

In the following games, Gan Guoyang's doubts about this became deeper. He found that when he was only in this fan, he could score points, grab rebounds, and pass the ball, but his influence on the game became smaller because he could not pull the opponent's defense. He was just a data machine.

The bigger problem comes from teammates. They are a little uncomfortable with such changes in Gan Guoyang. Porter felt that Gan Guoyang had a flexible and changeable position before, and he could always appear in the right position. He passed the ball to Gan Guoyang as a scoring opportunity. Now he looked around and could only see Gan Guoyang at a few points. It turned out that Gan Guoyang could not go to the points that could catch the ball and score.

Sabonis also complained to Gan Guoyang during training, saying that his position was too rigid and that the two could only exchange high and low, and their power was far less than that of flexible running.

In terms of the team's performance, in addition to suffering two consecutive losses, the Trail Blazers lost to the 76ers and the Mavericks one after another after March. In the game against the Pacers, they also fought in overtime. Reggie Miller made 4 of 7 three-pointers and scored 29 points, almost killing the Trail Blazers twice.

As long as you lose, doubts and criticisms will follow. If the last time the Trail Blazers crisis came from outside and other teams targeted the Trail Blazers, then the problems encountered by the Trail Blazers this time were more like he was trying to die. Adelman was under pressure from the management for this, hoping that he would continue to maintain his previous style of playing and not change his use of Gan Guoyang casually.

Situ Yinman also chatted with Gan Guoyang, hoping to convince Gan Guoyang to return to his original appearance and give full play to his offensive talent.

In this case, Gan Guoyang suppressed the complaints of his teammates, and the other was that he withstanded the pressure from the management and expressed that he would continue to support Adelman's approach.
Chapter completed!