Chapter 202 We are the defensive team!
It is difficult for the Bulls to create a fierce second firepower point with this lineup, which means that Bach’s previous set of methods will not work.

The Bulls’ previous tactics relied on the scoring explosiveness of Jordan and Meng Jin. Not to mention when the two were in great form, even when they were in average form, few teams could withstand their firepower.

After Jordan left, the dual-core processor became a single-core one, and Meng Jin gained more firing rights, so he created Chamberlain’s record of 7 consecutive games with 50+ points. But no matter how powerful he is, he can’t make up for the scoring gap after Jordan left. Jordan was a super scorer who averaged 30+ points per game, not a small fry.

Bach was initially trapped in his own thinking. He tried to use the existing lineup to fit the Bulls’ previous style of play. He felt that by improving Meng Jin’s tactical position, giving him unlimited firing rights, and then developing a second and third scoring point around him, the Bulls could still maintain the powerful firepower of last season.

But after playing more than a dozen games, Bach felt that the team’s performance was a bit far from his expectations.

In the previous few games, Bach was still putting pressure on Pippen and Grant, asking them to stand up, to help the team replenish firepower and to help Meng Jin share the pressure. Now Bach realized that it was his own problem. He should not let the players do things they are not good at, at least he should not let them improve skills they are not good at in a short period of time.

Now Bach has figured it out. Since there is no second person to step up on the offensive end, then there is no need to step up. The team can think from another angle, such as focusing on defense.

Bach quickly drove to the training hall, and before he opened the door of the training hall, he heard the sound of a basketball hitting the floor.

“Meng, you are still so hardworking.”

Bach recalled the scene of his first coaching Meng Jin. It was in the summer league of 1987. Bach passed by the training hall while taking a walk in the evening and found that Meng Jin, who had performed well during the day, was still practicing at night. From then on, he looked at this young man from the East with admiration.

Bach watched Meng Jin train on the sidelines for about half an hour before the Bulls players arrived at the training hall one after another. It was not that they were late, but Meng Jin had the habit of arriving early for training.

After all the players gathered, Coach Bach did not start training as usual. He asked the players to stand in two rows and then expressed his ideas.

Coach Bach said that starting today, the team will begin to change its tactics and the Bulls will focus on defense rather than offense.

At first, the players thought Bach was joking. After all, the team’s recent record was really not good and they needed some words to adjust the atmosphere.

But when the players heard Bach’s specific arrangements, they realized that the old coach was serious.

Bach will give Meng Jin, Pippen and Grant great freedom on the defensive end, letting the three of them sweep the court while Cartwright sits in the interior.

The happiest person who heard the coach’s latest tactical deployment was Paxson. In Coach Bach’s deployment, Paxson was required to do very little on the defensive end. Bach also knew that defense was Paxson’s weakness. Letting him do less was equivalent to reducing his weakness. Bach asked Paxson to keep more energy on the offensive end. He even set up two more sets of tactics for him because Paxson was the most stable shooter in the Bulls’ starting lineup except for Meng Jinzhong.

Pippen played very excitedly in today’s training match. In the previous game, Coach Bach asked Pippen to take more shots and maintain his hit rate, which was a challenge for Pippen. Pippen has been showing fear of difficulties during this period. For a player with Pippen’s personality, once he develops fear of difficulties, he will only play worse and worse, and become more and more unreliable.

Now letting Pippen focus on organization and defense is equivalent to putting him back in his comfort zone, and Pippen’s mood suddenly became high.

Bach’s change left Phil Jackson next to him stunned.

“Johnny, you are just messing around. You are using these players as your test subjects. It’s not fair to them.”

During the training confrontation, Phil Jackson walked up to Bach and said.

“The team needs to change, that’s what you said,” Bach said.

“I mean the tactical change, not the change in concept. This change is too big and the players need time to adapt. Now it is the middle and late stages of the season and it is too risky to do so,” said Phil Jackson.

“This is very conservative compared to the triangle offense,” Bach said.

“Okay, what about the fans? They won’t accept the Bulls becoming a defensive team. It’s like the Lakers in the 80s suddenly announcing they would no longer play show-time offense. I guarantee there will be fans causing trouble within three games,” said Phil Jackson.

“Fans only like one way of playing, and that is the way of playing that makes the team win.”

Phil Jackson left the court shaking his head. He felt that Bach would soon be fired. Phil Jackson’s mood was quite complicated at this time. He didn’t want to watch the Bulls go further and further in what he thought was the wrong direction, but once Bach was fired, he would be the one with the greatest hope of taking over the coaching job.

After finishing the training, Meng Jin had some insights into the new tactics. He felt that he was very similar to Allen Iverson who led the team to the finals in the previous parallel universe. The whole team helped him defend and grab the ball for him, and he was responsible for scoring and digesting the ball. However, there is an essential difference between Meng Jin and Iverson. Meng Jin does not need his teammates to help with defense. On the contrary, he himself is a defensive pioneer. Meng Jin can defend from position 1 to position 5. He is the kind of player who can improve the team’s defensive ceiling.

A day later, the Bulls welcomed their first experimental subject, the Cleveland Cavaliers.

孟进全场砍下42分7篮板5助攻，帕克森16分，格兰特10分，皮蓬8分。

The Bulls lost the game 107 to 117. The Bulls played well in the first quarter. The three mobile big men almost locked down the Cavaliers’ outside offense. But the disadvantages of the new tactics appeared in the second quarter. Grant and Pippen had not yet adapted to their new roles. They received too many fouls. Pippen and Grant’s playing time was cut up because of the number of fouls. The defensive system that Bach imagined failed to work successfully. The Cavaliers played their own style of run-and-gun tactics in the second half and secured the victory in one fell swoop.

The Bulls lost two of the next three games, but Bach did not give up. He had seen the potential of this Bulls team to become a top defensive team. However, his biggest opponent now is not others but time.

Bach’s shift from offense to defense angered the Bulls fans. The team’s recent performance made the owner gradually lose confidence in him. The outside world was not optimistic about his reforms. Bach’s time as the Bulls coach seemed to be in the countdown. He urgently needed a victory. Phil Jackson found Meng Jin to express his views. He said that the team can only succeed by playing the triangle offense. Other reforms will only make the Bulls go further.

“When you were teaching me to meditate, you said something, asking me to be patient and meditate for a little longer. Now I want to ask you to be patient and give our sweep tactics more time. It’s like trying a new coffee. You need to at least wait until the water boils, pour the water out, and taste the coffee. Only then can you really say whether it’s suitable for you.”

In the past, it was Phil Jackson who preached to Meng Jin, but today it was the other way around.

Phil Jackson did not refute Meng Jin because he could not refute it, because Meng Jin was right. It definitely takes a period of time for something to go from experiment to production.

Meng Jin likes this new tactic proposed by Bach very much, not only because this tactic allows him to play freely on the offensive end, but more importantly, Meng Jin thinks this tactic will be successful. The height and physical fitness of the three players are very suitable for the sweeping tactics. The biggest disadvantage of this tactic is that it consumes a lot of physical energy, but Meng Jin doesn’t care. His current physical fitness is enough to support himself to sweep back and forth throughout the court. Although Pippen and Grant’s physical fitness is not as good as Meng Jin’s, it is not bad either.

All in all, Meng Jin feels that this tactic has great potential, and he is also looking forward to seeing the final effect of this tactic after it matures, so he does not want Bach to be replaced at the beginning stage of the tactic.

That night, Meng Jin found Pippen and Grant. Pippen thought Meng Jin was looking for him to have a party, so he came wearing a small suit and leather shoes and sprayed half a bottle of perfume. But when he arrived at Meng Jin’s house, he found no one except Meng Jin and Grant.

“Meng, you didn’t ask me to play cards, did you?” Pippen asked puzzledly.

“Sit down.” Meng Jin threw a can of beer at Pippen.

Pippen pulled the ring off the can and took a sip: “When are the girls coming?”

“No chicks.” Meng Jin said.

“No chicks?” Pippen asked back.

Meng Jin nodded: “Yes, there is only one thing I asked you and Horez to come here today, and that is to win the next few games, no matter what method you use.”

Meng Jin continued with a serious expression: “This is for Coach Bach and for us. I have already heard the inside information. The company’s board of directors said that if the team continues to lose, Coach Bach will leave. If he leaves, Phil Jackson will take over, and we will have to play the damn triangle offense.”

“I don’t like the triangle offense. That tactic is too boring. I would rather run all over the court to defend than stand in one position,” Grant said.

“If Phil Jackson comes on, I will definitely be eliminated. His tactics require a guard with accurate shooting. Maybe he will play a double guard and throw me to the bench.” Pippen said.

“It’s not like we’ll be eliminated, but it will take a lot of time and effort to change, and we may even have to change positions. In short, the triangle offense is an annoying thing. It requires us to adapt to the tactics instead of adjusting the tactics based on our characteristics.”

The three quickly reached a consensus that they would never use the triangle offense.

Two days later, the Bulls faced their old rival, the Los Angeles Lakers.

Before the game started, Meng Jin called Pippen and Grant to his side again, and Meng Jin repeatedly emphasized the importance of staying focused, especially paying attention to controlling the number of fouls.

The biggest enemy of this kind of sweeping defense is fouls.

The two nodded, and it turned out that they did not take Meng Jin’s words on their ears. After the first quarter, Magic Johnson only scored 3 points. It was not surprising that Magic only scored 3 points in a single quarter. What was strange was that he only made 1 assist in this quarter.

The alternating defense of Meng Jin and Pippen made him very tired, and with the addition of Grant, Magic even had the illusion that there was one more person on the Bulls court tonight!
This is the characteristic of the mopping-up tactics, the three people keep running and providing defense everywhere.

Not only Magic Johnson was not used to it, but Divac and James Worthy were also not used to it. They thought the basket was open for several balls, but they were blocked by the defensive players behind them when they jumped together. The three elusive free men made the Lakers scared both inside and outside the court.

The high defensive success rate directly helped the Bulls win more fast break counterattack opportunities, and Meng Jin and Pippen scored points continuously through counterattacks.

After three quarters, the score difference had widened to 15 points. The Lakers could still catch up in the fourth quarter, but they gave up. The main players left the court after playing for three minutes in the fourth quarter. The Bulls made the Lakers very tired tonight. The coaching staff did not want to take the risk and keep the main players on the court. It’s just a regular season game. Why risk their lives?

After winning the game, the Bulls’ morale was high, and they seemed to have found the knack of playing this tactic all of a sudden.

They won 6 of the next 5 games. The mobile sweeps of Meng Jin + Pippen + Grant, three tall forwards, made the opponents miserable.

After winning the game against the Bucks, Pippen happily said: “I like this way of playing. It doesn’t matter whether I can score or not. The key is to prevent the opponent from scoring!”

Meng Jin’s expression was even more straightforward. He said to the camera: “We are a defensive team!”

If it were two years ago, Meng Jin’s words would probably have caused laughter from the whole room, but now no one will laugh. Anyone who has watched the Bulls’ recent games knows that he is telling the truth.

(End of this chapter)