10 PM, Boston New Garden, head coach's office.
Lin Qi had been waiting for a while; there were two cups of coffee on the table, his already empty. The cup he had specially reserved for Doc Rivers had cooled down.
The office door was pushed open, Doc Rivers walked in.
He glanced at Lin Qi, then at the coffee on the table, showing no sign of surprise.
"What is it? Speak plainly." Doc Rivers walked behind his desk and sat down in his chair.
Lin Qi said, "I want Harper to start in the next game."
Doc Rivers picked up the now-cold coffee, took a sip, and his brow furrowed into a deep frown. He pushed the cup away.
He leaned back in his chair and remained silent for a full half minute. During that half minute, the only sound was the ticking of the second hand of the wall clock.
Then, Doc Rivers raised his eyelids and asked a question.
"Who did you say that to?"
Lin Qi was taken aback. "What?"
"Have you mentioned it to Thibodeau? To Gary? To any player in the locker room, or any assistant coach in the front office, or to any reporter...? Have you said a single word?" Doc Rivers's speech suddenly quickened.
No. Nobody knows except you.
Doc Rivers stared into Lin Qi's eyes for a few seconds, and finally, he nodded.
In that instant, the coach, who had been very tense just moments before, visibly relaxed. He let out a long breath, stretched his legs forward, and slumped completely into the wide chair back.
"That makes things easier."
Seeing Doc Rivers ' reaction, Lin Qi instantly understood.
"You think I'm going to interfere in coaching matters?" Lin Qi realized, his tone tinged with helplessness.
"I don't know what you're up to, Lin Qi." Doc Rivers spread his hands nonchalantly. "You're my superior. If you want to bypass me and give orders directly, you don't need to call me here in the middle of the night. You can just have the PR department release a press release first thing tomorrow morning, and I can see the news while eating a sandwich at the training ground. Then I can just pack my things and leave, and that'll settle things, right?"
He pushed the awful-tasting cold coffee all the way to the corner of the table.
"Have you watched the videotape I prepared for you?" Lin Qi asked.
"I watched it, I watched it five times over." Doc Rivers interrupted Lin Qi, who was about to begin his analysis, without any mercy. " Ron ( Harper ) is definitely not at a disadvantage against Reggie Miller, and I admit his anticipation of screens is better than Eddie ( Jones ). But I only have one question now..."
" Eddie, what do we do? How am I supposed to explain to a starting player who gave his all tomorrow afternoon at the tactical meeting that he was inexplicably stripped of his starting position?"
"What am I supposed to say?" Doc Rivers sneered, leaning back in his chair and spreading his hands. "Am I supposed to tell him in front of the whole team, ' Eddie, you're terrible at guarding Reggie Miller, Ron is way better than you, so he's the one who gets the starting spot now'?"
The air in the office instantly tensed. Lin Qi met the other person's questioning gaze without flinching, and instead kept his tone extremely calm.
"Our goal is the same: to win. That's why I chose you as head coach, Doc. I believe you have the skills to handle these locker room issues."
Doc Rivers stared at Lin Qi for a full three seconds, as if to confirm whether the other man was just making empty promises.
"Let's compromise," Doc Rivers' tone finally softened. "I can increase Harper's playing time... I'll figure something out."
"From a purely basketball perspective, I still maintain that he should be in the starting lineup." Lin Qi's tone was calm, yet carried an undeniable conviction.
Doc Rivers was not angry after hearing this; in fact, he appeared unusually calm. He slowly leaned back in his chair, gazing intently at Lin Qi.
"Lin, in this office, you can keep your logic as it is; that's your right." He paused, his tone becoming meaningful, "But believe me, the sports field never operates in a vacuum. Logic can tell you what's 'right,' but at our level, when the top teams come together, and everyone's strength is only a hair's breadth apart, the optimal solution on the tactical board is often no longer the sole variable determining victory or defeat."
He paused, his voice deepening.
"What truly determines who can break through this suffocating competition is the centripetal force that binds the entire team together as one."
The next day, at the training hall.
Before the formal training session began, all fifteen players were called into the video room. The atmosphere was somewhat heavy, and the players, some sitting and some standing, wore expressions of confusion.
Doc Rivers didn't waste any words and pressed play. On the screen, Boston's defense was being tossed back and forth by Reggie Miller, like a bow being stretched to its limit. For seven consecutive possessions, although it was thrilling, Boston managed to hold on each time thanks to the team's help defense and rotations.
Pierce stopped chewing his gum, Garnett leaned back in the back seat, his brow furrowed.
Everyone looked at each other, puzzled. No one understood why the head coach was repeatedly showing these clearly successful defensive plays.
Doc Rivers offered no explanation, instead pressing his finger heavily on the remote control.
The scene fast-forwards, freezing on that crucial point conceded in the fourth quarter.
In the video, Eddie Jones was at his limit. He was gripping his knees tightly with both hands, his chest heaving violently, and sweat dripping from his chin onto the wooden floor.
Reggie Miller started running again, and Eddie gritted his teeth and straightened up to chase, but he was clearly a step too slow. In that half-step distance, Miller caught the ball, jumped, and shot with a smooth motion, the basketball swishing through the net.
"Snap."
Doc Rivers pressed pause. The screen froze on Miller's celebratory gesture with his hands raised, a stark contrast to Eddie's frustrated, bent-over back.
"Did you all see it clearly?" Doc Rivers ' gaze swept across the front row, finally settling on Eddie Jones.
Eddie stared at the screen, his face tense.
" Eddie's performance in the first three quarters was impeccable," Doc Rivers said, pointing to Eddie. "But at this crucial moment, he had to chase Miller the entire game, and when he went around screens, he had to battle with the inside players. His stamina was completely exhausted."
"We can't expect Eddie to play defense like he did in the first three quarters for the entire game."
Doc Rivers casually tossed the remote control onto the podium, making a crisp sound.
" Ron can hold us off for a while," Doc Rivers said, his voice steady and strong as he surveyed the team. "Starting from the next game, I'll put Ron on earlier to conserve Eddie's energy for when the game really comes to a head."
Doc Rivers glanced at Harper.
" Ron ( Harper ), did you study Reggie ( Miller ) when you were with the Chicago Bulls?"
Harper was silent for a moment, then nodded.
"You can lead everyone in a debriefing of your previous thought process later," Doc Rivers added fuel to the fire.
Harper's brow furrowed almost imperceptibly, and her lips pressed into a stiff line.
After a moment, he looked at Doc Rivers and replied in a curt tone.
" Doc, I must remind you, I'm not the coach."
Throughout the regular season, Harper mostly acted like an assistant coach on a player's salary, his daily task being to sit next to Chauncey Billups Billups and teach the young man by example.
"I know." Doc Rivers leaned forward slightly, his tone blunt and uncompromising, "But there's really no one in this house who knows Reggie better than you, is there?"
He paused, his voice deepening, "The current scouting reports are superficial and completely useless. We don't have time to start from scratch and re-analyze Reggie."
Doc Rivers clapped his hands at the end, trying to cheer everyone up.
"Starting from the next game, we need to emphasize communication on the defensive end."
"As long as you're on the court, you're in charge of the defense. Switching, helping, matchups... whatever Ron yells, you do."
"Including you, Kevin."
Eddie.
Eddie Jones looked up, his sharply defined face expressionless.
Doc Rivers walked up to Eddie and said sincerely, " Eddie, when you're resting on the bench, I don't want you just sitting there resting."
"You need to keep an eye on Ron. Watch how he defends Miller, watch how he directs the movement of the defensive line."
" Eddie, looking at things from a different perspective might yield unexpected results."
Eddie nodded vigorously and replied crisply with four words: "Okay, Coach."
Lin Qi, sitting in the corner, watched this scene and then glanced at Doc Rivers standing to the side.
It feels like the money spent hiring Doc Rivers as head coach was well worth it.
Last night in the office, Lin Qi broke down his meticulous defensive logic into a detailed explanation for Doc Rivers, which consisted mostly of irrefutable the Truth.
But if Lin Qi were to directly present these conclusions to the players, it's hard to say what the outcome would be.
Doc Rivers, who usually seems cheerful and even a bit slow at times, turned this adjustment into a passing down of defensive experience with just one sentence. " Ron knows Reggie best."
Lin Qi realized that while logic and the Truth are important, Doc Rivers' true skill as a head coach lies in "translating" the Truth into language that the players are willing to listen to.
In this league, there is no shortage of teams with outstanding talent and ingenious tactics, but teams that can truly be of one mind are actually quite rare.