《Rapture Fifteen Teams》源自现任76人主帅尼克纳斯自传中的一段故事，出自该书的第7章“Hoops Lab in the Rio Grand”

One thing I’ve tried to do in this book is connect some dots and show how my journey has led to what I do now in the NBA. Looking back at my time in the D-League, and before that to my years in England, I can see that my willingness to be inventive became a habit. It expanded my imagination.

I am going to jump way ahead for a moment. In early December of 2019, the Houston Rockets came in to play us in Toronto. Their coach, Mike D’Antoni, is one of the game’s great innovators. (He also began his coaching career outside the US, spending seven years leading teams in Italy after first playing for a dozen years over there.)

Before that game, I hinted that I might do something special against James Harden, who can be difficult to guard one-on-one. In fact, basically no one can guard Harden. If you give him a little space, he nails a three. If you get too close, he either drives by you and gets all the way to the rim—or he leans in from beyond the arc and draws a foul.

He has a way of raising up for a shot from underneath a defender’s outstretched hands that consistently gets him free throws. If I were to be mildly critical, I’d say that he has conditioned refs to give him that call. It is highly effective for him—and incredibly frustrating for his opponents. (In 2019–20 he leads the league in foul shot attempts—averaging twelve a game, almost two more than the next-highest player on the list.)

When the Rockets came into Toronto in the first week in December, he was averaging nearly thirty-nine points a game. If you want to know how unusual that is, no one has ended a season with an average that high since Wilt Chamberlain in 1963.

I sort of teased my plan to put something in the Rockets’ heads. “We’ve got an idea of something we’re gonna try and we’ll see if we have enough guts to go with it,” I told reporters.

Well, I did have the guts to do it, although after the game there seemed to be some questions around how smart it was. One of our defenders stayed with Harden—and every time he got the ball in his hands, we sent another player at him—usually Fred VanVleet.

It was basically a zone defense, a modification of a box-in-one. I called it a diamond and one. Fred was at the top of the diamond and as soon as Harden touched the ball, he doubled him.

But Harden was really smart. He didn’t force anything—he just gave the ball up when our two defenders hemmed him in and allowed his teammates to play against us four-on-three.

We did a good job and got a lot of deflections—forty-one total for the game—but the ball caromed their way a lot. They took fifty-five three-point attempts, some of them wide open from the corner, and made 40 percent of them. When they missed shots, our defenders, who were scrambling around trying to guard open players, had a hard time getting back into rebounding position and we gave up too many second chances.

Afterward, the reporters kept asking me if I had considered coming out of that defense. I said yes, I did, but it was an interesting experiment to see play out. And I wanted to see it for forty-eight minutes rather than bailing on it at the end. It wasn’t great, but it was pretty good—and would have been even better if we could have rebounded more of the missed shots we created.

The players embraced the experiment. You can’t tinker around without their being willing to try something different, and not all players are. But I think our roster is naturally inclined in that direction. They have seen that while our experiments don’t always work, they do always teach us something.

I came in at halftime and said, “I don’t know, guys, what do you think?” And they were all like, “Come on. Let’s stay in it.”

Harden only scored twenty-three points, but his teammates killed us. We had been holding teams to 106 points a game, but the Rockets beat us 119–106.

That’s how coaching is sometimes. You try to win every game, but the NBA regular season is long—eighty-two games from late October through mid-April. To experiment along the way can be a little fun, but mostly it’s useful—a part of a long intelligence-gathering operation. Who are your best players? How do you put them in positions to succeed? And how do you defend the other teams’ great players?

You’re always probing, seeking more information.

这段文字描述了19年纳斯在猛龙对阵火箭时，关于如何防守哈登的策略展开的一场试验。众所周知，当时哈登如日中天。跟本无法防守，纳斯当然也深知这一点，于是他们选择一种称作改良版Box-1的方式去防守哈登，他们叫他Diamond-1。即，当哈登持球时，有一名球员专职贴防哈登，与此同时另一名球员则在弧顶随时准备包夹哈登，通常这人就是范乔。

纳斯说，哈登很聪明没有勉强攻，总会在包夹形成时将球传出去，造成4打3的局面。猛龙球员其实做的不错，全场造成41次破坏球，但是球却经常掉到对手手里，火箭全场获得55次三分机会，尤其是底角大空位的投篮，火箭投出了40%的命中率。而猛龙球员由于要去协防处于空位的球员导致，漏了一堆进攻篮板，被火箭打出太多二次进攻。最终，以106-119输给火箭（实际上是109-119）。

赛后记者们不断问纳斯是否考虑过放弃这种防守策略。纳斯表示，他考虑过，但看到这个有趣的实验如何展开也很有意思。他想完整地观察48分钟，而不是在最后时刻放弃。纳斯认为，其实还不错，如果不漏掉太多进攻板，这种策略效果应该还行。而球员们也接受这个试验。没有他们的积极配合和愿意尝试新事物的态度，教练无法进行任何调整，而并非所有球员都愿意这样做。虽然纳斯的实验不总是成功，但总能让球员们学到东西。中场休息时纳斯走进更衣室说：“伙计们，我不知道你们怎么看？”他们都说：“来吧，让我们坚持下去。”最终，哈登在这场比赛中只得到23分，但他得到了队友的帮助拿下比赛（麦克勒莫26分，三分17中8，塔克三分10中5，）

这就是教练工作的部分现实。你试图赢得每一场比赛，但NBA常规赛很长——从10月下旬持续到4月中旬共82场比赛。沿途进行一些实验可能有点有趣，但更多的是有用的——这是长期信息收集工作的一部分。谁是你的最佳球员？如何为他们创造成功的机会？如何防守对手的明星球员？你总是不断探索，寻求更多信息。

以下是我的一丝感悟：球迷总觉得教练是傻子。但很明显，他们知道自己在做什么。别的不多说。有兴趣自己找书看。没兴趣当我没说。

休斯顿火箭