A barrage of verbal prompts, blinding camera flashes, and a cacophony of voices forcibly yanked Rivers back to reality.
"What?"
His gaze focused as he looked at the reporter who had stood up to ask a question. The face looked somewhat familiar—probably a reporter from Los Angeles.
The reporter cleared his throat and repeated the question.
"Rivers, your team employs the so-called run-and-gun tactics, centering entirely on offense while completely abandoning defense. Yet, you still lost.
"Last year, you lost to the Lakers because your interior was utterly dismantled. This year against the Phoenix Suns—especially in this game—you gave up on defense altogether. You didn’t even have a proper center on the court.
"I know you wanted to win through pure offense, but you still fell short. You didn’t even score as much as the Phoenix Suns.
"Many media outlets have analyzed this and concluded that it’s an extremely ugly tactic that turns the game itself ugly. Do you agree?"
The question caught Rivers completely off guard. He didn’t quite understand. What did they mean by ’ugly’? He thought the Pioneers’ games were actually highly entertaining. They were offense-oriented, featuring all sorts of passing plays, backdoor cuts, and three-pointers. Sure, they had sacrificed defense, but was it fun to watch or not? Regardless, it shouldn’t have anything to do with being ’ugly.’
However, the reporter’s words seemed well-founded. How did they lose last year? Their paint defense was absolutely obliterated by Yao Ming. And this year, going up against the Phoenix Suns—a team without a particularly strong interior—they tried to outscore them and still lost. That meant they had been beaten at their own game. Conversely, this seemed to prove that the run-and-gun system had glaring flaws.
A sudden wave of panic washed over Rivers. He completely forgot his prepared mental script and blurted out, "I don’t think there’s any issue with our approach. We just lacked a bit of luck. We simply missed some shots, that’s all."
The Pioneers had only lost this game by five points. If they had just sunk two more threes, they would have won.
Clearly unwilling to let Rivers off the hook, the reporter stretched out his arm and interjected, "Then will you use the same tactics in the next game?"
"Of course not," Rivers replied instinctively. Since they lost, tactical adjustments had to be made.
The reporter immediately pressed on. "Then can I take that to mean you also believe the run-and-gun system can’t win games?"
"Huh?" Rivers froze, finally realizing the trap. He immediately shot the reporter a hostile glare.
"So that’s how you want to play this, huh!" he thought.
"I never said that," Rivers immediately denied. He pondered for a moment before adding, "No matter what tactics we adopt, the ultimate goal is victory. That is our objective."
He instinctively wanted to defend the run-and-gun offense as a great tactical system, but he swallowed the words right as they reached the tip of his tongue. He hadn’t invented it anyway, so why bother bragging about it?
"That’s all." Rivers stood up, ending the post-game press conference in a somewhat flustered manner.
He thought that would be the end of it. To his surprise, the very next day, major sports media outlets like Fox Sports and ESPN were all discussing the run-and-gun strategy, and the voices of criticism were entirely one-sided. Many reports even took Rivers’ original quotes out of context, claiming he believed the run-and-gun system couldn’t win games—which implied it couldn’t win championships either.
Reading these reports left Rivers utterly bewildered. He found the whole situation baffling. The Pioneers had merely lost a crucial game. How did the media make it sound like they had committed some heinous crime? What tactics he used was none of the media’s damn business.
By this time, he had already returned to Portland. Because of the media circus, even John Nash had sought him out, reminding him to watch his words at post-game press conferences. He was told to just gloss over questions whenever possible and avoid misspeaking.
This left Rivers feeling quite depressed. When he returned to his office and ran into D’Antoni—who had come to discuss the tactical arrangements for the next game—he couldn’t help but vent to him.
"I saw it too," D’Antoni said, his brows tightly furrowed and his expression grim. In his heart, the run-and-gun system had a legacy. He had inherited the mantle from his predecessors, integrated his own concepts, and elevated it to new heights. This was the crowning achievement of his coaching career. Criticizing the run-and-gun system was tantamount to questioning his coaching abilities.
"Doug, ignore those reporters. I think they’re just plain jealous of us," D’Antoni said.
Those media outlets claimed this wasn’t how basketball was supposed to be played. They said playing without a center and having players just running around aimlessly made the game overly ugly. What absolute bullshit!
As far as D’Antoni was concerned, any tactic that put the ball in the hoop was a good tactic. Who cared how he played? Even if he fielded five Jameses—not that he had them—as long as it won games, there was no problem. Thinking it over, he felt that these criticisms could only stem from jealousy. The Los Angeles Daily was jumping around making the most noise of all. Wasn’t it just because they were still bitter about losing to the Phoenix Suns this year? Before smearing others, they should make sure their own asses were clean. If the refs hadn’t helped them this year, could the Lakers have even dragged the series to a Game Seven?
Rivers leaned back in his chair, staring up at the ceiling in a daze for a while before sitting upright. "Mike, regardless of what the media says, I don’t think we can keep playing like this in the next game."
They had already discussed the tactical arrangements for Game Seven on the flight the previous night. D’Antoni believed they should stick to their guns; losing Game Six was merely bad luck, and the tactics were sound. But Rivers had now changed his mind.
D’Antoni frowned. "Doug, you can’t listen to the reporters spouting nonsense." He was the head coach, a professional. What the hell did reporters know? They only knew how to talk out of their asses.
Rivers still shook his head. "Mike, it’s not because of the reporters. It’s because I think if we continue using our Game Six tactics to engage in an offensive shootout, we might not be able to outgun the Phoenix Suns."
In the second half, the Phoenix Suns had also adjusted their lineup, benching Chandler. And the result? The Phoenix Suns had miraculously exploded for a whopping 62 points in just one half! That kind of offensive firepower was absolutely terrifying. Rivers was genuinely afraid that if it came down to an offensive shootout, they wouldn’t be able to match the Phoenix Suns.
"So we still need to stick to our previous approach, focusing primarily on shutting down their star players," Rivers said. He let out a long sigh and spoke with earnest gravity. "Mike, I think the reason we lost comes down entirely to star power."
It was an old cliché that the Pioneers lacked top-tier star power. Milicic had performed decently, at least living up to his status as the second overall pick, but he was ultimately just a rookie. As for Nash, he had been crowned the assist king, but his inherent defensive flaws were obvious. Most importantly, since when did point guards count as top-tier superstars? Compared to the Phoenix Suns, the Pioneers simply didn’t have a true superstar.
To blow a 3-1 lead and get dragged into a Game Seven... Rivers felt that setting aside tactical reasons, the root cause was their lack of a superstar. If he had a Nowitzki or a Hardaway, they wouldn’t have struggled this much.
In that moment, Rivers even underwent a shift in his basketball philosophy. He had made a name for himself with the Magic, leading a bunch of role players to win Coach of the Year. Back then, he thought he was a coach who could work wonders with an underdog roster, relying on his ’personal charisma’ to make role players perform far beyond their limits. But now, Rivers realized that this coaching philosophy was flawed.
His ’personal charisma’ remained, but the lack of star players severely capped his team’s ceiling. How did they lose last year? They lost to Kobe and Yao Ming. How did they blow their lead this year? They lost to Nowitzki and Hardaway. The opponents had superstars; they didn’t. If that was the case, who else was going to lose but them? Especially since his current goal was the championship.
So he had to change his approach. He needed to play with a luxury roster. With a luxury superteam like the Five-star Phoenix Suns, how could anyone possibly lose?

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