Enough
Cleveland called their starters back to the bench, and we made our substitutions too.
I couldn’t help but glance at Coach Budenholzer.
I’d followed his instructions on defense by keeping Kevin Love in check, but on offense I’d pretty much done whatever I wanted.
Jeff Teague patted my back and told me it was fine since he’d set everything up.
“Ahem…”
For now, I played dumb and took a seat on the bench.
I wondered what kind of scolding was coming.
But Coach Budenholzer simply clapped his hands and encouraged the team without saying a word about me.
“This is the Cleveland team we have to overcome this season. Don’t space out on the bench either. Watch the flow of the game and how the opponent sets up their offense carefully!”
Then he gave Al Horford, who had come off the court when I subbed in, some instructions.
After syncing up with the bench players, Horford completely dominated Cleveland’s bench unit. He scored six points on offense and put on an impressive defensive performance as well.
‘As expected, his team defense is incredible.’
An undersized big man who covers everything with his defensive basketball IQ. No wonder he’s an All-Star center on the third team.
‘That’s why Cleveland tries so hard to drag Horford out for mismatch hunting.’
Only then could they neutralize Horford’s team defense and turn him into a defensive liability.
Turning an opponent’s defensive strength from +100 to -100 by hunting their big men.
That was Cleveland’s strategy and their fundamental team identity.
‘Maybe…’
Perhaps Cleveland was the perfect counter to us Atlanta.
After playing five minutes, Horford came back to the bench and the first quarter ended.
When the second quarter began, the starters prepared to return. Coach Budenholzer called Millsap and Horford over, then…
“Lee.”
He gestured to me, not Carroll.
All the bench players’ eyes turned to me at once.
“…Ah, yes!”
Carroll’s sharp gaze stabbed into my back as I walked toward the coach.
Anyway, Coach Budenholzer gathered the three of us—the frontcourt unit—and emphasized defensive coordination. He stressed moving so Horford wouldn’t get pulled out, and if he did, recovering quickly based on the opponent’s movement and preparing help defense.
“Al, this is your role. You know that, right?”
“I know, Mike.”
Horford nodded with a determined expression, then threw an arm around my shoulder and started explaining basic calls and how to handle various situations in team defense.
.
.
.
Atlanta took the lead with a 13-2 run during the bench unit’s time on the floor.
But since this was a preseason game, it didn’t really matter.
Assistant GM Robert was more focused on watching how Atlanta’s bench moved. He was curious what kind of adjustment Coach Budenholzer would make regarding Seo-jun.
‘Lee’s offense wasn’t bad.’
Even Robert had been shocked by the reckless play of charging straight at LeBron, but since the result of that play had been a pass, he was willing to give it a passing grade.
If Seo-jun had forced a drive instead, Robert had planned to reprimand him even if he scored.
‘Fundamentally, he’s a smart player. He has passing sense and court vision.’
How would Coach Budenholzer judge this?
Would he point out the impulsive action and scold him, or encourage it further?
The coach’s choice was to wait and see.
He wanted to observe more.
But defense was a different story.
The decisive factor was the defense that stopped Kevin Love’s post-up.
‘He’s putting Lee Seo-jun in the starting unit!?’
Not a small lineup replacing Horford, but directly into the existing lineup that included Horford.
The implication was significant.
‘No, this is surprising. Coach Budenholzer is testing him as a starter.’
And it wasn’t a simple experiment—it was a critical test.
If Seo-jun could coordinate with Horford and Millsap at a certain level and pass, DeMarre Carroll would immediately lose the starting job competition.
After all, Carroll would become an unrestricted free agent at the end of this season with almost no chance of re-signing.
From the team’s perspective, giving the four-year contract player, Seo-jun, a chance to grow was only natural.
Robert suddenly recalled Darvin Ham’s words.
‘He said he was clearly a number-one pick candidate…’
If that were the case, it made sense that he was threatening the starting spot this quickly.
The second quarter began with Cleveland’s offense.
Kyrie Irving handled the ball.
Robert frowned at the sight.
‘Are they trying to hunt Horford again… They’re really persistent.’
They used a small lineup to block big-man hunting on their end, yet they relentlessly hunted the opponent’s big men.
Usually, this tactic balanced out when the team’s own big men hunted the opponent’s undersized bigs.
For example, if the big being hunted was Dwight Howard. Howard would obviously get hunted by Irving, but in return, he would crush Kevin Love or Tristan Thompson on offense and score points.
But Horford, who was small and lacked athleticism, couldn’t do that.
So Cleveland could unilaterally hunt Horford.
Just as Seo-jun had sensed, Cleveland was Atlanta’s natural enemy.
Creak! Squeak! Cleveland began their pick-and-roll.
In response, Atlanta’s players moved busily to hide Horford.
“Lee!”
“Okay!”
Horford quickly went to Thompson, and Seo-jun, who had been on Thompson, switched onto Love coming off the screen.
Until now, Cleveland had exploited these split-second defensive rotation situations to give Atlanta trouble.
But this time was different.
Thud! Irving used Love’s screen to shake off his man, Jeff Teague. As a result, Seo-jun ended up matched up with Irving.
Although a switch occurred, since Horford hadn’t been pulled out, it could be considered a defensive success.
In this situation, Cleveland’s usual tactic was for Irving to pass back to LeBron or run a handoff with Love to create space…
“Huh…?”
Robert’s eyes widened.
Irving gestured for his teammates to clear out, as if he had been aiming for this matchup from the start.
***
Irving waved his hand, asking his teammates to give him space.
Kevin Love moved to the left 45-degree corner, while LeBron on the right 45 simply stood upright in an observing posture.
In other words…
‘Isolation at the top? Against me?’
I was taken aback.
I’d never been the target of hunting before. Opponents always found it better to hunt someone else rather than me, so they never targeted me.
Even now, hunting Horford or Millsap would be far more advantageous than hunting me.
Yet the reason they were deliberately targeting me was simple.
‘I see. So when they told you to come out next, you came out.’
My body felt like it was burning hot.
It wasn’t just the competitive spirit from Irving challenging me to a one-on-one. It was the premonition that if I got past this gate, LeBron would come out next.
My body itched with the desire to crush Irving and declare “Next.”
I lowered my stance, preparing for the drive.
“…”
Irving remained silent.
Without a word, he began dribbling as if dancing.
Tap, tap. Tap! Tap, thud. Squeak! Thud! A leg-through dribble followed by a crossover, with subtle hesitations mixed in between.
A godlike dribble that seemed to play with rhythm.
“Hah…!?”
Before I knew it, Irving had slipped past me.
Like I’d been possessed, I gave him the side, and I quickly tried to close out laterally to cut off his driving lane, but Irving’s speed was impossible to catch up to once he’d stolen the timing.
With me behind him, Irving glanced back and went straight up for the layup.
‘He’s trying to draw a foul!’
I managed to stop at the right moment without taking the bait.
Whoosh! After making the layup, Irving looked me up and down as if surprised I hadn’t gone for the foul, then silently retreated on defense.
Defensive failure.
‘What the hell was that!?’
I was shocked.
I knew Kyrie’s ball-handling and dribbling were among the best in the league, but experiencing it firsthand was on another level.
‘It wasn’t just flashy for show.’
Usually, flashy dribbling came with a lot of waste.
It was the same in soccer. Flashy footwork often backfired at the pro level. Players like Hazard or Messi succeeded by being concise and explosive without waste.
But this was different.
It was flashy, yet there was zero waste.
“Lee, don’t worry about it! That guy’s always been a different breed.”
Millsap encouraged me as he ran by.
Anyway, I needed to focus.
On our possession, Jeff Teague drove after a screen but was stopped by help defense at the rim.
On Cleveland’s next possession, Irving targeted me again in the matchup.
“Tsk!”
The humiliation of being treated like prey.
I told myself this time would be different and got into defensive position, but Irving’s one-on-one attack wasn’t something you could figure out after seeing it once.
Squeak! Creak! I moved my feet frantically, trying to stay with him, but I couldn’t match his rhythm and tempo.
Unable to keep up, Irving instead exploited the waste in my footwork and attacked.
Squeak! As I took a big step back, Irving came to a sudden stop and rose for a pull-up jumper. My contest, thrown off by the reverse momentum, was meaningless.
Swish!
‘He even has a jump shot option at this level? This won’t work.’
I decided to admit it quickly.
Right now, stopping Irving’s offense was beyond my experience level.
But that didn’t mean there was no way to get revenge.
“Jeff!”
At my shout, Teague nodded as if he understood.
He was going to set a screen for me to create a mismatch with Irving.
‘You won’t be able to stop me either.’
With my post-up, I could definitely take Irving.
That’s why I wanted the setup, but Irving was calm.
As if he’d noticed we were trying to hunt him, he switched with Waiters, who had been guarding Teague, and moved to the corner.
This made the offensive setup more difficult.
‘So they’re just going to attack one-sidedly. Well, that makes sense.’
In that case, there was no choice.
…I had no choice but to bully Love, who was the easier target.
“I’ll try from this side!”
This could also serve as revenge for Irving’s attack. After all, it meant making their key big man look bad.
Thud! Matched up against Love, I immediately backed him down.
Love’s defense was… how to put it. Very ambiguous.
He wasn’t strong enough to be a center, but he also lacked the natural speed to be an undersized center.
‘And his defensive instincts aren’t great either. He’s my prey…!’
After creating space with contact, I blew by him and finished with an easy layup. Normally I’d have to worry about help defense, but right now Kyle Korver was in the right corner.
No sane player would leave Korver open to help.
So I only needed to watch for help from the opposite corner, and that gave me plenty of room to operate.
‘So this is the spacing effect!’
I marveled as I jumped toward the rim.
Bang! Another one-handed slam exploded.
Love’s expression, having been victimized again, grew increasingly grim.
***
The second and third quarters could be described as a strange showdown.
Irving hunting Seo-jun with flashy dribbling, and Seo-jun venting his frustration on Love.
At first their offensive efficiencies were similar, but gradually Seo-jun’s side pulled ahead.
[Lee Seo-jun player once again drives past Love and finishes successfully! Kevin Love’s expression is completely distorted!]
[Love must be going crazy right now!]
It was because the method was different from typical big-man hunting.
Commentator Eom Sang-hyun couldn’t hide his admiration as he continued.
[Usually when we talk about hunting big men, driving to the basket with dribbling and speed is the standard approach. But Lee Seo-jun’s method is different. There’s a saying, right? If the defender gets too close, drive past them!]
[Yes, that’s right.]
[They say that because if you defend too tight, the timing to recover after a drive becomes very tight. Lee Seo-jun’s current play is similar in context. Once you get physical with him, it’s hard to keep up with his side-to-side movement.]
[Aha, but not every player can execute that kind of attack, right?]
[Exactly. To do that, you need the power to bump and blow by. Without that strength, even if you get close, you’d have to go around the defender’s body to drive, which actually creates waste.]
On the other hand, Seo-jun was creating space through contact and blowing by.
[This is often called bully ball. Against Love, this attack is landing quite painfully. In terms of both speed and power, Lee Seo-jun isn’t being pushed back at all!]
Eom Sang-hyun spoke with conviction.
[Right now, Love is completely mismatched against Lee Seo-jun!]
This was an enormous humiliation for Cleveland.
Who was Love? A former number-one option in Minnesota and a stretch big in the league’s top tier.
And now he was part of the Big Three alongside LeBron.
Seeing him being hunted so helplessly was an even greater disgrace to Cleveland than Seo-jun being dominated by Irving.
The problem was that they couldn’t exactly tell Tristan Thompson to switch onto him.
That would be no different from Love waving the white flag and running away.
And against a rookie who hadn’t even played a single regular-season game? That would be an undeniable, massive embarrassment.
So they kept leaving Love on him, but Seo-jun’s one-on-one offensive efficiency only increased.
Eventually, after a thud! of contact, he even hit an elbow jumper and put on a one-man show.
With three minutes left in the third quarter, he reached 18 points.
Naturally, the domestic community went into an uproar.
The crowd in the arena was also chanting Seo-jun’s name at the top of their lungs.
Every time Seo-jun touched the ball, the chant of “Lee───!!” echoed throughout the arena.
Any doubts about Seo-jun’s draft position had already vanished.
The symbolism of completely dominating Love was that significant.
…And this.
Made LeBron James move.
“Hah!”
After a spin move, Seo-jun blew past Love and drove to the basket. A layup that would’ve made it 20 points.
That shot.
Smack! LeBron, who had closed out from behind in an instant, swatted it away with a vicious chase-down block.
Then he spoke quietly.
“Enough.”
You’ve shown off enough. Now sit down.
“Haa! Haa…! Hah, hahaha.”
Seo-jun wiped his sweat and laughed.
He’d finally drawn him out.
Of course, LeBron wasn’t personally provoked by Seo-jun.
LeBron was a player who never reacted to provocations. Even if someone hurled all kinds of insults at him or whispered in his ear, he would just laugh it off.
Even if Seo-jun had kept clinging to him and trying something, LeBron wouldn’t have moved.
But wounding the team’s pride was a different matter.
Especially when it was Kevin Love, whom he had essentially brought in, being humiliated.
“Kyrie!”
Cleveland launched a counterattack.
LeBron shouted for the ball from Irving and began orchestrating the offense with precision.
He didn’t try to hunt Seo-jun specifically.
As if he had no such childish competitive spirit, he focused on building a surefire attack.
After pulling Horford out, LeBron toyed with the already trailing Horford by running give-and-go plays.
Whoosh! Thud! LeBron passed to Love and cut, receiving the ball back. Horford was already a step behind and couldn’t recover.
The one who provided help was Seo-jun, who had been in the right elbow area.
Tap! Seo-jun chased after LeBron, who was driving to the rim. His eyes were filled with the desire to repay the chase-down block from earlier.
But…
‘He’s fast!’
The problem was that because it was a give-and-go rather than a dribble drive, LeBron’s burst was too quick.
‘I don’t want to give up the points like this…!’
Seo-jun, who had fallen behind, swung his arm anyway, deciding to foul if necessary to get revenge for the block.
And this.
Smack! Cleanly struck LeBron right on the top of the head.
“Aaaagh!?”
LeBron clutched his head upon landing and rolled on the floor.
Seo-jun stood there dumbfounded, not knowing what to do, then cautiously asked.
“Oh. Um, so, are you okay…?”