warrior godfather

Chapter 317 Christmas War (6000 words)
April 12, Oakland.

Christmas is here, and people in the Bay Area are all immersed in the joyous atmosphere of Christmas. Even the harsh winter can't freeze people's fiery emotions to celebrate Christmas.

But different people have different ways of celebrating the festival.

Some people can go home, against the background of the howling wind outside the window, in the warm room, amidst the laughter of family members, and at a table full of delicacies, spend a warm and reunited Christmas.

But some people, even on Christmas, cannot leave work, and even tonight is their first day of work, such as the players and coaches of the Clippers and Warriors.

Next to Highway 880, in the Oracle Center, Clippers players and Warriors players have been warming up on the sidelines. Today is the opening day of the NBA2011-2012 season.

In order to restore the lost popularity after the long lockout, the league spared no effort in the schedule. A total of five Christmas games were arranged, Bulls VS Lakers, Thunder VS Magic, Heat VS Mavericks, Celtics VS Knicks, Warriors VS Quick ferry.

Among these ten teams, each team has stars in the lineup, including last season's MVP, scoring champion, and all team members, star-studded.

Regardless of the long commuting trips that some teams have to endure, the league has painstakingly formed the championship game, the revenge game that swept the playoffs, the "seizure" game between emerging forces and established teams, and finally the point guard. The duel plus the No. [-] pick vs. No. [-].

With the Mavericks dismantling the championship lineup, the Celtics' Big Three getting older, the Magic getting worse and worse, and the Lakers getting more and more mediocre, the other four matchups are more or less lacking in spectacle. The Warriors and Clippers get the most attention.

There are too many things to watch in the game between these two teams. First of all, everyone naturally wants to see what kind of strength this Clippers team with Paul can play. The Warriors actually took advantage of the Clippers' popularity on this point.

Secondly, Curry has risen strongly in the past two seasons. He won the second team, the first team, and the scoring champion in a row. He was only selected to the third team once, and more and more people began to regard Curry as the first point guard. The confrontation between him and Paul's old and new point guards will be a major focus.

In the end, Griffin, who had recuperated for a season due to injury last season, made a strong comeback, played full time, scored 22+12 luxury data, was selected as an All-Star substitute, and won the best rookie in one fell swoop from Wall, the champion of the season. The future is bright.

What kind of sparks can be collided between him and Curry, who was the second place in the same year and took the lead in harvesting many honors, and has evolved into a superstar, has also attracted much attention.

Because of this, this game was broadcast by ABC, and among the other four games, only the Mavericks VS Heat, which did not overlap with this game, was broadcast, and the remaining three games were broadcast by ESPN and TNT respectively.

At present, there are three contracted broadcasters of the NBA, namely ABC, ESPN, and TNT, which divide up the NBA's national live broadcast sessions.

However, there is a big gap in the coverage of these three broadcasters. In the United States, ABC is one of the three major commercial broadcasting companies in the United States, and its influence covers the entire United States, while TNT is only a cable pay TV network owned by Time Warner. Not on ABC, although ESPN is a professional sports TV station with global coverage, it is also a cable pay TV network, and its influence in the United States is far less than that of free ABC.

Matching the highest-standard nationwide live broadcast, even on Christmas Day, the Oracle Center was flooded with 19596 spectators as always, and there were no seats left. On this bitterly cold day, the entire arena was filled with enthusiastic cheers :
"Warriors—Warriors—"

On the sidelines, Clippers head coach Pooh DeNagello was watching the players on the field training. He heard the cheers of the Warriors fans, curled his lips, and whispered to himself with a look of contempt in his eyes. One sentence:
"Hehe, I'll see if you can still shout out after the fight is over..."

Pooh De Nagro turned his gaze to Zhang Yu on the other side of the technical stage. Seeing him talking and laughing happily with the assistant coach beside him, with an undisguised disgust on his face, he snorted coldly before turning his gaze back.

Pooh DeNagro is 46 years old this year, nearly half a century old. He began to serve as the head coach of the Bulls in 2008. After the Bulls were eliminated by the Cavaliers in the first round in 2010, he was fired by the team and came to the Clippers as the head coach.

Before he became the head coach, he was an NBA player. He was selected in the second round in 1988 and retired in 2002. He also played for the Warriors.

The reason why he hates Zhang Yu so much is very simple, it is because of jealousy.

He was jealous of Zhang Yu's age, jealous of Zhang Yu's wealth, and jealous of Zhang Yu's achievements as a head coach.

Although Pooh Denagro and Zhang Yu have no grievances, there are some people in this world who can't see the success of others. He is such a person, especially after the team he coached was repeatedly defeated by the Warriors.

For this game, Pooh De Nagro made sufficient preparations, and he must let Zhang Yu taste the taste of failure.

"Before I lost to you, it was because you had Stephen Curry under your command. Now I also have Chris Paul. Let's see how you win!"

Pooh DeNagello sneered secretly in his heart, only felt that the victory was in his hands, and the Warriors were by no means his opponent.

At this moment, Howard Eisley, assistant coach of the Clippers, came to Pooh DeNagello and said with a slightly worried expression:

"Pooh, at the Warriors' rookie signing ceremony, Coach Z personally told reporters that the Warriors' offensive and defensive integration is very good. I think our tactics are a bit simple. Do we need to adjust them?"

Pooh DeNagello sneered and said:

"Don't worry, that Huaxia man is just bragging. Look, how many rookies are there in the Warriors, how could they be able to run in in less than a month? This is just a smoke bomb he released, I carefully After researching, he likes to put smoke bombs in front of the media very much, but unfortunately he can't hide it from me!"

Howard Eisley still had a big stone hanging in his heart:
"But the Warriors won all four games in the preseason, winning more than [-] points. Their state looks very good..."

"That's just a preseason game, there's no reference value!" Pooh DeNagello interrupted him, "The Warriors played two Suns games and two Kings games in the preseason game. The Kings are a big team, and Nash is old. Now, the Suns are not much better now, no matter what the Warriors say, they also reached the Western Conference finals last season, and it is normal to win them."

He paused, looked at Paul who was warming up, and smiled proudly:
"And don't forget, we also won all the preseason games. With Chris here, we are also a strong team. If the Warriors were not lucky and just caught up with the Spurs being hacked, they would never have made it to the Western Conference Finals. Even if we made it to the Western Conference finals, we were easily eliminated by the Mavericks, they are not that strong at all, as long as Chris is in charge of the offense, we will definitely win!"

"But Stephen Curry is also very strong. Shall we follow the example of the Mavericks and flank him? This can effectively limit his scoring." Howard Eisley still did not give up, trying his best to persuade Pooh DeNagro , wanting him to prepare more.

But Pooh Denagro didn't have the slightest idea of ​​changing the game plan before the battle, and he was not moved at all:
"No need, Chris has both offense and defense. In the first two seasons, he was only troubled by injuries, so he played a little disgraced, but after this long offseason, his injuries have completely healed. Stephen Curry handed over He, I am very relieved."

Seeing that Pooh De Nagro insisted on his ideas so much, Howard Eisley had no choice but to give up the idea of ​​continuing to persuade. His head coach is not a kind person, he does not want to talk to Pooh De Nagro Luo froze, after all, he was just a teaching assistant who had no right to speak.

However, Howard Eisley wrongly blamed Vinnie DeNagro. He is not a rigid person. He also carefully studied the Warriors preseason video and knew that the Warriors defeated the Kings and the Suns very easily. Achieved four consecutive victories.

But as he said, the intensity of these four games was very low. The Suns and the Kings hardly formed any effective resistance. The players are very energetic, everyone is very aggressive, and they easily broke the defense of the two teams.

But this is a characteristic shared by young teams. The Clippers are also very dynamic. They won both games against the Lakers in the preseason. The slam dunks can be cut into 5-minute highlights, which doesn't mean anything at all.

And the reason why he thinks Zhang Yu is setting off smoke bombs is because the Clippers themselves have a low degree of running-in.

The combined time of training camp and preseason is less than a month, and the time left for each team to run-in is very short, especially for the Clippers, who already have many young players and have brought in many players from the trading market in a short period of time. For a new team.

After Paul joined the Clippers, Pooh DeNagro worked very hard to study game videos, held meetings with the coaching staff, and tried to build an effective offensive and defensive system in the shortest possible time. However, the time was too short. His Efforts did not achieve much, unable to blend the team into a whole.

The current Clippers can only play the tactics of Paul holding the ball on the offensive end and man-to-man defense on the defensive end. If they play tactics such as pass and cut, zone defense, and switch defense that require a very high degree of tacit understanding, there will only be a lot of mistakes.

That's why Pooh DeNagro is very sure that Zhang Yu is setting off smoke bombs, and the Warriors can't run well, and this is exactly what he can see from the Warriors' preseason games.

From the high success rate of offense and tough defense of the Warriors' young players, Pooh De Nagro can easily see that their physical condition is very good, and their strength has made great progress compared to last season .

This is what he is not afraid of. The young players who have greatly increased their balls are actually a different person. It takes a lot of time to get used to them before they can regain their position in the team. The difference from trading new players is actually not that big.

Especially this year because of the lockout, the offseason is extremely long, and there are a large number of young players in the Warriors. Everyone is increasing their balls, and their strength has undergone drastic changes. not enough.

Pooh De Nagro captured this information and was full of confidence in defeating the Warriors.

Although the Clippers' running-in level is not high, he has Paul as his reliance, and his organizational and deployment skills are far better than Curry. In this case, Pooh De Nagro firmly believes that the Clippers will be able to achieve this. Game wins!

……

The pre-match warm-up soon ended, and then came the appearance ceremony. The Clippers were the visiting team, and the Oracle Center arranged a perfunctory and sloppy appearance ceremony for them. Boos.

Today, the starting lineup arranged by Vinnie DeNagro is Paul, Billups, Caron Butler, Griffin and Jordan Jr. Neil Owsley promised to solve the problem of multiple point guards in the lineup, But time is running out, and he hasn't had time to make a move. Pooh De Nagro can only arrange a three-back lineup.

After the Clippers' starting players all played, it was the grand and gorgeous appearance ceremony of the Warriors players.

First, the staff held up a banner full of the Warriors' LOGO and ran around the arena for a week. The dome headlights were also turned off at this moment, and the flashlights were shining in the auditorium. The live DJ played a long tone with a passionate voice. The starting players of the Warriors in one read-Tyson Chandler, Klay Thompson, Draymond Green, Jimmy Butler, Stephen Curry.

When Curry's name echoed over the Oracle Center, all the fans stood up and burst into warm cheers. Curry also smiled and waved to the auditorium. peak.

Pooh DeNagello looked at the popular Curry, curled his lips, and paced back and forth on the sidelines a little irritably.

Although he hates the Warriors, he has to admit that the Warriors' home atmosphere is indeed explosive enough, much better than the Clippers' Staples.

"Hmph, when you lose the game, I see if you can still shout..."

Pooh DeNagello muttered something in a low voice, ignored the fans, but called the Clippers players together, and finally encouraged the players.

Under his instructions, Paul gathered all his teammates together, put his hands together, shouted "Clippers come on", and came to the court.

But the sound of refueling was not too loud. The Clippers lineup has undergone a major change, and everyone is not very familiar with each other, and they are still a little cautious when getting along.

Paul knew that this was not a good signal, but he had no choice but to work on it more to solve this problem.

But he immediately noticed that in front of the Warriors bench on the other side, all the Warriors players got together, and their shouts were so powerful that everyone could hear their strong self-confidence.

His pupils shrank slightly, and he looked at the opposite Warriors player with a trace of dignity, thinking to himself:
"The Warriors players are very excited, this game seems not as easy as Pooh said..."

But at this time, Paul couldn't afford to think too much. Both sides stood on the court. Jordan and Chandler came to the center line, ready to jump the ball. Paul restrained his mind and focused on the game.

Regardless of whether the opponent is strong or weak, no matter whether the game is difficult or easy, the arrow is on the string, and he has to fight. Paul has even experienced the 58 tragedy himself, and nothing can shake his fighting spirit. He has only one thought now, that is to take next game!
"Di-"

The referee blew the whistle for the opening of the game and threw the ball into the air. This action seemed to press a switch, attracting everyone's attention to the orange basketball flying into the air, and the game officially began. start!
Chandler and Jordan flew up, but Jordan was young and able to jump. Relying on the advantage of his fast bounce, he first touched the ball in the air and pushed the ball to the backcourt of the Clippers. Paul bent down to pick up the ball, and the Clippers Get the first possession of the ball.

After Paul got the ball, Griffin and Jordan quickly crossed the half court and went straight to the inside of the Warriors, trying to catch the Warriors by surprise.

The Clippers don't have many tactics to play, so Pooh DeNagello encouraged the team to play more fast breaks and take advantage of the Clippers' vitality inside.

But the Warriors retreated very quickly. After Chandler failed to jump the ball, he immediately retreated to the penalty area. Everyone else followed his opponent. Clay immediately stepped forward to press Paul and interfered with his pass. vision.

Due to the slow pace of Caron Butler and Billups, Green, Curry and Butler immediately gathered around Griffin, which effectively delayed his cut-in. After the veteran passed halftime, Curry and Clay followed back to their opponents.

Seeing this scene, Pooh De Nagro frowned slightly.

Although the offensive and defensive changes were very short this time, the Warriors retreated extremely quickly. They immediately delayed the ball holder and went down the inside line, and they could also form local multiplayer pressure on the extremely fast-changing field, and then immediately returned. position, showing a distinct sense of hierarchy and orderly, so that the Clippers' fast break was stillborn before they had time to launch.

"It's not like a young team..."

As soon as Pooh De Nagro had such an idea in his mind, his attention was attracted by the Clippers' offense.

After Paul came to the frontcourt, he played a pick-and-roll with Jordan near the three-point line. Chandler did not defend, but squatted inside. Clay, who was defending Paul, chose to squeeze the screen and gave Paul room to go in.

Of course, Paul would not let go of this opportunity. He dribbled the ball into the three-point line, and Jordan immediately went down.

But Chandler's footsteps moved, blocking Jordan's downline and eliminating his threat to the frame. Seeing this, Paul didn't pass the ball to him, but dribbled the ball to the free throw line himself.

This is his sweet spot in the mid-range shot. Naturally, the Warriors couldn't be defenseless, and even deployed heavy troops. While Clay was chasing Paul from behind, Green also suddenly left Griffin and stepped forward to flank Paul.

Paul can pass the ball to Griffin, but his mid-range shot is not a threat, and he stands one step outside the penalty area, Green can quickly return to his position, and Chandler is in a position that can take care of him and Jordan Up, Griffin has no room to attack the frame down.

Paul moved his gaze away and found that Billups and Caron Butler were being watched closely from beyond the three-point line. Clay and Butler were deliberately blocking between him and the two teammates. Blocked most of the passing lanes.

In desperation, Paul could only make a hasty jump shot under the attack of Clay and Green.

Bang!

This seriously disturbed jump shot bounced out of the frame. The rebound was protected by Chandler who was stuck in the position. He quickly handed it to Green beside him. The three of Butler were like arrows flying off the string, lined up from left, center and right, firing in three lines, and galloped towards the frontcourt.

In just one second, the Warriors switched from defense to offense and launched a counterattack like a tide!
The Clippers retreated immediately, but there were two veterans in the backcourt, and the retreat speed was not fast enough. The Warriors' counterattack was too fast and the troops were too scattered. The Clippers' retreat made a big mistake in communication. Two men followed Klay, and no one guarded Curry.

Green saw that Curry was unattended, and immediately threw the ball over. After Curry received the ball, he took a step forward, adjusted his rhythm, and raised his hand to throw a step outside the 45-degree three-point line on the right. A three-pointer.

brush!
This undisturbed ultra-long fast-break three-pointer hit the net, 3:0.

boom!
After the ball was scored, Curry patted his chest lightly and pointed to the sky with one hand, and the Oracle Arena was instantly ebullient. The fans roared loudly, celebrating the Warriors' first score in the 2011-2012 season.

"Curry Chef! Curry Chef!" Someone shouted Curry's nickname in the United States.

"Oh oh oh oh——" Someone made a meaningless cry.

"Curry, I love you, I want to have sex with you!!!" This is a very fanatical female fan.

On the sidelines, Zhang Yu also smiled and applauded, and nodded to Green again and again, expressing his satisfaction with his pass.

But on the other side of the technical table, Pooh Denagro frowned deeply and shouted:
"Pay attention to back defense, don't miss three points!"

After he finished speaking, he folded his arms around his chest and looked at the field with a somewhat irritable expression.

There was a bad feeling in his heart. The Warriors' one offense and one defense seemed simple, but they just hit the Clippers' weakness. They were stubbornly targeting the Clippers' monotonous offensive tactics and slow and chaotic retreat. .

"This must be a coincidence, yes, this is a coincidence..."

Pooh DeNagello pursed his lips tightly, and he no longer looked at the Warriors players with the disdain he had at the beginning of the game, and the triumphant expression on his face, which was sure of winning, also became cloudy and uncertain.

Just as his thoughts were surging, the Clippers attacked again, this time with Paul's pick and roll, but the screener was replaced by Griffin.

Paul made a change immediately after the offense was unfavorable in the last round. This is the adjustment ability of a top point guard.

Facing Paul Griffin's pick-and-roll, the Warriors chose to switch defenses without hesitation. Green covered Paul's breakthrough route and shooting space, and Clay stood behind Griffin.

Seeing this, Paul immediately lobbed the ball to Griffin, and the rest of the Clippers also ran to the weak side.

Naturally, Griffin would not let go of the opportunity. He leaned against Clay and waited for his teammates to pull away. He wanted to single Clay!
　I still want to make up for yesterday's, with an extra [-] as compensation, asking for monthly tickets and recommended tickets~ You can join the book friend group, if there is a delay in the update, you will be notified in the group.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)