Slam Dunk: My Study Abroad Career in Northern Hunan

4: 2.

Tom's goal successfully helped the Timberwolves stop the bleeding, and also opened up the Timberwolves' offensive situation.

Not long after the Timberwolves completed their counterattack, the Spurs quickly organized an attack, still starting from David Robinson's high pick-and-roll. Using the pick-and-roll, Avery Johnson also quickly accelerated his breakthrough. After attracting Marbury's pursuit, Quickly passed the ball back to Robinson near the three-point line.

The latter took the ball, took a big step forward, and immediately stopped. His body paused for a moment, and then he threw the basketball.

"Dang~~~" With a soft sound, the basketball collapsed out of the basket and fell outside.

Garnett spread his arms under the basket, blocking Duncan's body. When he was about to take off to grab the rebound, he suddenly felt a light behind him. He stumbled and was unable to take off to grab the rebound in the first place.At the same time, Duncan's figure quickly flashed out from Garnett's side, stood up from the ground, grabbed the basketball with one hand and pushed it towards the basket.

"Bang!!!"

At this moment, a figure quickly entered the paint area from the direction of the baseline. Wu Dao defended and returned to the basket, jumped up directly, and put one hand on the basketball.

The huge force carried the inertia generated by the martial arts impact and directly pressed the basketball down.Duncan, who quickly landed on the ground, was a little unsteady under the influence of the huge force of martial arts, and fell backwards. Garnett, who had just stood firm, subconsciously stretched out his hand to support Duncan. Duncan took Garnett with him, and the two of them " "Dengdengdeng" took several steps back before barely standing still.

"ohhhhhhh!!!"

In the stands, the Minnesota audience who saw this scene burst into enthusiastic cheers. The shouts broke through the roof of the Target Center Arena, and the atmosphere suddenly became heated.

Wu Dao hooked the ball with one hand, looked past Duncan who was slowly getting up, and said to Garnett:
"If you perform like this on the defensive end, I don't think you should think about taking on the offensive responsibility."

"The most important thing for a No. [-] position is to do a good job first, right? Kevin!"

After saying that, Wu Dao ignored Garnett and threw the ball to Marbury, who rushed up to catch the ball. Then he quickly ran towards the frontcourt along the sideline.

The Spurs' defense was very fast, and the Timberwolves had no chance to counterattack with a fast break.

Therefore, Duncan's running speed when returning to defense was not too fast. When his figure crossed the martial arts path, he couldn't help but glance at the martial arts path a few more times.

Garnett's bad mouth is also well-known in the league.Although Duncan is a rookie who just entered the league this year, before the game against the Timberwolves, their team's coach Popovich specifically told him not to be affected by Garnett's trash talk.

A third-year NBA "veteran" with a bad mouth will definitely not have a good temper in the locker room.

But such a person would actually be taught a lesson by Wu Dao, a first-year high school rookie. This rookie is really too crazy.

Thinking of this, Duncan couldn't help but look back at Garnett who was running quickly towards the Spurs half court. Although Garnett was muttering something in his mouth, he didn't say much to Wu Dao when he passed by. What, this state also makes Duncan a little surprised.

A veteran with a bad temper and bad mouth was "taught" by a rookie and refused to talk back. This kind of thing is somewhat beyond Duncan's imagination.

Duncan is also a high-profile rookie. He has a very high tactical and team status in the Spurs. He is the successor of Robinson and the cornerstone of the team in the post-Robinson era.

But even Duncan like this would not speak to the veterans in the same tone as Wu Daogang when he was on the team.

The scene where Wu Dao scolded Garnett on the court just now left a deep impression on Duncan. This first-year Timberwolves player may be more difficult to deal with than he imagined.

"Pass the ball!"

Duncan quickly positioned himself on defense, and Garnett, who quickly crossed the martial arts path, also quickly fell towards the low post. On the right side of the sideline of the paint area, nearly two meters in front of the baseline, Garnett blocked Duncan with his back. , raising his arms flatly, shouting for the ball.

Avery Johnson, the Spurs' No. [-] position, also heard Garnett's shouts inside, but he was unmoved at all and made no defensive adjustments. He still stared at Marbury in front of him calmly. , Do not let the other party have the opportunity to easily break through you.

Avery Johnson simply won't defend Marbury's lob pass to the inside.

Just kidding, what the Spurs are most proud of this season is the twin interior combination of Robinson and Duncan.Relying on this pair of twin towers, the Spurs achieved an excellent record of 5 wins and 1 loss at the beginning of the season. In the game they lost, their opponent was the Chicago Bulls.

The Spurs' Robinson and Duncan both have height, weight, athletic ability, and absolute talent on the defensive end. Both of them are the kind of characters who can defend from the inside to the outside. Avery Johnson doesn't think Garne Unique ability to attack the basket guarded by these two people.

Marbury's eyes only glanced at Garnett inside, and then looked at Tom on the side.

Seeing this scene, Avery Johnson quickly made position adjustments. In his opinion, the Timberwolves didn't need to worry about passing the ball inward, but they couldn't pass the ball to Tom.

However, as soon as Avery Johnson moved, Marbury's wrist shook in the opposite direction, and the basketball flew directly to the right, and was successfully held by Wu Dao.

Marbury's original intention was for Budao to tear apart the defense with singles, but unexpectedly, Budao grabbed the ball and lobbed it directly into the hands of Garnett, who was in a position inside.

"Snapped!"

After receiving the ball, Garnett smacked the basketball hard, with some excitement on his face. He hit the ball with his back, giving Duncan a "billion points" confrontation. The latter faced a "hard" back attack. , "fight while retreating" and took half a step back to stabilize his body.

Garnett made a "formulaic" turnaround jump shot after a back-up shot. However, the moment the basketball was released, Duncan rose directly from the ground and slapped the basketball away from Garnett's palm.

With a big volleyball shot, Garnett couldn't help but say the F word after being blocked. He quickly looked back and saw that the basketball was about to fly out of the sideline when it was intercepted by a martial arts jumper. He also breathed a sigh of relief in his heart.

Put your back on the basket again, adjust your mentality and raise your hand to ask for the ball.

But this time, Wu Dao didn't pay attention to Garnett's intention at all. Seeing that En Elliott who was chasing him was unsteady on his feet, he directly dropped the ball and accelerated his advance. During the breakthrough, his body only directly pushed against Sean. On Elliot's body.

However, Wu Dao did not use all his strength. After the confrontation, he made an emergency stop and pulled back, then directly took out the long shot.

The moment the basketball was released, Sean Elliott, who was pushed by Wu Dao, fell to the ground almost at the same time. This scene caused a burst of cheers from the audience in the stands.

"Shh!"

As the sound of the basketball squeezing the net rang out, the cheers in the Target Center Arena became even higher. The media's cameras focused on Wu Dao and Sean Elliott, and the scene was framed as Wu Dao defeated Sean Elliott. This scene with Elliot.

The gap between 93kg Sean Elliott and 107kg Martial Arts is really too big.

The difference of nearly 30 pounds, in an arena like the NBA, is completely two levels of physical fitness, and there are still several levels of difference between these two levels.

Faced with the pull-up jump shot after the martial arts confrontation, Sean Elliott had no way of guarding against it.

Seeing the basketball go into the net, Garnett glanced at Wu Dao with some displeasure, but said nothing and quickly returned to the court to defend.

"In this game, the most noteworthy person of the Timberwolves is not Tom or Kevin, but the rookie!"

"This physical fitness."

"Paired with this kind of ball quality and this kind of shooting stability, it's really scary."

"I don't know how the scouts observed the draft at that time. Can they come up with such a scouting report? What a stupid guy!"

On the sidelines of the court, Popovich looked at Wu Dao who quickly returned to defense, holding a piece of information in his hand and couldn't help but curse.These days, black-haired Asians are indeed not respected. A scouting report issued by a scout wearing tinted glasses will of course be distorted.

It is true that if the Spurs are given another chance to draft, their top pick will still be given to Duncan. There is no way, since interior players are so precious these days.But correspondingly, if Popovich is allowed to see Wu Dao play, he will definitely persuade the team to trade high-ranking picks and bring Wu Dao to the Spurs and Duncan as partners.

If the Spurs still have such a super scorer at the small forward position, their guarantee for the Spurs this year is the Western Conference Finals.

"It's a pity that such a guy is actually an opponent."

Popovich muttered to himself regretfully and looked towards the court.

At this time, the Spurs had completed their counterattack in less than 15 seconds.I don’t know if it was influenced by Garnett, but Duncan also asked for the ball in the low post. After getting the basketball, he quickly sank to the basket and sent the ball into the basket with a reverse basket.

Compared with Garnett's offense, Duncan is more like a traditional inside player, and his technical characteristics are not fancy. He looks very solid and plays very resolutely.

Although Garnett's defense was not obviously out of position, it was still unable to block Duncan's attack.

The score between the two teams was very tight. After Marbury entered the frontcourt at home, he chose to attack by himself. After continuous changes of direction, Marbury consciously found the opponent's defensive flaw and directly broke into the inside.

But this is simply Avery Johnson's trap. His principle of defending Marbury is to let the shots go but not the sudden ones.

Marbury, who quickly entered the paint area, was directly covered by David Robinson, who was covering the defense. Facing this long man whose defense was blocking the sky, Marbury took off the ball and turned sideways, directing the ball toward Tom, who follows up from the left, passes.

The huge passing force almost made a mistake. Tom held the ball unsteadily. He quickly paused and adjusted before bursting into the ball. He only took one step towards the paint area, then quickly turned his back and shot a jump shot.

Tom didn't dare to attack the basket, and the Spurs' twin interior towers put a lot of pressure on him.

"Clang~~"

Tom's difficult shooting is somewhat inaccurate, or in other words, his shooting percentage has always been like this in the past two seasons, with his shooting percentage basically maintaining around 45%.

With the defensive intensity of this era, Tom's ability to maintain this level of shooting percentage is already quite outstanding.

But how good are Tom's statistics? That's not necessarily true. Tom's shots are different from those of Corvo and Iverson. The latter have a lot of unreasonable shots and a lot of double-team shots.

Tom plays the ball very reasonably and his shot selection is often very team-oriented.

As the basketball crashed out of the basket, Duncan, who was in a favorable position, grabbed the rebound.

Then the Spurs quickly launched a counterattack.

The Spurs' offense seems a bit formulaic to Wu Dao, but this formulaic offense is very useful against the Timberwolves.

It's still David Robinson's high pick-and-roll.

This kind of team with high mobility inside likes to play 1 (short term for high cover tactic).

This time, Cherokee Parks chose to follow up, but what he didn't expect was that Robinson gave a fake screen. He noticed that Cherokee Parks came out and quickly ran back and cut inside. Avery Johnson sent out seconds pass.

David Robinson caught the ball under the basket and dunked, easily helping the team score two points.

Wu Dao also wanted to defend Robinson, but he didn't expect that the opponent would never give you a chance to double-team.

Under the strong offensive of the Spurs, the Timberwolves quickly ran towards the frontcourt amid the cheers of the home fans.

Garnett still went low to get the ball. This time, Marbury didn't hesitate and gave the ball directly to Garnett inside.

This time, Garnett also seized the opportunity very well. After blowing up the ball and causing a physical confrontation, he chose a half-side hook shot. The side of the basketball wiped the board and fell into the net.

"Hey, rookie!"

"Why do you act like a robot?"

"Move! Move, please?"

Garnett, who scored the goal, was very excited and whispered in Duncan's ear.However, Duncan didn't pay attention to this at all, ignored Garnett, and walked to the baseline to serve.

The Spurs' counterattack task in this round was handed over to Duncan on the inside.

The latter also took the ball in the low post and was about to prepare for a singles when he saw Budo, who was standing one step inside the three-point line on the same side, take another big step back toward the basket.

Although he was carrying a basket, the martial arts movements put considerable pressure on Duncan.

The volleyball hat that Martial Arts gave him before had somewhat affected Duncan's mentality when attacking.

"Snapped!"

Duncan blasted the ball and heard the sound of the ball falling. Wu Dao quickly turned around and looked at Duncan. Seeing Wu Dao's action, Duncan immediately combined the ball and passed the ball to Sean Elliott.

There was a big gap, and the martial arts guarding Sean Elliott was nearly one and a half meters away from him.

As Sean Elliott quickly lifted the ball, Budo also slid forward and quickly followed up.Seeing how quickly the martial arts came up, Sean Elliott chose to drop the ball and break after a moment.

But after only two steps, he was forced to stop by martial arts.

Sean Elliott was also furious. He jumped up against Wu Dao's defense and grabbed the ball with one hand to force the shot.

However, Sean Elliott's confrontation did not affect Wu Dao's defensive posture at all. The moment the opponent's basketball shot, Wu Dao also jumped high and fanned the ball away.

Marbury in the frontcourt quickly caught the basketball and scored a layup.

It was another successful defense. When Popovich saw this scene on the sidelines, he couldn't help but stand up and shouted at the players on the court:

"Look at people! Pass the ball!"

"What did you hit?!"

"Give it to the inside man, give the ball to the inside man!"

The players' unreasonable shots made the "team basketball" coach extremely angry.He doesn't mind players making mistakes, but he does mind players playing according to his instructions and making mistakes.

Popovich did not tolerate Sean Elliott's mistakes, and after yelling, he asked Chuck Person (203cm/100kg/34 years old) on the bench to do warm-up activities.

(End of this chapter)