Slam Dunk: My Study Abroad Career in Northern Hunan

The February schedule is also quite tight, but at the beginning of the month, the Timberwolves players are relatively less stressed.

After winning the away game against the Boston Celtics, the Timberwolves boarded a charter flight to Minnesota that night.

On January 1998, 1, the Timberwolves faced the Nuggets from afar in back-to-back games at their home target center.

The Nuggets this season are the bottom team in the league. In other words, in recent years, the Nuggets have never shown signs of rising.

From the beginning of the season to the present, the Nuggets have posted a terrifying record of 2 wins and 27 losses.

The entire team looked dim and lifeless.

During the game against the Nuggets, Wu Dao was affected by the opponent's "depressing" atmosphere and performed poorly in this game.

Although the Timberwolves eventually defeated their opponents with a score of 109:80, Wu Dao played three quarters today and "only" scored 24 points after taking nearly 33 shots.

He missed a lot of shots today, and his three-point shooting percentage dropped to about 35%.

The Nuggets players had little fighting spirit against a team like the Timberwolves, and Wu Dao was not very focused on the game. He had some thoughts of underestimating the enemy, so he played a little more casually in today's game.

After the game against the Nuggets, the Timberwolves have a three-day window.

Wu Dao noticed that his condition was declining, so he took advantage of the three-day window to relax and adjust his condition.

High-intensity games and training will cause players to accumulate fatigue. At this time, it is also necessary to learn to relax.

There are no other hobbies in martial arts. Smoking, drinking, marijuana, and women are just some of the things martial arts touches. And when it comes to women, martial arts are also relatively restrained.

The way martial arts is used for entertainment is somewhat different. He likes to read letters from fans.

Yes, in 1998, when telephones were popularized and personal PCs were beginning to be widely used, martial arts always received a lot of letters from fans. Reading letters from fans was a pastime for establishing martial arts. .

I have to say that as a group of fans, there is really a lot of "work".

There were letters sent to Budao from fans in the United States, from island countries, and many from domestic fans. Looking at the poor English in the letters, Budao sat cross-legged on the floor and prostrated on the coffee table. He took a pen and wrote a reply in Chinese.

Reading letters and choosing a few interesting ones to write replies to was what Wu Dao did most in the past three days during the team's vacancy.

Three days later, April 1th.

The Timberwolves played against the Suns at Target Center Arena at home. The Suns and the previous Nuggets are not at the same level as the team.

From the beginning of the season to the present, the Suns have achieved an excellent record of 20 wins and 10 losses, and the familiar players include Jason Kidd and Steve Nash.

Of course, these players have not yet become "complete", but Kidd's abilities have begun to gradually emerge in this era.

During the game between the Timberwolves and the Suns, there were a lot of fans in attendance, which was a bit different from the unsatisfied scene during the Nuggets game. For the game against the Suns, not only all the seats in the Target Center Arena were open, but additional seats were required.

But even so, there are still many fans stranded outside the arena and unable to buy tickets to watch the game.

The fans' tastes are also very picky. They don't want to watch the crushing game at all. Only some die-hard fans and "annual ticket" spectators will be present.

But playing against a strong team like the Suns, the Timberwolves are now able to reach a level where tickets are hard to come by.

Minnesota fans want to see what kind of performance Wu Dao can perform in front of a strong team like the Suns.

The spotlight illuminated the Target Center Arena.

As the player tunnels on both sides opened, the main lights above the court dimmed slightly, and the spotlights successively shone on the sun and the Timberwolves' player tunnel entrance.

As the Suns players walked out of the tunnel, sparse applause erupted from the stands. But when the Timberwolves players walked out of the tunnel in front of the audience, the cheers in the stands suddenly became louder by several dimensions.

Home court, this is the advantage of home court.

"The cheers were really loud!"

"Such differential treatment is relatively rare!"

In the Suns' rest area, Nash was wearing the team's long jersey. Feeling the cheers of the audience, he looked at the players' tunnel opposite and couldn't help but let out a sigh.

It is of course very common for fans to treat different teams differently, but this is usually only noticeable during games.

When playing, even if the team is playing away from home, they will always receive warm cheers. This has nothing to do with their stance, it is just polite.

It's just that Minnesotans don't seem to understand such politeness, or in other words, these fans are so stubborn that they don't even have false politeness.

This kind of stadium atmosphere made Nash feel a little uncomfortable.

He was a rookie in 1996 and played as a substitute in the team. Substitute players are more sensitive to such trivial matters and pay more attention to them.

"It doesn't matter."

"We are not here to be guests, we are here to be enemies."

"What we want is for these fans to quiet down."

Kidd's mentality was very relaxed. He looked around the arena, and then his eyes fell on the Timberwolves players.

The Suns are actually more or less similar to the Timberwolves. The two teams are always used to playing fast when playing.

It's just that the Suns are always fast, while the Timberwolves mainly speed up during defensive counterattacks.

After a brief warm-up adjustment, players from both teams began to enter the court.

安东尼奥-麦克戴斯（206cm/100kg，1995年首轮第二顺位，4/5号位）；雷克斯-查普曼（193cm/84kg，1988年首轮第八顺位，1/2号位）；塞德里克-塞巴洛斯（198cm/86kg，1990年2轮21顺位，3号位）；克里弗德-罗宾逊（208cm/102kg，1989年2轮第九顺位，4/5号位）；杰森-基德（193cm/93kg，1994年首轮第二顺位，1/2号位）

The Suns' player age structure is relatively reasonable, and they adopt the most common model in the league of old players bringing in new players. This is completely different from the Timberwolves, who use a large number of young players.

Whether it is Marbury, Garnett, Wu Dao or Ben Wallace, they are all "new" players who have only been in the league for a few years.

On the contrary, the Timberwolves don't rely much on mature players like Tom. The Timberwolves don't seem to need some veteran players to pull the reins on the young players and control the rhythm of the game.

The starting lineup for the Timberwolves has not changed much from usual, but on the back line, Marbury was not able to start today. His replacement was Chris Kyle.

Wu Dao didn't know what the coach's intention was. Maybe he thought Marbury had superior offensive power, and he wasn't sure if he planned to let Marbury lead the bench players to "spur".

Reasonably allocating the team's firepower is indeed what the coach needs to do well.

In addition to Chris Kyle, the other players on the Timberwolves side are Budao, Tom, Garnett and Ben Wallace.

The configuration is no different than usual.

The Timberwolves' team has a strange composition of players, with a strong forward group and two at the 3rd position.

Of course, the martial arts style of play is actually biased toward the No. 2 position, but his figure has nothing to do with the No. position. Instead, he is very close to the No. position. He even plays a cameo as a center, and others also No surprise.

But another thing that is strange is that when Wu Dao is in defensive position, he is really like a second position. Although he is tall and strong, his defensive position is often not deep, and the work of protecting the board is only in the minority. Will participate in some cases.

Wu Dao's awareness of assisting defense and protecting the board has been criticized to some extent, and from Wu Dao, I am afraid that it is only from these two aspects that we can feel that he is a "young player".

The players from both sides took their positions on the court, and after Wu Dao stood still, the Suns' Kidd came to Wu Dao, bent down slightly, and waited for the game to start.

Martial Arts' eyes swept over Kidd's body, and then he also focused on the center line.

It was Garnett who jumped the ball against the opponent. Perhaps due to his height disadvantage, Wallace didn't like the job of jumping the ball very much. If he wanted to make a concession, Garnett would naturally not refuse.

As the referee blew his whistle, the basketball was thrown into the air by the referee. The next second the basketball took off, Garnett quickly ejected and touched the bottom of the basketball with one hand, and pushed the ball back to the backcourt. Chris was Kyle held it firmly in his hand.

"nice shot!"

Chris Kyle yelled slightly excitedly, and then took the ball towards the frontcourt. As Wu Dao ran towards the frontcourt, his eyes also looked at Kidd who was clinging to him.

close defense

Kidd is also a heavy defender, and his defensive ability is actually quite strong.

The most impressive thing about Kidd is probably his passing level. He has five assists kings, and even averaged 10 assists per game at his peak. He was still able to get this kind of data under the assist statistics method in the 90s. There is no need to talk about his abilities, right?

But what actually allows Kidd to exist on the court is not only his ability to pass the ball, but more importantly, his defensive ability.

Although he has never won the DPOY honor, he is a frequent visitor to the best defensive first and second teams. And his stealing ability is also quite outstanding. Kidd can pass the ball, and he can naturally see how the opponent plans to pass the ball!

Kidd has watched the game between the Timberwolves and the Bulls. In other words, who among the current NBA players has not watched the game between the Timberwolves and the Bulls?

The "cow-wolf" battle that night can be considered a "famous game" in today's league. Any player who is ambitious about "surpassing Jordan" will take a serious look at the game that night.

Kidd has seen it, so he has a certain judgment on his personal ability in martial arts.

He thinks he is no match for Wu Dao, or in other words, when Wu Dao receives the basketball, he may not be able to limit Wu Dao's performance, something that even Jordan can't do. Kidd thinks that his defensive ability has not surpassed Jordan's .

But defense and defense are also different.

Yes, Wu Dao is very threatening when he gets the ball, so if you want to defend Wu Dao, you just need to prevent him from getting the ball.

The Suns plan to imitate the "Jordan Law" on Martial Arts, which simply means "double teaming" and "consumption".

It's just that this is what role players should do, but now Kidd takes the initiative to do it.

The positioning of Kidd by martial arts is more or less biased. Defense is actually what Kidd needs to do!

After Chris Kyle dribbled the ball into the frontcourt, his first look must have been to find Wu Dao, but Wu Dao was unable to get out of the open space in the first place under Kidd's defense.

When Budo is far away from the three-point line and intends to catch the ball, Kidd will follow closely. And when Budao intends to cross the three-point line and catch the ball in the low post, Kidd will continue to stick to it, and the players inside the Suns will also move. He moves his steps and adjusts his stance as if he is ready to double-team at any time.

Under this kind of defense, Budo cannot catch the ball comfortably, and his difficult situation of catching the ball will also be fed back to Chris, making his shots become hesitant and traceable.

"Da~~~"

Wu Dao had just squeezed in and rushed inside, and when he was about to run back, he heard a soft sound from the top of the arc.

Chris Kyle, the "top dealer" of the Timberwolves, was actually blocked by Rex Chapman. The experienced veteran saw Chris's hesitation, and his original intention was to go up and put pressure on him, but he didn't expect it. , this pressing actually had an outstanding effect.

"Defense!" The basketball was cut off, and the audience in the stands reacted faster than the Timberwolves players on the court and immediately shouted.

Rex Chapman squeezed past Chris, grabbed the ball in his hands, rushed toward the frontcourt, and in a blink of an eye, crossed the three-point line.

The position where Chris dropped the ball was too "high", and the Timberwolves were unable to pursue it.

No, we can catch up!

Just when Rex Chapman was approaching the three-point line, Budao and Garnett actually appeared behind Rex Chapman, one on the left and one on the right.

The two of them walked very fast, but they did not make any sound while running at high speed. The slight sound of footsteps was already covered up by the low shouts of the audience in the stands.

Rex Chapman dribbled past the free throw line, quickly combined the ball, took two big steps, raised his right hand, and the basketball flew out of his hands and flew towards the basket.

The moment the basketball rose, Wu Dao, who was following him, jumped up, stretched out his hands, and directly pressed the basketball on the backboard.

"Snapped!"

The basketball was like a fly that was swatted to death. It fell quickly after being nailed to the board. After the martial arts landed, it was unable to resolve the impact and directly rushed out of the baseline.

Fortunately, Garnett had slowed down and had the ball firmly in his hands, then turned around and returned with the ball.

It is not easy to play fast break on the Timberwolves' head.

Martial arts and Garnett's foot strength and explosive power are not consistent with their height and size.

As soon as the game started, Wu Dao showed off his top hat, and the audience in the stands immediately cheered. Kidd also entered the Timberwolves half court at this time and planned to assist in the offense. He was also running very fast. At this time, he saw that he had crossed his own martial arts to block the shot of his teammate, and he couldn't help but feel a bit of toothache.

He is very athletic, not only fast, but also has exaggerated jumping.

With such an opponent, as well as excellent shooting skills and footsteps, Kidd can already see the thorns in front of him.