Slam Dunk: My Study Abroad Career in Northern Hunan

Marbury briefly tried to attack but was blocked by Stockton. In just a moment of confrontation, Marbury noticed that Stockton seemed a little different from before.

Of course, Marbury feels that his opponent is different, but in fact, Stockton has always been the same Stockton. It's just that when he played against the Timberwolves before, he didn't have as much desire to win as he does now.

The regular season is coming to an end, and the intensity of the game is obviously much higher than at the beginning of the regular season.

Some media's predictions of teams qualifying for the playoffs have gradually become a hot topic of discussion among fans during this period. When fans get together, in addition to discussing which players are stronger that season and which teams are stronger, they will also look forward to the playoffs.

Therefore, as the regular season comes to an end, those so-called "predictions" can often bring good sales to the media.

The fans are like this, and the professional players in the NBA league have certainly begun to pay attention to the games between themselves and their competitors.

Judging from their current records, the Jazz and Timberwolves are both playoff teams.

Now that it is determined that the two sides will likely meet each other in the playoffs, it is very necessary to do some understanding in advance.

This game can be said to be a simulation before the playoffs. Both the Timberwolves and the Jazz have used their own "skills" in order to better observe their opponents' abilities during the game.

Stockton, of course, played at full strength in this game.

"There are a lot of little moves, so you have to be careful."

Marbury took the ball and slowly pulled back, trying to put some distance between him and Stockton, planning to try again while there was still plenty of time.

While retreating, Marbury also secretly warned himself in his heart.

Players like Stockton are the type that most NBA players are unwilling to face.

If it is simply because of inferior skills, there is really nothing to say, but using these tricks to win the game is shameful to many players who think they are upright.

This mentality is like the Chinese watching short track speed skating with a stick.

This is a direct conflict of values.

Stockton didn't care about the rich expressions on Marbury's face at this moment. He calmly stood in front of Marbury, staring at the basketball in Marbury's hand, ready Be ready to attack at any time.

Stockton's position when defending Marbury can be said to be exactly the same as when he defended Chris Kyle. It mainly focuses on guarding against passes and shots, and the intensity of defense against breakthroughs is relatively low.

This is also to lead Marbury to take the initiative to break through to Stockton's own right side.

The Jazz are actually afraid of the Timberwolves' backline rushing in from the middle. Once Marbury tries to break through, the defensive pressure he will face is quite huge.

In the eyes of the Jazz players, shots taken under that kind of defense were not enough to help the team win.

This was intentionally placed in Marbury's pocket formation.

"Stephen!"

Just when Marbury was about to drop the ball and speed up his advance, Garnett, who was standing on the side of the paint area, reminded him loudly.

He raised his eyes and looked in the direction of Garnett. One second before Marbury saw Garnett, he was holding Malone's back against the basket to gain position. The next second after noticing Marbury's gaze, Marbury took the initiative to raise his head and actively Wants the ball.

After a moment of hesitation, Marbury raised his arm, gently threw the ball in the direction of Garnett, and sent the ball away.

He is a qualified point guard, and in this situation, he will not ignore Garnett.

Garnett stepped forward and took the ball passed to him. At this time, Garnett's position happened to be on the right extension of the free throw line.

Seeing Garnett holding the ball in that position, Budo in the elbow area outside the three-point line did not stay here. Instead, he quickly moved to the bottom corner on the same side of Garnett, providing Garnett with a Picked pass option.

Of course, the Jazz couldn't just watch Wu Dao run out of space.

Budao's position at this time is in the bottom corner, and the area is small. As long as the base fee is slightly more aggressive, Budao will have a hard time even getting the ball.

Ji Fei knew about this, and as a person involved in the move, he naturally knew everything about martial arts. While the martial arts was in place, Garnett, who got the basketball, also quickly made moves. I saw Garnett grabbing the ball with both hands and raising it above his head, hitting it high and turning the ball to face the frame.

After taking a tentative step to the right, he quickly dropped the ball, turned his back, and instantly passed Malone. Then he grabbed the ball with both hands, raised it above his head again, and pretended to shoot.

Garnett's shooting action aroused Malone's alert. Malone straightened his back and reached out to cover Garnett's head in an attempt to block the shot.

Just when the attention of the players was focused on Garnett, Wu Dao, who was in the bottom corner, quickly moved up to the waist three-point line. Garnett, who was holding the ball and facing the frame, looked like he had eyes on his back. , the basketball held high fell quickly and hooked backwards, giving the ball directly to Wu Dao's hands.

Wu Dao, who started playing basketball, quickly shot a 3-pointer under the pursuit of Ji Fei.

Immediately afterwards, the basketball fell into the basket with a crisp sound under the watchful eyes of everyone.

"Wow—"

The spectators in the stands immediately cheered as they watched the basketball go into the net.

Garnett turned around and quickly ran to Wu Dao's side, smiling and high-fiving Wu Dao in celebration.

The tacit understanding between him and Wu Dao can now achieve such cooperation without the need for verbal communication.

Garnett is an extremely good player, which is not only reflected in his defensive ability, but also in his assist ability.

If today's Timberwolves introduce a triangle offensive system, then Garnett is the well-deserved axis of the team. Even now, the Timberwolves, who are not coached by Zen Master, can still play some simple triangle offensive coordination.

The Timberwolves players began to retreat quickly. During the transition between offense and defense, Jazz's Stockton also received a pass from his teammate in the backcourt and quickly pushed back to enter the relationship between forward and goal.

Perhaps because of the martial arts goal, the Jazz's offensive rhythm began to speed up involuntarily. After Stockton took the ball and entered the frontcourt, he quickly called a pick-and-roll. Malone on the inside noticed Stockton's intention after he brought the ball into the frontcourt.

When he was in position, he didn't go inside at all. Instead, he set a pick-and-roll for Stockton as soon as he approached a three-pointer.

Using Malone's pick-and-roll, Stockton quickly dropped the ball to break through, and his breakthrough also attracted Garnett's help in defense.

There was no immediate switch of defense between Marbury and Garnett, leaving Malone in the high position with an open opportunity. Stockton, who cut inside, imitated Garnett's previous pass and passed the ball to Malone with a back pass.

Malone didn't make any adjustments when he got the ball. He shot directly and the basketball hit the basket with a crisp sound.

In today's game, Malone's touch was very good. This can be seen from his previous attacks.

The Jazz's game revolves around Stockton and Malone. As the game progresses, the cooperation between these two people can always produce excellent results.

"Double team!"

"Martial arts, at this time, you have to be double-teamed!"

"Let go of the opponent's three-pointer!" is also the same type of cooperation, and it is not the first time it has appeared. Coach Philip watched the Jazz successfully score the ball again. At this moment, he couldn't help but become anxious and shouted towards the court.

In the same way, Coach Philip said this to Wu Dao not for the first time. It was just that Wu Dao failed to flank Malone as Coach Philip expected during several Jazz attacks.

Malone's skills are very comprehensive. He not only has excellent ability at the basket, but also has strong shooting ability. Moreover, Malone's shooting percentage in this game is very high, which has aroused coach Philip's vigilance.

In Coach Philip's view, the person in this team that needs the most attention is Malone.

The way to cut off the interaction between Utah's two evil spirits is to completely block one of them.

It is very difficult for the back line to block Stockton, the nine-time assist leader. But to change the way of thinking, if it is to block Karl Malone, it will be relatively simple.

The team may not be able to do it. Malone is blocked, but if it is the Timberwolves, there is still hope. Because they have a strong interior defender, Garnett, and an excellent perimeter defender, Wu Dao.

If two players, Garnett and Budo, one inside and one outside, can cooperate closely on defense. The Jazz's most powerful scorer will be tightly restricted by the Timberwolves.

Without Malone, a powerful scorer, the Jazz are no match for the Timberwolves.

In Coach Philip's view, as long as Malone can be restricted, even if all the other Jazz players are open, it is impossible to kill the Timberwolves.

Coach Philip's successive reminders were obviously a sign of losing patience.

If the player who made the mistake on the court was not a martial artist, any other Timberwolves player would have been taken off the court by him.

At this time, the martial arts on the court finally realized the threat posed by Malone under the continuous reminders of Coach Philip.

Sometimes Budo thinks of NBA games as too complicated, thinking that if you want to win, you need to defend every opponent's player well.

But in fact, you can often win the game easily just by limiting the opponent's core scoring points.

This kind of defensive method seems to be only useful at the high school level, because the level of high school competition is low and the players' abilities are uneven. Sometimes even if the role players are left wide open, the opponent may not be able to score.

But in fact, even in NBA games, this defensive method of focusing on scorers can be used.

You may not believe it when I say it, even in the NBA, the highest palace of basketball. Role players often have no way to step up when the team needs them.

On the court, the Timberwolves had already launched an attack, and Marbury was very cautious under Christon's defense. But there's no use relying on caution against a player like Christon.

Because if you don’t take the initiative to come up, he will come over on his own initiative.
When Marbury was dribbling the ball and still two or three meters away from the top of the arc, Christon came up to defend.

One-on-one close defense made Marbury very uncomfortable, not because of how powerful Christon was, but because the opponent's hand movements during sports battles were really unclean.

This greatly affected Marbury's dribbling rhythm.

In order to deal with a defense like Stockton, Marbury could only use physical confrontation to create enough comfortable dribbling space for himself.

From the perspective of the audience, the offense and defense between Marbury and Stockton became extremely intense.

The intensity of the game also became stronger and stronger as the game progressed. Marbury struggled a bit on the offensive end, which was noticed by other Timberwolves players.

Wu Dao on the wing has no way to stay in the elbow area and wait for the ball to fly over at this time.

He needs to use his actions to relieve some offensive pressure on his teammates.

As Wu Dao left the elbow area, he quickly came to Stockton's side and set a pick-and-roll for Marbury.

Using Wu Dao's pick-and-roll, Marbury dribbled the ball in sequence. At the same time, Stockton and Kife were also focused on martial arts and did not pursue Marbury immediately.

After getting the gap, Marbury also quickly reached the basket with the ball. After attracting Malone's defense, he gave the ball to Garnett, who was in the air, and the latter shot and scored.

With just a simple pick-and-roll, Marbury used his speed to tear apart the Jazz's defense.

The Jazz's players are indeed able to display their respective characteristics under the leadership of Stockton and Malone. But after all, players like the Jazz are not as talented as the Timberwolves. On the defensive end, it is not easy to compete with young talents like the Timberwolves who are bursting with talent.

As Wu Dao's movement became more active, the Timberwolves' offense also changed more, and the Jazz struggled to deal with it.

On the defensive end, after recognizing Malone's threat, Wu Dao also focused more of his defensive attention on Malone.

With the help of Wu Dao, Malone's shooting pressure has greatly increased, and his shooting rate has also declined to a certain extent.

The change in the defensive environment around Malone was also noticed by Stockton. He did not insist on handing the ball to Malone for finishing, but reduced the number of balls to Malone and increased some individual singles and passes to other teammates.

Stockton is an extremely rational player. He will treat every teammate as equally as possible. In his eyes, the shooting environment of his teammates is more important than their personal abilities.

With Stockton's help, the mediocre Jazz actually went back and forth with the talented Timberwolves. There is no problem with the Timberwolves' defensive decision-making, but the team they face is the Jazz, who are used to team operations.

The Jazz's role players have also become accustomed to team play. Every player will be ready to receive the ball and attack when on the court.

Because Stoke's pass may come at any time.

The Jazz and Timberwolves were chasing each other. The scores were very close and it was difficult to widen the gap.

29: 27.

As the whistle sounded at the end of the first quarter, the numbers on the scoreboards of the two teams also froze.

"How was it?" In the Jazz rest area, head coach Jerry Longs looked at Stockton walking off the court and asked confusedly.

Hearing the coach's question, Stockton had a faint smile on his face:
"It's all great."

"You can't win easily by defeating one or two players."

"This Timberwolves are very different from before."

"I think it would be better to seal off the transmission between them first."

"Find a way to get them as many singles as possible."

Facing the powerful Timberwolves, Stockton showed very calmness. The Timberwolves' talented players didn't put much pressure on him.

They are already used to playing against geniuses.

(End of this chapter)