Slam Dunk: My Study Abroad Career in Northern Hunan

Chapter 720 The key to victory!

An expert will know if there is one as soon as he takes action.

Wu Dao himself is a person who is very skilled in the application of pull-up jump shots. It was only Duncan's second shot, but he saw some problems in the opponent's movements.

Duncan probably seldom practices this outside technique, and has rarely used it in previous games. It is precisely because of this that Duncan now shows this sense of frustration and stiffness when using a pull-up jump shot on the court.

Duncan is very talented. With his shooting and athletic talents, he will definitely be able to master the skill of high-post pull-up jump shot in time.

But Duncan obviously has not trained enough now, and his current level cannot support his frequent use of pull-up jump shots to help the team score.

If the Spurs want to beat this Lakers team, they must work harder in other areas. If Duncan is their killer move, then the result of the game may not satisfy the Spurs players.

On the court, the Lakers have completed this round of offense.

After Fisher dribbled the ball into the frontcourt, he did not choose to pass the ball to O'Neal, but to Eddie Jones on the wing.

The Lakers' lineup does not rely solely on O'Neal's dominance and influence under the basket. They also have several All-Star players on the outside. If these players can open up the situation, the pressure on O'Neal will be greatly reduced.

When most of the Spurs focused their defensive attention on O'Neal, the best way to break the situation was not to give the ball to O'Neal and let him rely on his body to play one-on-one, but to give the ball to players in other positions and let them open up the situation first, forcing the Spurs to disperse their defensive forces to deal with it.

Although Fisher is only a young player and was only ranked 96th in the 24th draft, the Lakers team still showed enough patience and opportunities in cultivating young players.

Fisher gained the team's trust even earlier than Kobe.

When Kobe was still the team's best sixth man, Fisher had actually started more than 30 games in this year's regular season.

Although a large part of the reason for this is that the Lakers All-Star guard Nick Van Exel suffered an injury, even after recovering from the injury, Nick Van Exel's competitive state has declined significantly.

But in the final analysis, Fisher's ability to play such an important position in the team and even to be the starting point guard in the crucial seventh game of the playoffs is all due to Fisher's outstanding ability.

Fisher is not a "spiritual" player. As the point guard, he cannot make amazing passes like Nash or Kidd of the Suns, nor can he use tough defense to scare opponents like Stockton of the Jazz and mobilize the team's offense with comfortable passes.

Fisher's most outstanding advantage is his stability.

As the point guard with the longest possession time on the team, Fisher averaged only 1.5 turnovers per game during the regular season.

Compared to Kidd, who made more than 3 turnovers, Fisher's advantages are self-evident.

Their Los Angeles Lakers have the most dominant inside player in Shaquille O'Neal, so they don't need the number one player to make any fancy passes.

The coach's requirement for the No. 1 position is to be able to pass the ball steadily to O'Neal's hands. This is the greatest contribution that the Lakers' No. 1 position can make to the Lakers.

Fisher can do this job very well. He does not compete for the ball and will not cause the team to fall into internal friction in the fight for the ball because of his personal desire to score.

This is also where Fisher is better than Nick Van Exel.

Nick Van Exel is a veteran and an All-Star player. In the last years of his career, he hopes that he can get better statistics on the court, extend his career as much as possible, and get a retirement contract that will make him feel comfortable at the end of his career.

In fact, every player has this kind of personal desire, but when the personal desire is too strong, it will also affect the operation of the entire team.

Sometimes the factors that determine a team's strength on the field are not just the individual abilities of the players and the chemistry they create when combined together.

As a player, mentality is often one of the most critical determining factors.

After the basketball was given to Eddie Jones, Fisher quickly made a screen for Eddie Jones on the wing, and Eddie Jones also passed the ball in sequence with the help of Fisher's screen.

After following the three-point line to the top of the arc, Eddie Jones saw that the Spurs' defense against him was not strict. Not only did the players' defense not spread outside the three-point line because of his possession of the ball, but they tightened the defense inside, which made Eddie Jones choose to try a three-point shot.

The Spurs' defense was so targeted and directional that they seemed to have completely ignored the other outside players of the Lakers and were only focused on dealing with the Big Shark O'Neal in the interior.

Under such defense, the scoring opportunities from the outside were so prominent that Eddie Jones had no way to resist and block such easy ball scoring opportunities.

The three-point shot hit the side of the basket and bounced out. Admiral David Robinson used his body to block O'Neal, while the more mobile Duncan also quickly pounced on the basketball and grabbed the rebound in time.

"Ow—"

In the stands, as Eddie Jones missed his three-pointer, the fans sighed in disappointment.

The fans at the scene may have realized that their sighs would affect the performance of the home team players, and then, waves of applause and encouragement rang out from the stands.

On the court, the Lakers and Spurs also alternated between offense and defense.

"No, this three-point shooting ability is not good!"

"This three-point shot is not as good as Xiao San's."

"You can't even make this shot? You really should stop playing basketball!"

When Sakuragi Hanamichi saw the Lakers miss another scoring opportunity, he slapped his thigh and sighed in anger.

In Sakuragi Hanamichi's opinion, the three-point ability of these Lakers players is not even as good as that of Mitsui Hisashi when he played for Shohoku.

But Sakuragi Hanamichi could never have imagined that if Mitsui Hisashi came to this court, let alone shooting three-pointers, it would be a problem whether he could hold the ball steadily under such intense physical confrontation after getting the basketball.

In the sport of basketball, physical fitness is the foundation of everything.

Without physical fitness, no matter how excellent the skills are, they cannot be brought into play, and physical fitness is also the most essential thing that restricts the upper limit of all basketball players.

Among Budo's high school teammates, Sakuragi Hanamichi was not the only one who came to the United States to pursue his dreams. Mitsui Hisashi came here earlier than both of them.

But after so much time has passed, only martial arts has appeared on the NBA court.

Although Sakuragi Hanamichi is still playing in the high school basketball world, he has already made his mark in the world with his outstanding talent.

Whether he can enter the NBA in the future, or what kind of achievements he can achieve in the NBA, Budao does not know. But what Budao can confirm is that Sakuragi Hanamichi will definitely have his place in the NCAA, and even the NCAA is a top basketball league that most players cannot touch.

At least for those teammates of the Xiangbei team back then, the NCAA was already the ceiling.

"You really put yourself in the shoes of a football fan, don't you?"

"You're a basketball player yourself."

"You should know that it is not easy to make a three-pointer in a game like this."

"Even if you can make 10 out of 10 shots in training, it's not easy for ordinary people to get 10 shots into the basket in this game."

"Eddie Jones and Derek Fisher are both very good players, there is no doubt about that."

This kid Sakuragi Hanamichi has really started to get into the role of a Lakers fan. At this time, he is actually complaining about the Lakers' outside players not being strong enough.

But Sakuragi Hanamichi's remarks made Wudao feel a little funny. Such words should not be said by a player.

"Uh--"

Wudao's words also made Sakuragi Hanamichi realize that his words were a bit too stupid. It's not that he didn't understand, he just spoke too quickly. After being reminded by Wudao, Sakuragi Hanamichi stopped talking and watched the game on the court silently.

At this time, the Spurs successfully scored two points against the Lakers.

With the help of his teammates' high pick-and-roll, Duncan successfully dribbled the ball into the basket, and with O'Neal's help defense, he successfully sent the ball into the net with a hook shot.

Although Duncan is not very skilled in his pull-up jump shot from the outside, once Duncan enters the paint area, even a player like O'Neal may not be able to stop his offense.

Duncan has a variety of offensive means and is not the kind of blue-collar player who only knows how to dunk. If the opportunity is right, he will basically not make any offensive mistakes.

In fact, with Duncan's strength, if the Spurs gave all the offensive ball rights to Duncan, he could score 30 or even 40 points in a single game.

As long as Popovich does not limit Duncan's number of shots, with Duncan's physical condition and his rich offensive means, he can fully absorb a large number of shots. In terms of digesting shot rights alone, there is actually not much difference between him and O'Neal.

The reason why the Lakers and Spurs have developed two different types of centers is precisely because the two teams have completely different systems.

Popovich is a person who likes "team basketball". In his team, no matter how big a player is or how strong his personal ability is, he will not let this player have too many opportunities to play.

Because that wouldn't be enough of a team.

But Lakers coach Harris is different. He will give O'Neal an absolute core position, let O'Neal have the most shooting rights in the team, and promote O'Neal to the team's first finishing point.

Whenever O'Neal has a chance to shoot, or O'Neal asks for the ball himself, Coach Jerry Longs will ask his teammates to pass the ball to O'Neal, regardless of whether O'Neal's opportunity is appropriate or not, or whether other players are open and have a better chance to shoot.

It is precisely because of this coaching philosophy that the development paths of players O'Neal and Duncan have become completely different.

Of course, this also has a lot to do with the player's personal character.

If the person who teamed up with Kobe during the OK period was Duncan instead of O'Neal, then perhaps these two people could have dominated the league for ten years.

In 00-01, I'm afraid no team could compete with the Lakers unless other superstars formed a team.

Duncan's personality is destined not to have irreconcilable conflicts with Kobe. This pair of twin stars of the 21st century may be able to create a league myth.

But all this only exists in imagination.

While Wudao was daydreaming on the sidelines, the Spurs and the Lakers had several rounds of battle on the court.

Fisher's purpose was very clear. He wanted to let the outside players open up the situation first, so that the pressure on O'Neal could be reduced a little.

But unfortunately, in today's Game 7, the Lakers' outside players did not have a very good touch.

After attempting two three-pointers in a row, Eddie Jones chose to close the distance between him and the basket and frequently shot from mid-range.

Obviously, the Spurs' interference on Eddie Jones was not very strong, but Eddie Jones' jump shot accuracy was still very low.

The low scoring efficiency also caused the Lakers to perform somewhat poorly on the offensive end.

As for the Spurs, they also struggled against the Lakers' defense.

In order to deal with O'Neal's personal ability, the Spurs used a three-inside style of play, which made their inside space extremely crowded.

Although Duncan chose to take a high position when attacking, except for his outstanding scoring performance in the low-efficiency zone at the beginning of the game, Duncan did not shoot in the low-efficiency zone in the subsequent attacks, but chose to force a breakthrough to the basket for offensive attempts.

At this time, the crowded inside also had a huge impact on Duncan's breakthrough.

If the Lakers want to defend, their offense only needs to pile people into the inside, and they can deal with it calmly.

Moreover, the individual abilities of the Spurs' other outside players are really not good. They do not have the ability to break through the Lakers players one-on-one. These players struggled very much on the offensive end.

As the game progressed, the body movements between the Spurs and Lakers became larger.

The intensified confrontation also made the already low scoring efficiency of the two teams even lower.

After the first quarter, the fans in the stands saw the most internal battles between O'Neal, David Robinson, Duncan and others for rebounds.
A basketball game between the Spurs and the Lakers turned into a physical fight.

21: 19.

As the whistle sounded to end the first quarter, the score between the two teams was temporarily fixed at 21:19, and the Spurs dragged the game into the second quarter with a two-point lead.

In the stands, the Lakers fans were extremely disappointed with the performance of O'Neal's teammates. As the Lakers players returned to the bench one after another, Kobe, who had been sitting on the bench, showed an eager look on his face.

Young Kobe looked at the scoreboard on the sidelines and realized that his chance to stand out had come!