Slam Dunk: My Study Abroad Career in Northern Hunan

How can the Lakers defeat the Timberwolves in the series?

Regarding the pre-game simulation of this game, Lakers coach Del Harris has already rehearsed it countless times.

Perhaps in the eyes of ordinary fans, a team like the Lakers, which has a superstar like Shaquille O'Neal, has a huge chance of winning no matter which team they face.

But only people in the industry know that the dominance that the Timberwolves have shown on the court this season is far beyond the reach of other teams.

The strength of the Timberwolves lies not only in the individual abilities of their players, but more importantly in the strength of their entire team.

Coach Del Harris is well aware that if the Lakers play against the Timberwolves in the same conventional way as the Jazz did against the Timberwolves, they will probably not be able to win this round of the series.

If you want to deal with the Timberwolves, you must work hard on the technical and tactical aspects.

The outcome of this G1 is naturally very important, but for the Lakers, what is more important is that they need to explore the weaknesses of the Timberwolves from this game.

Coach Del Harris has actually prepared himself mentally for the team to lose. Regardless of winning or losing, as long as they can find weaknesses in the Timberwolves that can be attacked in today's game, it will be valuable to them.

After watching all the Timberwolves' previous games, coach Del Harris only saw one point that could be exploited from the Timberwolves.

That is the defensive ability of the Timberwolves' number one position.

Whether it is Marbury or the Timberwolves' first substitute at the No. 1 position, Chris Kyle, they are both players whose defense is not very strong.

As long as the Lakers have a point guard who is good at breakthroughs and independent offense, they can easily break through the Timberwolves' outside line.

Even if there is no such number one position, as long as the team can rotate actively and focus on the Timberwolves' defensive weaknesses, they can also create scoring space for themselves.

However, it is not easy for the Lakers to implement such a simple tactic.

It’s not that the Lakers players don’t listen to the coach’s instructions, or that the Lakers players’ personal abilities are not up to the standards for using this tactic.

Just because they have Shaquille O'Neal in the Lakers.

The benefits of O'Neal's presence to the Lakers are self-evident, but the disadvantages are also quite obvious.

As one of the most famous inside players in the league, O'Neal always attracts a lot of attention wherever he goes.

Moreover, O'Neal's agent team is also well aware of O'Neal's commercial value. In order to tie O'Neal to their chariot, the Lakers also made some compromises.

This compromise not only opens a loophole for O'Neal in terms of salary.

The team's offensive and defensive tactical system must be centered around O'Neal, which is actually a hidden condition for O'Neal to stay in the Lakers.

It is precisely because of this condition that it is difficult for the Lakers to place O'Neal as the second offensive point in their offensive choices. Not to mention demoting O'Neal to the second offensive point, even if the Lakers increase the shooting proportion of outside players, it will probably attract criticism from fans.

It would be fine if they could win the series, but if Del Harris' attempt to reduce O'Neal's ball possession fails, he will inevitably be fired.

It is also because of this that in previous Lakers games, Del Harris's use of O'Neal was very methodical.

But now, the situation has changed a little.

This is the fourth year that coach Del Harris has coached the Lakers, and it is also his second year coaching O'Neal.

In the 96-97 season, the Lakers encountered the Utah Jazz in the second round of the playoffs and were swept 4-1 by the Jazz.

If the Lakers still perform poorly in the Western Conference Finals this year even with O'Neal, the fans' tolerance for him as a coach will probably drop to freezing point.

Coach Del Harris has already sensed this, so he is also seeking change.

Within the scope of his ability, he will try his best to find some tactical changes for the Lakers.

For example, the game against the Timberwolves at this time is a good opportunity for him.

The fact that the Lakers were able to maintain a stalemate with the Timberwolves when O'Neal was not on the court can be considered a success in his coaching.

However, this balance might be broken with the advent of martial arts.

With a nervous mood, Del Harris' coach also looked at the court intently.

The Timberwolves had the ball, and the second quarter continued as the basketball came out of the Timberwolves' backcourt.

At this time, the gap between the two teams has been eliminated, and the score is 37:37.

After Wu Dao came on the court, the Timberwolves' offensive tempo did not show any sign of speeding up. With Garnett's departure, the Timberwolves' inside strength was actually greatly weakened.

Although Wu Dao's physical condition can perfectly replace the power forward position, he cannot fall into the low post like Garnett on the offensive end. The lack of inside strength also forces the Timberwolves to be cautious on the offensive end.

Their frontcourt rebounding ability is much different from the previous lineup. If they make too many mistakes on offense, the Lakers will easily seize the opportunity to overtake the score, or even widen the gap.

As Wudao took position on the wing, the basketball was quickly passed into Wudao's hands.

The person defending Wu Dao was Eddie Jones of the Lakers. No one knew what the Lakers were thinking, but they did not let Kobe, who had the best outside defensive ability, to defend Wu Dao.

Maybe Coach Harris knew that Kobe's physical fitness would not pose much threat to Wu Dao. In order to protect Kobe's proud self-esteem, he did not choose to let the young Kobe face off against the young Wu Dao.

In front of Wudao, Eddie Jones was very cautious. There was a gap of nearly 40cm between him and Wudao, and he kept it very low, taking a defensive stance of preventing breakthroughs but not shots.

Eddie Jones is 198cm tall, nearly two meters, with a good wingspan and a weight of 86kg. He is a number two player with a relatively standard physique.

During Kobe's peak period, his height was the same as Eddie Jones, reaching 198cm, and his height with shoes reached 202cm. In order to increase his dominance, Kobe also gained a lot of weight during his peak period. At his heaviest, he weighed 98kg.

Kobe's weight combined with his skills also give him excellent ability in the basket. After gaining weight, Kobe's dominance was reflected and he could be compared with Michael Jordan in the same position. Even though there is a huge gap in their personal honors, fans unanimously believe that Kobe is the most dominant No. 2 player in the post-Jordan era.

In fact, just by comparing Kobe's physical fitness at his peak and Eddie Jones' physical fitness at his peak, you can see the gap between the two players.

If two players who are at their peak in different eras were put on the same court to compete, Kobe, who is nearly 20 kilograms heavier, would definitely be the one with the upper hand.

But unfortunately, Kobe is still a young player now, with not much flesh on his body, not as good as Eddie Jones today.

However, Eddie Jones, who weighs only 86kg, is already at a disadvantage against peak Kobe, let alone a heavy third-position player like Wu Dao whose physique is comparable to that of a fourth-position player.

Facing Eddie Jones' defense, Wudao had no intention of shooting a three-pointer. As the basketball fell, Wudao took a step forward and his body quickly stuck to Eddie Jones.

"Bang!!!" The horrific impact force directly hit Eddie Jones' chest. With a muffled sound, Eddie Jones involuntarily took two steps back, staggered back, and barely stood firm.

Although he managed to steady his body, the martial arts in front of him had already crossed the three-point line and quickly passed by his side.

The impact was just too strong.

Eddie Jones couldn't block the martial arts attack with his body.

Wu Dao quickly passed by Eddie Jones, took two steps forward after crossing the three-point line, and then made a quick stop jump shot, choosing to shoot directly from mid-range.

The overall movement was smooth and effortless. Eddie Jones's defense seemed useless in front of martial arts.

A crisp sound of the net hitting the net was heard from the court.

The basketball fell steadily into the basket. The numbers on the Timberwolves' scoreboard on the side of the court jumped. After Wu Dao got the basketball, he completed this round of attack in just a few seconds. It was so fast that the Lakers' inside players didn't even have time to provide backup defense for Eddie Jones.

The Target Center were filled with cheers.

Coach Del Harris on the sidelines also reminded the Lakers players to pay more attention to the outside defense, so their players should not all shrink under the basket, but stretch the defense line as much as possible.

Between offense and defense, it was already the Lakers' turn to attack.

After Nick Van Exel brought the ball into the court, his original intention was to pass the ball to Kobe, who would organize the offense.

But when he noticed that Wu Dao and Tom had switched defenses, with Wu Dao going to the left wing to defend Kobe and Tom going to the bottom corner to guard against Eddie Jones, Nick Van Exel quickly changed his mind.

With the ball on the right wing, he simply accelerated and directly attacked Chris Kyle's defense.

Chris is actually much taller than Marbury. In terms of physical fitness, Chris appears to be stronger than Marbury.

Chris is 196cm tall and weighs 94kg, which makes him essentially a heavy-duty number two.

However, defensive ability is not simply a matter of physical fitness.

Just like how the body fights this thing doesn't just depend on height and weight.

Chris Kyle's hardware is better than Marbury's, but his confrontation cannot be compared with Marbury, otherwise he would not be just a late second-round pick.

When Coach Philip replaced Marbury, he naively thought that with Chris's physical condition, he would be able to easily suppress Nick Van Exel of the Lakers.

But in fact, the strength of players is not so easy to compare.

Van Exel took a step to the right with the ball and instantly mobilized Chris Kyle. As Chris Kyle lowered his center of gravity and moved his feet sideways, Van Exel also quickly changed direction while moving. After a sudden brake, he actually held the ball with both hands and immediately forced a shot from a high position.

Star ball.

Normally, Van Exel rarely chooses this offensive method because in the Lakers, holding the ball and attacking is not his main responsibility.

But the situations in different games are also different. When O'Neal is not there, he is actually the oldest and most powerful player on the Lakers.

Moreover, as an All-Star player, Van Exel was facing a second-round pick like Chris Carr who was a substitute. If he didn't dare to shoot in front of such an opponent, then Van Exel would have no need to stay on the court to play.

"Shu~"

The biggest psychological advantage also allowed Van Exel to play his best form, and the basketball went into the net.

When coach Del Harris saw the players score a goal, he clenched his fists and looked somewhat excited.

He liked this feeling very much.

When encountering sudden changes in the situation on the field, the players have their own ideas and can use their own brains to solve problems that arise on the field, instead of just blindly playing rigidly according to the coach's established tactics.

He likes smart players who can make their own decisions.

In his opinion, when the Timberwolves' defense made adjustments, Van Exel's offensive choice was the wisest.

"All-Stars are All-Stars after all, they are not given for nothing."

Faced with such a huge gap in strength between individual players, even martial arts are useless.

Basketball is, after all, a five-person sport. Even if he had excellent athletic ability, there was no way he could rush from the left side of the court to the right side to provide backup defense for Chris Kyle in this situation.

Not to mention he was so far away, even Ben Wallace and the others had no way to go up and help their teammates in the first time.

Once a weak teammate is targeted by the opponent's outside players, the Timberwolves actually have no way to deal with it.

This feeling of powerlessness is exactly the same as the one the Lakers felt when facing martial arts.

After the Lakers scored successfully, Senlinlang immediately fought back.

The basketball flew out of Chris Kyle's hands and was passed to Wu Dao on the wing. Unlike Marbury, Chris Kyle would rely more on Wu Dao's personal ability on the offensive end.

He has independent offensive ability, but it is not outstanding.

In this playoff game with extremely high pressure, Chris Kyle did not dare to shoot easily, which actually showed a lack of self-confidence.

However, at this moment on the court, apparently no one cared whether Chris Kyle had confidence or not.

After Wudao got the basketball, a fake shot failed to attract Eddie Jones' defense. Wudao, who clearly felt the opponent's defensive intention, simply turned the fake into reality and directly shot a three-point jump shot.

Under Eddie Jones' slightly surprised gaze, the basketball went into the net.

"I can make 100 of 97 open three-pointers during shooting practice."

"This is just a simple shooting drill!"

When Eddie Jones turned around and looked at Wu Dao, the look of surprise on his face did not disappear.

Looking at the other person's somewhat naive expression, Wu Dao smiled and spoke.

(End of this chapter)