Slam Dunk: My Study Abroad Career in Northern Hunan

For the Lakers, if they want to deal with the current Timberwolves, it is obviously not enough to just defend Wu Dao alone.

The Timberwolves have already completed their transformation. Putting aside the playing style of their stars, the Timberwolves are also a strong playoff team.

Although the Lakers' lineup looks very good on paper, when it comes to the actual game, the Lakers with O'Neal and the Lakers without O'Neal are completely two different levels.

This is not only clear to the Timberwolves as their opponents, but even the Lakers' own players should have a clear feeling about it.

The game between the two teams is still going on, and the situation on the court has gradually been brought to the Timberwolves' side.

Lakers coach Del Harris also understood that he could not allow the situation to continue to deteriorate. Taking advantage of a foul committed by Campbell when he was defending the basket, he immediately adjusted the lineup and put O'Neal back on the court.

After O'Neal returned to the court, the Lakers clearly found their backbone.

While the Timberwolves had not yet made timely substitutions and adjustments, the team quickly and successfully shot a few balls around O'Neal and narrowed the gap between the Timberwolves and the opponent.

However, just three rounds after O'Neal returned to the court, Coach Philip took the lead in calling a timeout when he was leading his teammates by 5 points.

After the timeout, the Timberwolves' inside players changed.

Garnett and Ben Wallace returned to the court. At the same time, Chris Kyle was replaced by the coach and Marbury was replaced again. Until now, the Timberwolves' lineup on the court has become their standard starting lineup.

With Wu Dao as the leader, Garnett and Ben Wallace as the core inside, and assisted by Marbury and Tom, the current Timberwolves are at their most prosperous.

As the game progressed, the G1 between the Lakers and the Timberwolves entered a white-hot stage.

With O'Neal, the Lakers had a great control over the Timberwolves in the interior. Although Garnett and Ben Wallace had very strong help defense capabilities, in the subsequent games, the two had very few opportunities to use their help defense capabilities.

Because both of them focused most of their attention on O'Neal.

If you want to limit O'Neal's performance, in addition to relying on the advantage in numbers, you must also use your body to confront O'Neal head-on.

Only in this way can we create precious opportunities for teammates who are defending in front to attack.

The Timberwolves did not continue to use the three-in-the-middle system to deal with the Lakers like they did in the first quarter. But even so, the defensive pressure O'Neal faced was no less than in the first quarter.

Both Tom and Wu Dao are very mobile. No matter whether O'Neal receives the ball on the left or right side of the basket, he will be double-teamed by the Timberwolves players.

Under such circumstances, O'Neal had to reduce his own personal shots and passively increase the number of passes to his teammates. The beneficiaries of the Lakers became Kobe, Eddie Jones and others on the perimeter.

The Lakers' outside players, who were successfully liberated, frequently shot in low-efficiency areas. With the defensive pressure being restrained by O'Neal, the Lakers and their outside players' shooting percentages also improved.

Like Kobe, after O'Neal came on the court, his shooting percentage was nearly 45%.

Although Wudao did not keep real-time statistics on Kobe's shooting percentage in this game, he could vaguely feel that Kobe's touch had improved from the offensive and defensive battles between him and Kobe.

Wu Dao didn't have any good solution for this. His defensive strategy against Kobe was to let him shoot but not break through. Just as Coach Philip and others thought, Kobe's outside threat was far less than O'Neal's.

Instead of defending Kobe's shooting in the low zone, it would be better for him to focus his energy on O'Neal and assist Garnett and Ben Wallace to limit O'Neal's performance.

The Timberwolves' defensive strategy also achieved good results in this game.

After halftime, O'Neal's personal score was suppressed to about ten points, and in the second half, the Timberwolves' suppression of O'Neal became even stronger.

Many times, Wu Dao would completely leave Kobe open and double-team O'Neal who was holding the ball in the paint. As Kobe, Eddie Jones and others missed shots from time to time, the gap between the Lakers and the Timberwolves gradually widened.

Unlike the Lakers' inefficient offense in low-efficiency areas, the Timberwolves' offense appears to be much stronger.

Compared to Kobe and Eddie Jones, Wu Dao has excellent physical fitness. When he is attacking with the ball, it is difficult for the defensive players to judge whether Wu Dao intends to shoot or attack the basket.

Wu Dao's three-point shooting percentage is very high. In the eyes of fans, his three-point shooting percentage is about to catch up with the shooting percentage of Kobe and others in the low-efficiency area.

Moreover, Wudao has strong jumping ability. Even when facing the help defense of O'Neal of the Lakers when attacking the basket, Wudao can still use his air suspension to find a gap for shooting from O'Neal's defense after physical confrontation with the opponent.

His strength is obviously not comparable to that of a historical power forward like O'Neal, but when breaking through and attacking the basket, Wudao is the offensive side and O'Neal is the defensive side, and he has a stronger impact when dribbling the ball.

Many times physical confrontation does not only depend on the strength of the force.

With the help of a running start, O'Neal is no less capable than O'Neal in physical confrontation.

Wu Dao's unstoppable outside shooting ability caused a lot of headaches for the Lakers. They had no way to restrict Wu Dao well. The only solution Del Harris could think of was to use more players to assist in defense.

However, this method is only a temporary solution and not a fundamental solution. Having more players defend Wu Dao will also weaken the Lakers' suppression of other Timberwolves players.

Among the Timberwolves players, Wu Dao is not the only one with excellent shooting ability.

Garnett, a power forward, also possesses historical shooting stability. His shooting stability is even higher than Kobe Bryant's peak period, which is far beyond the reach of Eddie Jones and others.

Whenever Budo attracted a lot of defensive power from the Lakers, the highly mobile Garnett was often able to pull up to the high post, shake off the slower defenders, and run out to open space.

At this time, the tall and strong Wu Dao can often pass the ball smoothly in the double-team of Lakers players. His physical condition allows him to handle the ball easily and freely during offense without worrying about being intercepted by the defensive players.

Garnett is actually a very distinctive player, although it is not fair to Kobe to compare the shooting percentage of a power forward like him with that of a power forward like Kobe.

But in fact, Garnett is not a player who relies on high-efficiency attacking the basket as his main means of scoring. On the contrary, the "iron-blooded jump shot" is Garnett's important means of scoring.

Garnett was able to hit 50% of his shots in his rookie season. In his peak season, he was even able to average nearly 20 shots per game with a hit rate of 50.2%, a terrifying efficiency.

This ability of his is also the key factor in his brilliant achievements in the NBA.

Judging from the data, the overall shooting percentage of the Lakers players is not much different from that of the Timberwolves. If you have to calculate it, the difference may be only ten percentage points.

But this hit rate is very obvious when it is put on the court. This can be seen from the gradual gap between the two teams.

With O'Neal unable to exert his strength, the Lakers had no way of gaining an advantage over a team like the Timberwolves by relying on their outside shooting.

When the game entered the third quarter, the score between the two teams was 84:71, and the difference had widened to 13 points.

In the stands, the cheers of the fans cheering for the Lakers seemed weak.

Everyone can see that it is impossible for the Lakers to win today's game. In the consecutive games, O'Neal's physical energy has been greatly consumed.

The Lakers had just experienced a brutal Game 7 against the Spurs, and the player who consumed the most energy for the entire Lakers team in that series was O'Neal.

The short one or two days of rest between the two rounds of the series is not enough for O'Neal. For example, in today's game against the Timberwolves, O'Neal played for less than 30 minutes, but he sweated more than when he played for 36 or 37 minutes in the past.

For the Lakers, once O'Neal fails to play his role on the court, the overall strength of their Western Conference Finals team will immediately be downgraded to a team that can only be eliminated in the first round of the playoffs.

Even if O'Neal was not there, it would be a question whether the Lakers could break through the siege in this brutal Western Conference and make it to the playoffs.

After a short break, the buzzer sounded in the stadium.

The players from both the Lakers and Timberwolves returned to the court and started the fourth quarter.

After three fierce quarters of the game, the Timberwolves players had consumed a lot of physical energy, but their players were younger than those of the Lakers, and unlike the Lakers, the Timberwolves had rested for a long time before playing this round of the series.

These young players have stronger physical reserves than the Lakers.

As the Lakers sent the ball from the baseline, the final quarter of the game between the two teams officially began.

However, unlike the fierce battles in the previous two quarters, the Lakers suddenly collapsed in the fourth quarter.

At the beginning of the game, Eddie Jones broke through the basket under Tom's defense, but due to Garnett's interference, Eddie Jones's layup missed.

The moment the rebound appeared, Ben Wallace didn't even look at the weakness of the basketball, but chose to come to O'Neal's side at the first time, and used his body to press on O'Neal. Ben Wallace used his physical strength to influence O'Neal to grab the rebound.

Thanks to his efforts, O'Neal was indeed a beat slow in jumping, and the rebound ball was caught by Wu Dao who was returning the ball to the basket.

During the transition between offense and defense, Wudao received the ball on the front wing and passed it to Gannet in front of the baseline. The latter directly shot a mid-range shot at a zero-degree angle, and the basketball fell steadily into the basket.

With this goal, Garnett's personal score reached 20 points.

In today's game, Garnett's performance was excellent and he can be said to be the team's second pillar besides martial arts.

The Lakers lost a goal at the beginning of the game and watched the score widen. On the offensive end, Kobe also tried to use three-pointers to narrow the gap between the two teams.

But perhaps because he was in a hurry to catch up, Kobe's open three-pointer went straight out of the basket, and the rebound was taken by the Timberwolves players.

In fact, in the NBA in the 90s, players missing three-point shots was the norm in most games.

Although Kobe has stepped up his three-point shooting practice under the influence of martial arts, the amount of training is not enough to support him to maintain a high level of stability in intense games.

What's more, the game has now entered the fourth quarter. It is very difficult to maintain that kind of shooting stability when the physical energy is consumed so greatly.

At this time, the strength of physical fitness is also reflected in the game.

Not long after Kobe missed a three-pointer, I used a pull-up shot to teach him how to shoot a three-pointer. As the sound of the net swiping rang out in the court, the difference between the two teams widened to 18 points.

"There's no hope!"

"Those Timberwolves guys are still in great shape. There's no hope for today's game!"

When Wu Dao's three-pointer went into the net, this thought was also on the minds of Lakers fans.

The stands were filled with the cheers of Timberwolves fans, and no voices from Lakers fans could be heard.

Low pressure also lingered over the heads of all the Lakers players. At this moment, whether the players on the court or off the court, they no longer had the fighting spirit to fight for victory.

In the next few minutes of the game, the two teams fought a few rounds.

The Lakers players seemed to have given up on themselves. Eddie Jones, Kobe and others frequently tried three-pointers. They wanted to be heroes who saved the team, but the cruel reality slapped every Lakers player in the face.

On the sidelines, Coach Del Harris did not stop the players from blindly trying three-pointers. He saw clearly that O'Neal's physical condition was very poor. Under such a huge disadvantage, the only possibility of a comeback was to rely on three-pointers.

If one of Kobe or Eddie Jones could burst into bursts and make consecutive shots, then this game might still have suspense, and O'Neal's enthusiasm might be mobilized again.

But now it seems that there is no such possibility.

Winning has become an impossible thing, and coach Del Harris doesn't want to keep O'Neal on the court to waste his energy.

Four minutes into the final quarter, coach Del Harris substituted O'Neal off the court early and announced that the Lakers had surrendered.

At the same time, Nick Van Exel, who had played for several consecutive quarters, was replaced by Fisher and others.

There is no suspense in the Game 1 between the Lakers and the Timberwolves.

106: 84.

The Timberwolves actually won the game in a crushing manner.

(End of this chapter)