Slam Dunk: My Study Abroad Career in Northern Hunan

On the same day that the Timberwolves defeated the Lakers, in the Eastern Conference Finals, the Bulls also narrowly defeated the powerful Pacers 85:79.

Compared with the game between the Timberwolves and the Lakers, the G1 between the Bulls and the Pacers will be much more difficult.

The intensity of the game between the two teams was very high. In this game, Michael Jordan also took 28 shots and hit 11 of them, dragging the team forward with a hit rate of nearly 40%. Being able to defend Michael Jordan to this extent shows how much defensive strength the Pacers put in when playing against the Bulls.

Although Jordan's shooting percentage is so-so, he can maintain this level in such a high-intensity game, which shows his strength.

This is the Eastern Conference Finals, not the regular season.

Moreover, the opponents he faced were not those who were much shorter and stronger than him, but Reggie Miller, who was 201cm tall and had excellent running skills.

At the same time, in this game, Jordan made 10 of 9 free throws, and his terrifying free throw stability also helped the Bulls win this game.

In this game, Jordan scored 31 points, while his opponent, Reggie Miller, took 20 shots, including 6 of 2 three-pointers and 14 of 5 from other positions. He was poorly defended by Jordan and only scored 16 points in the whole game.

Judging from the data alone, Reggie Miller's 16 points is certainly a good result. However, the performance of a player in a game cannot be judged only by his scoring data. The number of shots taken by the player and the data of the opposing players are also important reference indicators.

It was obvious that Reggie Miller's performance was not as good as Michael Jordan's in the Eastern Conference Finals.

The difference in strength between the two of them also led to different final results for the two teams.

If we have to find a reason for the Pacers' defeat on the court, then there is no doubt that star player Reggie Miller is the one who needs to take the blame.

As the core of the team, Reggie Miller needs to take corresponding responsibility for the team's failure while enjoying the praise of the fans.

The team lost, but I didn't.
This kind of argument will not be accepted by fans in this day and age.

Losing is losing. No matter how many gorgeous decorations you add to failure, it cannot change the failure itself.

In the eyes of the fans, the Pacers should not have lost this game against the Bulls. After all, the Bulls' second-in-command Pippen had already "acted" so well, it was really unreasonable that they still couldn't win.

You may not believe it.

Pippen, who was praised by the media as the strongest second-in-command in history, really had a bad performance in today's game.

全场上场了足足40分钟，投篮9中1，三分球2中0，罚球4中2，总共只拿到了4分。

Putting aside Pippen's defensive ability, just talking about Pippen's offensive efficiency, the Bulls have no impact at all with or without him.
Even if Pippen's four points were not counted, the Bulls were still able to lead the Pacers by two points and win the game.

It is also because of this that the Pacers were criticized by fans after losing the game. After all, no one could have imagined that the Bulls could still win the game despite Pippen's poor performance.

From this aspect, it can also be seen that there is actually a certain gap in strength between the Pacers and the Bulls.

The perspective returns to the West.

The Lakers, who had just suffered a defeat, also learned their lesson. The head coach reviewed various previous game videos of the Timberwolves overnight, trying to find a breakthrough to win the game from the Timberwolves.

The Timberwolves' three-in-the-box style of play had a significant impact on the Lakers. In Game 1, it was precisely because of the Timberwolves' style of play that the Lakers lost their composure.

Coach Del Harris, who didn't want to be led by the Timberwolves, tried to keep O'Neal on the bench and adopted a style of play that had never been tried before.

The effect is naturally self-evident.
His attempt caused the Lakers to suffer a major defeat in the playoffs.

If it was just a matter of winning or losing a game, Coach Del Harris wouldn't be so distressed.

The biggest trouble he encountered at this time was that he had no way to find a way out of the Timberwolves. This team, which had only been reorganized for only a year, had now run-in very perfectly.

Every player on the court can play to their best advantage to help the team win the game. When those young players are combined together, not only do they not have conflicts, but they produce extraordinary chemical reactions, which makes the strength of the whole team have a qualitative leap.

Coach Del Harris can't see any fatal flaws in this Timberwolves team.

If I have to say, maybe Marbury on the back line can become the breakthrough point for the team's offense.

But
With the offensive capabilities of the outside players in his team, even if they used pick-and-roll rotations to get opportunities for mismatched singles, they might not be able to score against the Timberwolves.

Marbury's defense is weak, but only relatively speaking. His defense is not at the level that anyone can beat him. Whether it is Eddie Jones or the young Kobe, it is not necessarily easy to beat Marbury when they rotate in front of him.

What's more, the Timberwolves also have highly mobile defensive players like Garnett and Ben Wallace. Wu Dao and Tom also have a strong sense of defensive awareness, and the mobility of these two players is also excellent, and they cannot be ignored.

If the Lakers want to win against the Timberwolves, they ultimately have to rely on O'Neal.

"After the mismatched singles, break through and pass the ball."

"We can only use this method to try to open up space for O'Neal, otherwise there is no way to break through the Timberwolves' defense."

After much thought, Coach Delharis finally found a method worth trying.

However, when dealing with a team like the Timberwolves, it is far from enough to just come up with a way to break the opponent's defense.

The Timberwolves are a team whose main system is defensive counterattack, but if anyone thinks that they can easily defeat them as long as they can break the Timberwolves' defense, they are wrong.

The Timberwolves' defense is strong, but their offense is even stronger.

To defeat such a team, you must not only be able to break through the opponent's defense, but also be able to block the opponent's offense.

But at this time, Coach Delharis' mind was blank and he had no idea.

He couldn't think of any way to stop the Timberwolves' offense.

A power forward who is unstoppable on the outside, who can dribble the ball and attack the basket as well as shoot three-pointers; a power forward who has excellent basic skills under the basket and can pull out to the mid-range to shoot, and what’s more, the power forward’s shooting stability is also outstanding.

Wu Dao and Garnett alone are enough to give the Lakers a hard time, not to mention that their offensive system is also assisted by players like Marbury and Tom.

Tom is not a rubbish supporting role. After all, he is an All-Star level player.

Although Marbury is a young player, his offensive imagination is outstanding. As a point guard, he has strong independent offensive ability and can often make sudden attacks when the team needs it most. Moreover, his breakthroughs are not something that players like Nick Van Exel and Fisher can deal with.

The Timberwolves can be said to be a whole nation of soldiers, and the power they can burst out on the offensive end is much stronger than the power they can burst out on the defensive end. Against a team like the Timberwolves, perhaps tightening the defense under the basket is the best way to defend.

As for how to deal with the opponent's outside attack?

At this time, you can only leave it to fate and pray that the other party's touch is not good.
When dealing with a team like the Timberwolves, you have to make some trade-offs. If you want to limit the opponent's outside offense, the inside defense will inevitably become weak; if you want to limit the opponent's inside offense, the outside defense will inevitably become weak.

They wanted to defend both the inside and the outside, but the end result was that they couldn't defend either the inside or the outside, and were beaten like a sieve.

After the general offensive and defensive ideas were determined, Coach Del Harris gathered the players together before the game and communicated his ideas to them.

No matter how good the offensive and defensive tactics are, they need players to execute them. No matter how good the theory is, it will be meaningless if the players cannot execute them on the court.

The task of breaking through and attacking the ball assigned by coach Del Harris was naturally given to Eddie Jones and Kobe Bryant.

In his vision, these two players would work closely with O'Neal in the interior.

How to score is not what Eddie Jones and Kobe Bryant have to think about. What they have to think about is how to pull the opponent's defensive force and give the ball to O'Neal at the right opportunity.

The core of the so-called sudden division is the word "division" at the end.

In fact, the Lakers have conducted many similar drills in previous practices, but the difference between the game environment and the training environment is quite large.

Take Kobe for example, the defensive players he faces on offense are often martial artists.

Facing a player who was one size bigger than himself, it became very difficult for Kobe to even break through. Under the defense of Martial Arts, Kobe often had no way to involve the other Timberwolves' defensive players.

Because in the minds of other Timberwolves players, players like Kobe Bryant do not have the ability to break through alone, so when making defensive choices, they often will not leave their defensive positions to assist in defense.

In order to involve the opponent's defensive strength, the requirements for the ball handler are very high.

Only when there is no solution in a one-on-one situation will there be a chance to involve other defensive players.

In today's NBA league, how many players can be said to be unstoppable in one-on-one situations?
The Lakers have such a player, but that person is not named Kobe or Eddie Jones.

You can kill people in the inside, but there are no opportunities in the inside; there are many opportunities outside, but you can't kill people with outside shots.

This is the most unsolvable "problem" facing the Lakers today.

Why did the Lakers always get swept 4-0 or 4-1 when they met the Jazz? Was it because O'Neal was not strong enough? No, when facing a team like the Jazz, even if O'Neal was evenly matched with the opponent's inside line, the Lakers could not win.

Only when O'Neal broke out and completely suppressed the opponent's inside line, were the Lakers able to score a point against the Jazz with great difficulty.

The Timberwolves are actually the same type of team as the Jazz.

Even the Timberwolves are a high-end version of the Jazz. The overall strength and potential of the team far exceeds that of the aging Jazz, and the Timberwolves also have the bloodthirsty nature of the Jazz.

It is very difficult for O'Neal to stir up trouble in the Timberwolves' interior.

No matter how strong the opponent is, the Lakers will never surrender immediately.

Coach Del Harris' offensive and defensive strategies are not that brilliant. For the Lakers players, they are only worth a one-time use.

It has come to this point. Even if Coach Del Harris comes up with a brilliant winning tactic, it is unrealistic for the players to replicate it perfectly without rehearsal.

And it was under such psychological pressure that on May 5, the Timberwolves and the Lakers faced off in the second game of the Western Conference Finals.

And this G2 game will still be held at the Target Center, the home stadium of the Timberwolves.

The cheers of the fans in the stands poured into the court. The Lakers players stepped into this now familiar venue, with solemn expressions on their faces.

Perhaps due to lack of confidence, the Lakers players looked more nervous than they were in Game 1. On the other hand, the Timberwolves players were very relaxed, not like rookies playing in the Western Conference Finals for the first time.

The previous victory over the Lakers also built strong self-confidence for the Timberwolves players.

When facing the Lakers again, I have a strong sense of psychological superiority over these players. This is the psychological feeling of a winner facing a loser.

This subtle psychological gap can often influence the performance of the two teams' players on the field.

Fear and nervousness will inevitably affect the players' performance and prevent them from performing at their best.

"Beep——"

As the buzzer sounded in the stadium, players from the Lakers and Timberwolves also walked into the court.

The Timberwolves' starting lineup is still familiar faces to the fans, Stanley Roberts, Garnett, Bu Dao, Marbury and Ben Wallace. This is the three inside lineup that casts a shadow on the Lakers.

Tom, an All-Star player, was once again relegated to the bench.

This is also the difference between Coach Philip and Coach Del Harris when they coach the team.

Coach Philip, backed by an outstanding record, was able to keep the veteran Tom on the bench. Not only could he keep Tom on the bench, he could also make him have no complaints.

And this is something that Coach Del Harris cannot do.

The best he can do is control young players like Kobe and veteran players like Nick Van Exel who have suffered serious injuries.

Coach Del Harris doesn't actually have much say over star players in their prime, such as O'Neal and Eddie Jones.

When a real conflict occurs between the coach and these stars, it is hard to say who will be sent away.

Coach Philip is very smart in this regard. He has learned to stand behind the scenes and will not come forward to control a certain player. He will use the influence of martial arts and the temptation of the championship to let the players make compromises themselves.

(End of this chapter)