The strongest unicorn in basketball

Chapter 203 Coping Strategies
Different from the small cities in everyone's impression, San Antonio is the second largest city in Texas and the seventh most populous city in the country, with a population of about 140 million.

With such a large population and only one Big Four team, the Spurs are pretty much the city's darling.

On May 5, the third game of the series between the Thunder and the Spurs was held at the AT&T Center Arena in San Antonio.

Before the game, the famous Hollywood girl Selena Gomez not only sang her hit single "Come & Get It" as a guest performer, but also led the audience to sing the national anthem.

In addition to being a singer, actor, and Bieber's future ex-girlfriend, Selena also has another important identity, that is, thorn honey.

As a native of San Antonio, Selena followed her father to watch Spurs games when she was young. Over time, Selena also integrated the Spurs into her life. This team is like her own family, no matter how busy it is. Selena will make time to watch the Spurs game.

Since about 10 years ago, she has even bought three season tickets worth more than 7 yuan a year, and she and her parents have also become frequent visitors to the sidelines.

In later generations, she even spent more than 12 million for the Spurs in 200 years, and she can be regarded as a senior Spurs honey.

And the Spurs are indeed worthy of her love. After five years of trough, the Spurs now have a chance to stand on the peak again.

Therefore, of course she will not miss tonight's game!

Most of the thorns, including her, firmly believed that there were only two games left, and they would cross the corpse of Thunder's third young master and return to the finals again.

The starting lineup of the Spurs tonight still continues the starting lineup of the previous two games, Tony Parker, Danny Green, Kawhi Leonard, Tim Duncan and Boris Diaw.

In the middle of the season, the Spurs traded Diaw from the Bobcats.

I have to say that this is an excellent deal. Compared with DeJuan Blair, even though Diaw is only a little over 2 meters tall, his offensive creativity is not comparable to that of DeJuan Blair. of.

As a team player, Diaw can play five positions on the field, can play low singles or shoot three-pointers from long distances, and even on the defensive end, he is also slumped. Whether it is confrontation or movement, his strength is quite good.

Of course, he also has certain disadvantages, that is, the jump ball is very disadvantageous. As a center, he can only let Duncan, who is a power forward, jump the ball.

After the game started, relying on Li Pu's incomprehensible jump ball ability, the Thunder had the right to first attack.

When Westbrook came to the front court with the ball, the uniform "Defense" slogan, mixed with bursts of boos, came to his face.

But for Westbrook, this is a completely small scene, not worth mentioning at all.

At this time, Westbrook was very focused, beckoned to Li Pu, and asked him to pick and roll.

After Lip lifted from the penalty area, Duncan immediately followed.

Although Duncan is a power forward, on the defensive end, it is Li Pu who is right.

After all, you can't let Dior, who is in his early two meters, defend Li Pu, who is 20cm taller than him, right?Then it must be blown up?

"You don't play center, you play power forward, that is, when defending, stand a little bit in!"

Poor Duncan, recalling what Popovich said to him, tears filled his eyes!

This bad old man is very bad!

However, there is one thing to say, although Duncan is 36 years old, his physical fitness and physical fitness have declined to a large extent, and his shooting percentage has also dropped to 44%, the lowest in his career, but his defense is still the mainstay of the Spurs.

Therefore, if the Thunder want to crack the Spurs' defense, the first thing is to find a way to get Duncan out of the paint and keep him away from the basket.

This is easy to say and easy to do, but it is very difficult to produce good results!
Because this requires the five people on your team to have long-range shooting ability.

As long as one person's projection threat is not enough, Duncan can shrink inside and not come out.

Today is not a decade later in the small ball era, it is rare for a team to have five players who can shoot three-pointers and form a reasonable lineup.

Coincidentally, the Thunder just have it!

Therefore, when Li Pu came outside the three-point line, Duncan was forced to defend.

Then, Westbrook immediately rushed inside with the help of the pick-and-roll.

Seeing this, Duncan quickly retracted his defensive line to prevent Westbrook from breaking through.

In the first two games, what the Spurs were most afraid of was Westbrook's breakthrough, so they spent a lot of defensive power on Westbrook.

With Duncan's contraction, the defensive pressure on Li Pu's side has been greatly reduced.

However, Li Pu didn't pick and roll and roll down as usual, but stood outside the three-point line.

Westbrook passed the ball to Li Pu almost at the same time.

Li Pu didn't hesitate after receiving the ball, and directly chose a three-point shot!
Tonight, Li Pu's outside touch is good, and the three-pointer is hollow!

3: 0.

This is also the Thunder's strategy, that is, no matter who Duncan is defending, as long as he doesn't step forward to defend, he will resolutely shoot when he gets the ball!
All they did was to move Duncan away from the basket at all costs.

Li Pu became the lucky one and hit the first goal of the night.

However, tonight's winner has never been in the Thunder's offense.

It's on the Thunder's defense.

In the first two games, the problem with the Thunder was that they couldn't effectively defend the Spurs. They couldn't play their own defensive counterattacks, so they gave up the initiative of the game to the Spurs.

Therefore, the focus of their game tonight is to completely defend the Spurs.

However, how easy is it to prevent the Spurs' offense?

Since 08, the Spurs have begun to transform. In just a few years, they have changed from a defensive team to an offensive team.

Although the current Spurs' offense has not yet reached the level of mercury flooding in the original time and space in 14 years, it has already achieved initial results.

But fortunately, any attack is not perfect, there are always flaws!

The offense of this Spurs team is essentially to use the inside support and passing vision to create opportunities for shooters to shoot easily. The later Warriors mainly borrowed from the Spurs' current offensive system.

Of course, in this way, this Spurs team also has the same problem as the later small ball warriors, that is, insufficient offensive ability, Duncan is old, Leonard is too young, and no one can play a decisive role at critical moments.

Therefore, in the face of such a large number of pass-and-cut tactics, the Thunder chose the most stupid and most effective defensive strategy, that is, unlimited defense!
I saw that the Spurs' offensive starting style was the classic pick-and-roll of Parker and Duncan, and then Westbrook and Li Pu quickly switched defenses.

Seeing this, Parker no longer passed the ball, but directly broke through Li Pu and went to the basket to kill.

When the little French sports car runs, whoever uses it will know the speed of the lightning!

Seeing that he had come to the penalty area, Parker immediately turned into a small spinning top, made a silky turn, and then made his signature throw.

Then, he was slapped away by a big hat from Li Pu.

……

Still a small spinning top?What the hell I'm hating is the little spinning top!
(End of this chapter)