The strongest unicorn in basketball

Chapter 254 Continue the winning streak
March 3, Sacramento Sleep Train Arena.

Under the warm cheers, players from both sides stepped onto the court, and a much-anticipated regular season was about to begin.

The Kings, sixth in the West, will face the Spurs, the No. [-] in the West, at home.

After completing five consecutive away trips in the Eastern Conference, the Kings defeated the Timberwolves and the Wizards successively, expanding their winning streak to 13 consecutive victories.

Relying on this wave of winning streak, the Kings' record has been further improved, and their ranking has been chased to sixth in the Western Conference.

At the same time, the Thunder's record has declined slightly recently, and they were overtaken by the Spurs. Now, with the advantage of one win, they have become the first in the Western Conference.

If the Kings were eighth in the Western Conference and just touched the edge of the playoffs, now they have rushed to sixth in the Western Conference, and they have really entered the gate of the playoffs.

This is a complete surprise for the fans.

Now the team's 13-game winning streak is already the longest winning streak in the league this season. Whether the Kings can continue to win or not depends on tonight's game!

This will be the biggest challenge on their winning streak!

The Spurs, which have completely completed the transformation, have gradually recovered the strength of the championship team since last season.

In the Western Conference Finals last season, he lost six games to the Thunder.

This season has made a comeback, and as the season progresses, the team has played more easily.

The Spurs' starting lineup tonight: Tony Parker, Danny Green, Kawhi Leonard, Tim Duncan and Thiago Splitter.

The Kings lineup also continued the regular lineup: Bledsoe, Butler, Middleton, Giannis and Lip.

When the referee threw the basketball into the sky, Li Pu pushed Splitter to the ball to Bledsoe.

Splitter was a rookie selected by the Spurs with the 07th overall pick in the first round of 28, but he didn't officially enter the NBA from Europe until the 2010-11 season. He is considered an older rookie.

Unlike most white European centers, Splitter's skills are not delicate, even a bit rough, and he lacks the ability to shoot mid-range and long-range shots. However, he is not afraid of confrontation. He lives in the low post and is a qualified blue-collar center.

However, the low-post defense he relied on for survival was completely useless in front of Li Pu.

Li Pu played Splitter with the ball on his back. Regardless of height, weight, and wingspan, no one could match Li Pu.

I saw that after Li Pu turned around, he just hooked his hands and completely deceived Splitter. Then Li Pu didn't move his central axis foot, and his right foot came forward. With a beautiful dreamy step, Splitter passed by. clean.

But when Li Pu made a layup, Duncan's help defense arrived immediately.

Popovich knew a long time ago that it was impossible to defend Li Pu with only one Splitter, so he arranged for Duncan to prepare for the defense on the court.

As far as Duncan is concerned, he is indeed a defensive master. Although he has never won DPOY in his career, this is not his loss, but DPOY's loss.

The timing and position of his help defense are just right, as long as Li Pu makes a strong shot, he will definitely get blocked.

Fortunately, Li Pu saw through Duncan's defense in the first place, and after taking off, he passed the ball from Duncan's waist.

Just when Duncan and Li Pu fell down at the same time, behind him, a small dog dunked the ball and smashed the ball into the basket through Duncan!
This little dog is none other than Giannis!
As the season progressed, Giannis got better and better.

Especially in the dozen or so games after the All-Star break, he averaged 14.5 points and 11 rebounds per game. Unfortunately, his performance in the early season was really bad, otherwise he could even compete for the best rookie of the year!
When returning to defense, Li Pu reached out and gave Giannis a high-five.

Li Pu was very pleased with Giannis' performance.

Although he knows that Giannis today is far from him at his peak, but his performance now has at least been able to not hold back on the court.

Take the ball just now as an example. If it were Patterson or Muscala, they might shoot directly, but Giannis can use his physical fitness to forcibly dunk through people.

It looks clumsy, but it is actually very smart and knows how to make use of its strengths and avoid its weaknesses.

More importantly, on the next defensive end, the other two don't have Giannis' defensive ability and vitality.

When it was the Spurs' turn to attack, they saw a dazzling pass, constantly tearing the Kings' defense.

However, to be honest, it didn't work out very well.

Facing the pass from the Spurs, the Kings resorted to a fake unlimited defense.

The reason for adding a false word in front is mainly because Bledsoe is not tall enough to be in the position of No. [-] and No. [-] in position one.

Bledsoe's physical fitness is indeed very strong, and his defensive ability is also very oppressive, but after all, he is only in his early 180cm height, and he is completely unable to fight against insiders who are often over 210cm.

In this regard, there is a big gap between him and Westbrook.

And it is precisely because of his weakness that the Kings cannot fully sacrifice the original Thunder's infinite defense.

So, I saw that under continuous pick-and-rolls, Danny Green created shooting opportunities through off-ball pick-and-rolls.

With Duncan's support, he handed the ball to Green's hands immediately, and Green raised his hand and shot.

Unfortunately, in the case of a completely wide open, the ball was missed!

It seems that Green feels a little bad tonight.

The basketball bounced out of the basket, and Giannis immediately went to Duncan's position, but was directly pushed away by Duncan.

The weight difference between the two is very different, which is obvious.

But Giannis is not afraid of Duncan at all, and still clings to Duncan.

Taking advantage of this opportunity, Li Pu's long arm directly intercepted the rebound from the air!

Li Pu also experienced what it was like to partner with Ka Feng.

After protecting the rebound, Li Pu passed the ball to Bledsoe immediately.

Bledsoe rushed out immediately like an arrow off the string.

As far as Bledsoe's impact is concerned, he is naturally inferior to Westbrook. No, just after he came to the frontcourt, he encountered Leonard's defense.

Leonard, who has entered the league for the third season, has become more and more terrible defensively, almost reaching the level of DPOY, and is the core of the Spurs' perimeter defense.

Faced with this situation, Bledsoe immediately distributed the ball to Butler who followed up.

However, Leonard also reacted extremely quickly, abandoning Bledsoe immediately and catching up with Butler.

At this time, Butler looked back at the moon and passed the ball back to Bledsoe.

Speaking of which, although Bledsoe is Serena Williams, there is one thing he is better than Westbrook, and that is the three-point shooting percentage.

Especially now that he is playing next to Li Pu, his shooting percentage this season has reached 38%, which is already the shooting percentage of an elite three-point shooter!

"Shh!"

Facing the empty defense, Bledsoe made an easy hit!
The Kings opened 5:0.

(End of this chapter)