The strongest unicorn in basketball

Chapter 348 Unexplainable
Before the start of the game, no one thought that the Rockets would play so well!
Facing the strong defense of the Kings, the Rockets played with ease.

Especially Harden, facing the Kings' tight defense, he can always find the weak points of the Kings and pass the ball where it should be.

In contrast, Butler, who is trying his best to defend, seems to have a single function.

However, because Harden's shooting rate is not high, the Rockets' offense has always been poor.

In this case, at 30:33 in the first quarter of the two sides, the Kings led by 3 points.

In addition to starting, the Rockets' bench performance is also very good.

The Rockets have the two best sixth men in Louis Williams and Eric Gordon, as well as strong players such as Nene and Harrell, giving the Rockets a bench depth that the league envies.

Of course, compared with the king, this is still too far behind!
Lu Wei broke into the penalty area with the ball and faced Jokic for a layup, but was interfered by Jokic, the basketball missed, and Jokic who was standing under the basket picked up the rebound.

After receiving the ball, Jokic found Dinwiddie with a long pass, and Dinwiddie made a quick layup and scored the ball.

The Rockets' substitute, in front of the Kings' substitute, can only be hanged.

If you can't attack, you can't defend.

In this way, shortly after the opening of the second quarter, the Kings beat the Rockets 10:3, widening the point difference to 10 points!
The Rockets had no choice but to bring Harden back to the court. However, just after he came back, both of his shots were hit by Butler's defense. The Kings seized the opportunity to counterattack and succeeded. The Kings further expanded the point difference to 15 points.

Butler followed Harden up and down.

Although Butler was aggrieved by Harden in the first quarter, Butler's heart was not shaken, nor was he discouraged. When he returned to the court, he still clung to Harden, and finally reaped results.

Although Butler is nominally the second head of the Kings, he often does blue-collar dirty work, which is admirable.

At the critical moment, Ryan Anderson's three-pointer saved the Rockets, and the point difference was narrowed to less than 10 points.

Afterwards, the two teams played back and forth. Although Harden continued to perform sluggishly, the rest of the Rockets were unstoppable, and the point difference remained at around 10 points.

Even though the Kings returned to the field in the first place, they once opened the point difference to 16 points, but at the critical moment, Eric Gordon made two three-pointers, helping the Rockets to narrow the point difference to 10 points and maintain it. The first half is over.

To be honest, the Rockets have played pretty well. They were only 10 points behind the Kings when Harden didn't score a point in the second quarter, and they still kept the suspense of the game. This is not easy.

After the start of the second half, the Rockets began to chase points. Although Harden still felt cold, he would make fouls!

Directly used a three-point foul and sent himself to the free throw line.

In this way, at the end of the third quarter, although the Rockets were still 83 points behind 88:5, they were only 5 points.

Compared with the Grizzlies who can only hold one quarter, the Rockets can hold three quarters against the Kings without losing the wind. They are indeed the top four teams in the Western Conference.

However, that's all for now.

Harden stood on the court at the beginning of the fourth quarter. Obviously D'Antoni saw the performance of the King's substitute in the second quarter of the first half, and he didn't dare to take Harden down again, planning to let him play the second half.

Although Harden performed poorly tonight and only scored 13 points so far, as long as he stands on the court, the Kings will invest heavily to defend him.

The teammates playing with Harden at this time include Gordon, Lu Wei, Nene and Anderson.

Compared with the Kings, the Rockets only have 8 players who can play tonight, and the others simply don't have the ability to stand on this stage.

Harden advanced with the ball, and Butler led the defense all the way to the frontcourt.

Butler really got into a fight with Harden tonight. Harden didn't rest, and he didn't rest either.

After coming to the frontcourt, Harden passed the ball to Lu Wei.

Lu Wei, who has two wives, is not only a winner in life off the court, but also an outstanding player on the court.

Although he played as a substitute for most of his career, it does not affect his ability to contribute to the team's victory.

Although Lu Wei is thin and thin, he holds the ball extremely fast. It is effortless for Bro Gordon to single-play, and he successfully completed a breakthrough with a simple change of direction.

Although Brogdon has a good defense, he is 196cm tall. Facing a speed guard, his footsteps are really slow.

After completing the breakthrough, Grant quickly stepped forward to help defend. Seeing this, Lu Wei did not pass the ball, but chose a mid-range jumper.

Here you can see Lu Wei's shortcomings. His passing ability and basketball vision are not enough to be a point guard.

And he obviously underestimated Grant's lateral movement speed. When he was about to make a shot, he was surprised to find that Grant had come in front of him, but at this moment he could no longer pass the ball and could only bite the bullet and shoot.

"Duang!"

Sure enough, basketball hit the iron.

The Kings seized the opportunity and counterattacked immediately. Jokic once again showed his quarterback passing, accurately finding Dinwiddie who was fast breaking in the frontcourt from the backcourt, and the latter scored an easy layup!
After that, the Rockets attacked again, but Gordon and Capela did play a pick-and-roll, using Jokic's slow pace to choose a shot.

But Covington's ability to squeeze the screen is very good, and it also interfered with Gordon's shot, and the basketball hit the iron again.

The Kings fast break came again, Bro Gordon assisted Grant with dunks with both hands, and the Kings added 2 points.

For a while, the point difference returned to 9 points, and the Rockets' situation seemed precarious. More importantly, in these few offensive rounds, Harden seemed to disappear.

D'Antoni requested a timeout.

"James, what's wrong with you?"

Since it was the first year of cooperation, D'Antoni was not aware of Harden's habit of cutting off power at critical moments, and thought he was injured.

"I'm fine!"

"Then why didn't you attack? It's time for you to attack!"

"I... I feel bad!"

"you……"

D'Antoni choked on Harden's words.

As a big head of the team, at the critical moment, you don't feel good and don't shoot?
D'Antoni doesn't understand, he doesn't understand!
Which team boss still pays attention to reasonableness at critical moments?
Until the end of the timeout, D'Antoni still didn't come up with any good solution, so he could only continue to let Harden play.

Ever since, the point difference between the two teams has gone from 9 points to 15 points, and from 15 points to 20 points.

The Rockets only scored 5 points in half a quarter.

And these 5 points were scored by Beverly and Capela, and Harden did not score 1 point.

In this way, due to the inexplicable collapse of the Rockets in the fourth quarter, the Kings won the score without playing the main force in the fourth quarter.

In the end, after D'Antoni replaced Harden, the team scored a lot more smoothly, but it was too late.

96:121, the Rockets lost Game [-].

(End of this chapter)