When pride still matters

Chapter 161 It seems different from before

Yu Fei thought that the Spurs would always take advantage of Duncan's singles advantage. As a result, he was wrong.

The Spurs' response to the flying three-pointer to break double teams was to let Stephen Jackson hold the ball and play alone.

If professional basketball in the 90s was influenced by Pat Riley's hand-to-hand basketball game, then at the beginning of the new century, in order to limit giants like O'Neal, teams have further increased their requirements for physical confrontation on defense.

Therefore, even a team like the Spurs will give wing attackers a certain amount of isolation play.

The rise of Wu Sheng means that the Spurs no longer need to let the aging Steve Smith shoulder a singles burden that is far beyond his current capacity.

Yu Fei is rarely surprised by the ball-handling skills of players of the same size, because he himself is a master at this.

Young James in the ABCD training camp was the first big ball handler to surprise him, followed by Tracy McGrady, and then Stephen Jackson.

As a tall ball handler, as long as he meets two of the three categories of size, athletic ability, and offensive skills, he will be a starting-level player in the NBA.

Among them, athletic ability and offensive skills account for the most important proportions.

Jackson's strength lies in his size and offensive skills.As a ball carrier, all of Jackson's skills seem to be prepared for offense, but due to his lack of explosiveness, he does not have the ability to get rid of defenders instantly.

In this round, the opponent is flying. He first changes direction, then makes body movements to shoot, and suddenly breaks through to the middle.

Yu Fei's defense was only a little slower, relying on speed to keep up, and seriously interfered with Jackson's throw.

Jackson missed the shot, but Duncan grabbed the rebound like a monster, got up and attacked again, and successfully put the ball in.

"see it?"

"what did you see?"

"Even if you guard me, Tim will get the rebound!"

"Not all." Duncan humbly corrected his teammates, "At most 50%, Stephen, please respect our opponents."

If Duncan had just said these words, it wouldn't have sounded anything special.

What really matters is that when he passed by Tao Fei, he suddenly said: "Ang!"

Then he ran away, like a humanoid who was learning how to speak and suddenly gave a weird cry.

Some trash talk doesn’t need to go straight to the core.

Yu Fei shouted at Mason who was gloating with a dark face: "Thank you for being able to laugh! Old man, you are so shameless? Didn't you hear what they said? You have the ability to grab 50% of the rebounds!"

Mason had already given the ball away, unresponsive to Fly's motivational accountability.

Yu Fei came to the frontcourt, and the Spurs still used Jackson to guard him.

When George Karl saw Yu Fei put on the "ISO" posture, he knew that this young man was once again provoked by his opponent and forgot the meaning of the team.

This kind of thing often happens to Yu Fei, he is immature.

However, no team has taken advantage of Yu Fei's immature performance to cause the Bucks to suffer.

Carl hears that Duncan has a bachelor's degree in psychology. Will he take advantage of this?

As soon as Carl thought of this, Yu Fei accelerated past Jackson, and before Duncan came to the line to help defend, he hit the ground and hit Mason.

Mason was "flattered". He thought it would be difficult for him to receive Master Yu's pie tonight, but he didn't expect that the young master was actually a sharp-tongued person. He looked like he hated him on the surface, but in fact he was very willing to give him sweet treats.

Mason jumped up hard and scored a dunk.

"I really want to play against Bruce. Playing with people like this all day who can't defend will make my level drop!" Yu Fei didn't even look at Duncan, and all the fire was directed at Jackson, "Hey!"

Stephen Jackson was ashamed and angry, and was about to retaliate. Popovich had already turned on the hair dryer mode regarding his being stepped over by Yu Fei.

What makes Popovich dissatisfied is not that Yu Fei shredded the defense, but that his offense was too easy.

There is obviously no complicated tactical coordination, but a person holding the ball in a high position is always invincible. What does this mean?There is a big problem with their defense.

Do we need to switch to playoff mode (let Bowen defend) to be No. [-] in the Eastern Conference?
Seeing Wu Sheng running over with a "happy" face, Yu Fei asked with concern: "I hope your coach will treat you better. It's not that you can't do it, it's just that I'm too good."

"Shut up, rookie!"

"I'm in my second year, not a rookie."

"To shut up!"

"I do not!"

Jackson got the ball and aggressively chose to force a breakthrough.

This is the theoretical worst option.

Because Jackson doesn't have the ability to ignore the first step of defense like Tracy McGrady. Players who are strong in sudden breakthroughs are either physically strong or have amazing explosive power. Jackson can't take advantage of both. Instead, he wastes his excellent offensive skills and gives Yu Fei complete control on the defensive end. A chance to seal him away.

Jackson's breakthrough rushed in front of Yu Fei, and the two collided. Yu Fei, who was stronger, knocked Jackson back and stole the ball when the opponent lost his balance and could not protect the basketball.

Yu Fei rushed forward.Parker, the only one who could catch up with him, was unable to stop Yu Fei, who was starting at full speed. In the end, he could only give up defense and watch Yu Fei score with a dunk.

Popovich didn't want to see Yu Fei continue to beat Stephen Jackson, whose IQ had been cleared, and took the initiative to request a timeout.

During the timeout, Popovich certainly couldn't help but give Jackson a Larry Brown-style greeting, then replaced Jackson with veteran Steve Smith, and then adjusted the defensive matchup and offensive strategy.

Popovich was a little more serious than he was in the opening game.

First, let Bowen defend Yu Fei, and then ask Parker to cooperate more with the inside.

Inside singles are still not the focus of the Spurs' offense.

This is not because their inside situation is not good.

For Popovich, the Spurs' inside advantage does not need to be reminded. Even against the Lakers, letting Duncan play alone is their last insurance when they are at their wits' end on the offensive end.Against a team like the Bucks, which is notoriously weak inside, Popovich wants to know if they have any other way to win besides taking advantage of the inside.

The essence of this experimental game is that the strong teams in the West do not respect the teams in the East. Even if the Bucks rank first in the league, to them they are just a big shrimp raised in a small pond in the East.

No matter how big the shrimps are, their ultimate fate is to be eaten by the giant whales in the west.

This is something Yu Fei and his teammates are trying to correct.

They are different from the Eastern Xiami, who have been suppressed time and time again by the powerful Western powers since 1999.

"George, the Spurs are looking down on us."

During the pause, Yu Fei said to Karl.

Karl has also noticed that the Spurs basically don't let Duncan or Robinson play inside - this should be their optimal solution.

The Spurs twin towers are the core of the team, but their core is the Bucks' weakness. As a result, they don't make full use of the core, but instead make trouble on the outside?
"Looking down on us" is already a very euphemistic way of saying it.

This is looking down on them.

Since the Spurs chose such an unrestrained "try everything" strategy, Karl naturally wanted to seize this opportunity to give them a hard blow.

After the timeout, the Bucks replaced Mason and Gazulic and replaced them with Devin George and Christian Laettner.

Changing to a 5 OUT lineup is a sign that the Bucks are preparing to launch the "X offense."

After the game started, Parker turned around and hit a layup.Laettner's inside protection is still too poor.

"Don't worry." Yu Fei said, "Chris, prepare for the pick-and-roll."

Bowen stayed in the backcourt to put pressure on Yu Fei.

This took Yu Fei an extra two seconds to reach the frontcourt, and then called for a pick-and-roll.

When Laettner came to the outside, Popovich felt that the Bucks' position was a little weird.Before he could think deeply, Yu Fei had already torn apart the defense and scattered the Spurs' defense.

The space provided by the four outsiders allows him to easily enter the penalty area and score.

Subsequently, the Spurs' pick-and-roll attack failed, but they retreated quickly enough.

However, the Bucks' five-outside lineup is about to show its power.

Since Yu Fei has been demonstrating his threat as the ball holder since the start of the pick-and-roll, the Spurs have to invest two or three defensive resources almost every time they see him pick-and-roll.

The consequence of this is that other Bucks players can use tactics to fight more and cooperate less with the Spurs.

Yu Fei dribbled the ball laterally, suddenly found Ray Allen's open space, and threw the ball away.

That is a player with a three-point shooting rate of 40%+, but now no one in the Spurs can guard him?
Then you can't blame Ray Allen for having hot hands.

"Shh!"

"It feels good." Ray Allen said like a boss, "One more shot."

After going back and forth, the Spurs lost 5 points. Seeing that the point difference was getting wider, they finally remembered what their advantage was.

Duncan asked for the ball in the low post.

This made Yu Fei want to laugh.

You refused to hit me before, but now you want to?It's too late, let's give my buddy a free throw.

The moment Duncan launched the offensive, Laettner fouled hard.

Duncan went to the free throw line and made one of two free throws.

To make matters worse, he missed the second free throw.

Yu Fei grabbed a defensive rebound and saw that the Spurs wanted to use a tactical foul to prevent him from pushing the fast break.

Although Parker's movements are fast, Ray Allen's quick downs are even faster.

Looking at Ray Allen's flying Scud legs from a distance, I have the aesthetic feeling that some players in the future will directly play quickly without grabbing rebounds in order to improve statistics - or even wait for the opponent's offense to be successful without returning to defense and directly let their teammates pass the ball to steal the chicken.

Yu Fei flicked the ball hard.

The Spurs' tactical foul failed.

Ray Allen caught the ball in the frontcourt, took a few steps and directly pursued a three-pointer on a fast break.

Come on!

Less than 2 minutes after returning from the timeout, the Bucks launched an 8-2 offensive against the Spurs.

The Spurs lost their domineering attitude, because if they don't take this game seriously, the noble Western Conference might be defeated by the thriving Eastern Conference.

At the critical moment, Duncan stepped up and hit 2+1, stabilizing the Spurs' situation.

However, when it came to the positional battle again, the Bucks' wide-open five-out formation made the Spurs very difficult to defend.

Yu Fei called a pick-and-roll, forcing the Spurs' defensive change, and then passed the ball to Laettner, who then passed to Devin George, who hit a three-pointer from the outside.

Popovich couldn't hide the surprise on his face.

The Bucks seem to be completely different from the Eastern Conference before.

With a strange lineup, a novel style of play, and a comprehensive new star, they are a real championship contender.

Popovich and his Spurs realized earlier than any other strong team that the Bucks were a formidable team full of threats.

(End of this chapter)