NBA: Starting with Jokic template

Chapter 36: Fighting Spain, Lin Chuan's Terrifying Strength (Please collect and read)
Marc Gasol gritted his teeth, exerted his upper body muscles, and created a little space to force a layup.

"Don't even think about it!"

Lin Chuan took a deep breath, jumped up, and pressed hard on the ball with one arm.

Snapped!
The ball was held tightly by Lin Chuan.

The two men's muscles exploded at the same time, their faces were ferocious, but Lin Chuan was better after all. The ball stayed in their hands for a moment, and then Lin Chuan pressed it down alive.

Even Marc Gasol under him was knocked to the ground by this block.

Lin Chuan caught the ball directly in his hands.

Lin Chuan grabbed the ball with one hand, scanned the entire court, and once again locked onto Wang Shipeng who had already rushed to the frontcourt.

The ultra-long pass hit the ground and went straight to Wang Shipeng who was standing in the corner. He took a deep breath, ignored Lirumeria who was still three meters away from him, crouched slightly with his feet, and jumped up with force.

Push lightly, rotating your wrist to push the ball out.

Swish!
Another three-pointer!

Beep!
The Spanish head coach had a gloomy look on his face. He didn't expect that the Chinese team, which he had identified as the weakest team in this tournament before the game, would beat them like this.

Ibaka on the side glanced at the coach secretly, feeling a little helpless. After all, he had told the coach about Lin Chuan's strength early on, but he still relied on the overall strength of his team and didn't care much about Lin Chuan.

Seeing this three-pointer, he couldn't bear it anymore and called a timeout.

It was time to pause. It was time to go to the main stage of the studio again. Yu Jia said in an exaggerated tone,
"Oh my god! I believe no one would have thought that we would beat the European champion and the world's second-ranked Spain team 10:2 in just three minutes!"

"This start all depends on Lin Chuan. Every attack now is initiated or ended by him. His presence on the court is too strong. It can be said that Lin Chuan is the engine of the Chinese team now."

Zhang Weiping also gave his own insights.

"Fuck! What's wrong with you guys?!"

As soon as the Spanish team's starting lineup came off the field, the head coach started scolding them.

"The other team is just a weak one. How can we beat them just because they have an NBA-level center? How can you play like this?!"

"10:2! If I hadn't coached you, I would have thought you were playing against the United States when I heard this score at home!"

The Spanish team's head coach scolded so much that his face turned red and he could hardly breathe.

Paul Gasol saw that his teammates were silent. As a leader, he took the initiative to take responsibility and take the blame for his brother.
"Sorry, coach. I didn't play well. I couldn't help Mark limit the center on the other side."

The head coach stared at him and scolded,
"How dare you say that! You are the champion! And Mark! You are also an All-Star center, and he is just a bench player! If he continues to play like this, we can just admit defeat!"

"And you!"

After criticizing Gasol, the Spanish head coach targeted others.
"Find a way to limit other people's passing routes to him, and don't let them pass the ball to the center, just like defending Yao Ming before, do you understand?!"

"understood!"

"Spain's main task next should be to restrict Lin Chuan."

Deng Huade explained the tactics to everyone.

"The first thing to do is to break their restrictions and pass the ball to Lin Chuan. Of course, if the opponent is really pressing, as a last resort, just pass the ball to Lin Chuan and let him dribble the ball!"

When Guo Ailun heard that Lin Chuan was allowed to dribble the ball across half court by himself, he wanted to laugh when he thought of that scene, but he held it back after being glared at by Deng Huade.

The timeout is over and the game starts again.

This time Spain's tactics were very successful, and Fernandez ran out of an open three-pointer and scored.

Helped the Spanish team to stop the bleeding. When Liu Wei received the ball, Calderon immediately rushed up and began to press. Liu Wei was startled and quickly protected the ball.

"I didn't expect Spain to be so aggressive in their defensive strategy in the first quarter. Aren't they afraid of running out of energy in the second half?"

Yu Jia looked at the Spanish team's uncharacteristic style of play and felt a little confused.

"Maybe they wanted to widen the score in the first half, so that they could rest even if they ran out of energy. There's more room for error, and Spain's bench is thicker than ours."

Zhang Weiping explained,

"Look, Lin Chuan's teammate Ibaka is sitting on the bench, and the championship power forward is sitting on the sidelines. What a luxurious bench, second only to the United States in terms of the depth of the team. They are not afraid of physical problems."

"That's true..."

After hearing Zhang Weiping's explanation, Yu Jia couldn't help but worry about the Chinese team.

Under Calderon's pressure, Liu Wei dribbled across half court with difficulty. Seeing that the opponent's attention was focused on Lin Chuan, Liu Wei came up with an idea and made a ground pass to Yi Jianlian.

Yi Jianlian held the basketball high and passed the ball directly to Lin Chuan from the paint area.

Lin Chuan scored a layup against Gasol and also caused a free throw.

The free throw was also successfully made.

Lin Chuan scored again, making the Spanish team somewhat desperate.

Fortunately, Spain's defensive strategy was effective enough.

After Liu Wei passed the ball to Yi Jianlian who then passed it to Lin Chuan who scored another goal, the Spanish team's defense became even more frantic, with constant moves of all sizes, and the referee's penalty standards today were also very lenient, and he didn't blow the whistle on a single goal.

In the next few rounds, the Chinese team's guards could not pass the ball to Lin Chuan, so the other four people had to shoot. Except for Wang Shipeng's long two-point shot, the rest of the shots were all missed.

The Spanish team scored in multiple areas at once and reversed the score to three points with three minutes left in the first quarter.

Seeing that his team had regained control, the Spanish coach's expression improved a lot.

If we keep playing like this, we can end the game in the third quarter!

The Chinese team changed its lineup, replacing Guo Ailun and Chen Jianghua, leaving only Lin Chuan and Yi Jianlian in the starting lineup.

Guo Ailun had the ball, and the opponent's point guard continued to adhere to the head coach's defensive strategy, sticking to him the moment he received the ball to limit his crossing of half court.

But what he didn't expect was that Guo Ailun turned around and passed him like a road in the early morning, rushed to the frontcourt, saw the opponent's defense line that had not yet formed, broke through directly, faced the combined blockade of Gasol and Gasol, and finally sent the ball directly to the outside.

Lin Chuan received the ball and shot directly.

Swish!
A mid-range shot was made, breaking the Chinese team's scoring drought with two points!
In the next round, Guo Ailun once again broke through the blockade and came to the frontcourt to pass the ball to Lin Chuan. Lin Chuan directly played against Marc Gasol and scored again, causing another foul at the same time.

In the first quarter, Gasol Jr. was fouled twice.

Preparing for free throws, the head coach had no choice but to quickly replace Gasol Jr. with Pau Gasol Sr.

At the same time, his complexion turned a little bad again.

Guo Ailun's impact was too fast, which broke his early pressing. In the second quarter, he had to find a new way to fight with the Chinese team!

After Gasol left the court, the Chinese team played a lot more easily, and Lin Chuan scored all the times he received the ball.

At the end of the first quarter, China was leading Spain 22:18.

Lin Chuan scored 16 points alone! All 6 shots were made!
(End of this chapter)