The Golden Age of Basketball

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar showed an amazing fighting spirit in the opening game, and the competitive blood still flows in the veins of the 42-year-old veteran who is about to retire.

In Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's career, doubts about him have never stopped. After 1980, he never won the honor of regular season mvp. In the discussion about the first center, there are always people who think that this player looks There are limp tall, thin Muslims who are not worthy of the title of leading center.

But he slaps his face with his performance all the time, destroying the opponent with hooks time and time again in the matchup with other centers.

For example, Olajuwon, the much-anticipated No. 40 center, in the regular season confrontation with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, his offensive data fell behind in all aspects, and he was scored [-] plus by God, which can be described as a loss of face.

In the 1986 playoffs, Olajuwon and Ralph Sampson worked together to make Kareem Abdul-Jabbar feel ashamed. The gentleman swept the defending champion 4:1, which made Kareem extremely unwilling.

During the offseason, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar spent a lot of time gaining weight and training to improve his strength and confrontation. As a result, in the 1987 regular season, Olajuwon could no longer easily push Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. .

Now, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who has come to the end of his career, can still use the unparalleled skyhook to score consecutively on Gan Guoyang's head when he is full of energy. points, off to a good start.

"We watched Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's game one game less, but he didn't seem to be planning to step down from the position of the first center. In the opening game, in a one-on-one confrontation with Gan, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar made three of three shots and won the game. Six points, I hope his performance can continue." Kareem's performance also infected other Lakers players, Magic Johnson passed through the perimeter, sorting out the Lakers' offense in an orderly manner, his passing has reached perfection, penetrating power Extremely strong, can always find opportunities that others can't.

"Magic! The ball was passed to AC! Layup... I was interfered by Gan and missed the goal. Gan got the rebound. It's a pity." Magic Johnson observed from the outside, and suddenly a very fast single Flicking the ball with the arm, the ball went straight into the basket from outside the three-point line, and the other Blazers players didn't react at all.

Ac Green, who went from a 45-degree oblique to the basket, received this cannonball pass. Buck Williams was just a little distracted and gave the Lakers such a chance.

Fortunately, Gan Guoyang reacted very quickly. When Green was laying up, he took off and blocked the block, which interfered with Green's layup. The ball rolled twice on the basket and fell out. Passed to Terry Porter.

Terry Porter didn't stop at the slightest, he took the ball straight to the frontcourt, he didn't pass the ball to anyone, but took advantage of Byron Scott's defenselessness, ac Green was still under the basket in the backcourt, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar When the broken car couldn't come back at all, he rushed to the basket and forced a layup.

"Porter's counterattack, the Blazers' counterattack came too fast, and the point difference became two points."

This is the difference between Terry Porter under Adelman and Porter under Jack Ramsey. Given the opportunity, Porter will turn himself into a sharp knife.

The current Blazers are still very good at fast breaks, but their fast breaks are faster, more direct, simple, and rough. There is no too strict division of labor and formation. Every player can decide the fast break by himself when he has the opportunity. The terminator and the means of termination.

This kind of open fast break allows the players to further release their offensive talents, the forms of fast break are more diverse, and the opponents are more difficult to defend.

However, the Lakers' counterattack came quickly. Scott passed the ball directly from the bottom line to the Magician, and the Magician made a run-up and directly broke through the middle.

Johnson did not compete with Kexi for speed and explosive power, but leaned on Kexi to wipe it in with his body, then turned around suddenly, and left Kexi behind with a light block of his arm.

This time, the front of the Blazers' three-second zone was exposed to Magic Johnson, which was too dangerous for a team.

Gan Guoyang decisively chose to give up marking Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and stepped forward to defend against the magician, but the magician took his time and made a low hook in the air, and the ball slid from Gan Guoyang's side to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar on the inside.

However, the reason why Gan Guoyang dared to attack decisively was because he knew that Buck Williams would definitely come to make up the defense. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar did not catch the ball easily and was almost cut off by Williams.

But Kareem still stumbled and got the ball for the first time. Now Williams had no choice but to foul at the basket and send Kareem to the free throw line.

"Jabbar made free throws... made two free throws! Kareem has scored 8 points, made 3 of 3 shots in the first quarter, made two free throws, and Gan has not scored so far." Gan Guoyang said in the opening 5 minutes. Had a hook shot, but missed it, didn't score a point, just got 4 rebounds.

"Beep! Blazers' timeout." The referee whistled and pointed to the Blazers' bench, and Adelman called a timeout.

"Jabbar will not have such good physical strength anymore. Let's not double-team the inside. Double-teaming the inside will fall into the Lakers' trick. Continue to defend one-on-one. They will not let Kareem continue to play like this. But, This doesn't mean we have to sit still, Gan, give them some pressure on the offensive end, don't make Kareem too comfortable. Also, our defense, improve concentration, don't be overly mobilized by the pass, save your energy .”

Adelman has always been emphasizing saving energy, which proves that he is quite satisfied with the performance of the Blazers so far. The game has just begun, and the younger Blazers, who have more physical strength, need to accumulate their energy until the later stage .

At the same time, Adelman also has to see when Riley's Lakers can lead the way.

The timeout ended quickly, and Adelman made a minor personnel change. He replaced Drexler with Jim Paxson. Drexler didn't do much except for a dunk in the first quarter. , also back a foul, his state is not very good, Adelman decided to keep Drexler to the second team to attack opponents.

When Jim Paxson is on the court, the Blazers' outside shooting ability will be improved to a higher level, and the Lakers' defense is bound to expand to a certain extent.

At this time, Gan Guoyang's position will go deeper. Paxson has become a good corner shooter. The cooperation between Gan Guoyang and Paxson is still quite tacit.

On the strong side, the three points composed of Gan Guoyang, Paxson, and Porter are an offensive triangle with strong shooting and passing abilities.

On the weak side, Cauchy and Buck Williams have very strong rebounding ability and impact at the basket. In the case of missed shots, their second offensive ability will guarantee the Blazers' scoring.

After this lineup came up, the Blazers focused on offensive positions, and the Lakers' defense immediately became a little overwhelmed.

Gan Guoyang took the ball first, and Sigma stepped towards the basket to force Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. After Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was pushed away, he drove away Ac Green for a layup, which turned the Lakers' insiders on their backs.

Afterwards, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was unable to maintain the continuity of firepower and missed the hook. Gan Guoyang got another backcourt rebound. Porter slowed down the counterattack this time, and Gan Guoyang took the ball again in the same position.

This time he squeezed Kareem away with his back, then suddenly turned the bottom line of the net, held the basketball with one hand at a negative angle, and made a reverse basket, scoring 4 points in a row to tie the score.

Byron Sterling was still afraid of Paxson's outside jumper and did not dare to double-team easily, but Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was really old and couldn't stand the impact of Gan Guoyang's steel and iron bones.

However, the Lakers also have a way to deal with it. An important reason why this Big Mac has stood in the West for ten years is their overflowing talent.

Abdul-Jabbar is dead, the Lakers still have James Worthy in the low post.

The magician felt that Kareem Abdul-Jabbar could no longer continue to output, and decisively ordered the players to change formations, and began to let Worthy hold the ball to attack.

Worthy's low-post offensive skills have also reached a very high level. Once he gets the ball easily in the low post, neither Cauchy - or Buck - Williams will find it difficult to stop the Cobra from scoring.

"Worthy turned around from the baseline and made a layup! This ball looks exactly the same as Gan's goal just now." Facing Ke Xi's strict defense, Worthy still used his outstanding low footsteps to deceive Ke Xi, and then slid to the baseline A counter-basket was successful.

The ball looked very provocative to Gan Guoyang. After the goal, Worthy also sneered at Gan Guoyang. The relationship between the two has not been good since the summer of 1984.

After the goal was scored, the Lakers fans also booed aside. At the end of the 80s, the atmosphere of watching the fans became more and more civilian. Watching the Lakers game is no longer like watching an opera, but like watching a movie. The fans’ costumes are getting more and more fancy. Various placards are also lined up in the auditorium.

Some fans began to hold up the caricature of Gan Guoyang, which depicted Gan Guoyang as an ancient Chinese with a whip from the Qing Dynasty, and his face was exaggerated, making him look obscene and ridiculous.

But at this time, Gan Guoyang was already strong. He returned to the offensive end without a word, returned a turnaround jumper to the Lakers, scored two more points, and the score was tied again.

The speed of the two teams that returned to the positional attack slowed down, but the success rate of the attack increased. In particular, Gan Guoyang and Worthy are both good at low-post singles, and their shooting percentages are extremely high.

This stalemate lasted for a whole quarter, and the two teams insisted on one-on-one defense, never double-teaming, and never going around the front. Riley and Adelman both knew that sometimes there was a price to pay for making changes. In the first quarter, both of them saved their changes until the second quarter.