The Golden Age of Basketball

Pat Riley didn't expect Adelman to be so bold, and suddenly replaced the rookie Sabonis who had never played before. Now is not garbage time.

After Adelman became the head coach, he was not known for his boldness and innovation, but his stability and rationality, and he was even criticized as stubborn.

But Adelman is still very good at seeing people and discovering the potential of players. He can see that Sabonis is different from most NBA centers, and it is not particularly suitable for him to be Gan Guoyang's substitute.

Sabonis does not have the flexibility and strength of Gan Guoyang's physical fitness, and the two play styles are also very different. At the same time, Adelman is not optimistic that Sabonis can make up for Gan Guoyang's defensive loopholes and control of backcourt rebounds after he leaves the field.

Therefore, letting Sabonis play Gan Guoyang as a substitute is a test for the team's tactical adjustment. Outside players must run more on the defensive end to fill in, so that the team's counterattack speed will definitely decrease. The consequences are obviously a series of.

The best choice is to let Gan Guoyang and Sabonis be present at the same time, let Gan Guoyang come to the position of power forward, and fully exert his energy.

"Sabonis looked a bit slow on the court, but he's really big. Sabonis caught the ball at the top of the key, passed the ball to Gan, and Gan made a jumper! Goal!"

Sabonis contributed an assist immediately after he came on the court. He advanced all the way from the center, and after receiving a pass from Porter at the free throw line, he turned around and threw a hook. Gan Guoyang just came around from the outside and caught the ball at the corner.

A standard, smooth catch and shoot, extremely standard posture, perfect shot arc, perfect hand shape, the ball is also hollow into the net, without touching the basket a little bit.

After the goal was scored, Gan Guoyang stepped forward to give Sabonis a high-five, then pointed at Sabonis and said, "Beautiful pass!"

Sabonis also smiled happily. He has been looking forward to his first game since many games. After actually playing, standing under the dome of the huge nba arena, the feeling is more grand than participating in the Olympic finals, but this Just a regular season.

However, Sabonis' nervousness disappeared when Gan Guoyang told him "Catch the ball in the middle, I want to make a mid-range shot." The two made a skillful little cooperation, and Gan Guoyang hit a jumper. He has practiced a lot of coordination routines, using Sabonis's huge body and Gan Guoyang's flexible footwork, so that the two inside players can do small cooperation on the outside, and it is too difficult for the opponent to defend.

At this time, other people realized that the arrival of Sabonis was not to equip Gan Guoyang with an inside bodyguard who could grab rebounds, defend, and block shots, but an inside point guard who could pass the ball to him and cooperate with him.

In the past few seasons, an important problem that the Blazers have to face is that at critical moments, the danger of feeding Gan Guoyang inside is too high.

Gan Guoyang is not as tall as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and the Blazers do not have a point guard with the inside height of the Magician. Gan Guoyang often has to pay a huge price to catch the ball in the low post. Last year, the Lakers seized this weakness of the Blazers. , using Sampson's pincer attack to reduce Gan Guoyang's offensive efficiency, and then defeated the Blazers.

The Blazers have two ways to solve this problem. One is to equip Gan Guoyang with a large number of outside shooters to open up space. This is what the inside teams are gradually trying in the current environment where three-pointers are becoming more and more important. One direction, but the disadvantage of this is that the front line will be relatively weak, and the current Blazers are a team that relies heavily on the front line.

The second one is that Gan Guoyang changed his style of play, tried to catch the ball more from the outside, and improved his offensive ability with the ball from the outside. This is why Gan Guoyang lost weight in the summer and further improved his mid-range ability.

However, Adelman saw a better solution in Sabonis, that is to let Gan Guoyang come to the position of power forward, Sabonis assumes the responsibility of center forward at the center position, and Gan Guoyang can freely choose to switch on the front line, giving His greater degree of freedom.

Adelman can't guarantee whether such a formation will work. After observing several games and carefully observing and thinking in training, he decided to try this in this eye-catching key game. collocation.

Adelman succeeded.

After completing the first cooperation with Gan Guoyang, Sabonis quickly integrated into the game. He didn't feel timid because it was the first NBA game. After all, he had been preparing for this game for a long time.

In defense, Sabonis sits in the three-second zone and one-on-one Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Gan Guoyang comes to the position of power forward and becomes a sweeper between the three-second zone and the three-point line. His defensive range even extends beyond the three-point line. Started to interfere with Magic Johnson's conduction ball.

After Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's low-post threat has been greatly reduced, the Lakers' offensive position has become more and more dependent on Magic's offensive combing. He will undoubtedly have less time to observe and think.

Moreover, the Magician has never been a low-turnover point guard. His average turnover per game has remained at around 3.8 all year round. This is not only related to his height, but also sometimes due to his overly bold passes.

"Johnson walked in the middle, passed the ball from behind, was cut off, and it was Gan again, the Blazers' fast break! The Lakers retreated quickly, and the Blazers slowed down."

The Blazers' middle lane has been blocked by Gan Guoyang and Sabonis. It is even more difficult for Johnson to open a breakthrough from the middle. In addition, Gan Guoyang's stealing level has risen sharply. Lose.

But Porter, who was advancing with the ball, saw that the chance of counterattack was not good, so he immediately stopped to play the position. Gan Guoyang fell to the low position very quickly. He was desperately going around.

Sabonis was holding the ball in front of him. He was too tall. With a slight shake of his hand, the ball went straight to the inside and a reverse lob!

Gan Guoyang made a small move under the basket, gently tugged ac Green with his hand, then threw Green away and ran into the inside lane, and after receiving the ball, he dunked hard with both hands!Easily added two points for the Blazers.

"48:38, the Trail Blazers opened the point difference to 10 points, the Lakers had some problems on the defensive end, bad problems, they can't do anything about the cooperation of Gan and Sabonis, Gan has scored 17 points, the Lakers must take Come up with something."

The sudden change of the Blazers' style of play made the Lakers very uncomfortable. They could only rely on the personal abilities of Johnson and Worthy to score points. Outside players had no chance to shoot open shots. Lost its effect, Johnson's ball couldn't get in.

Pat Riley immediately called a timeout, and his face showed a trace of anxiety. The reason is very simple. Although he called a timeout, he had no solution to the problem on the field in his mind.

Riley looked around. The only available insider on the bench was veteran Mark McNamara, a 6-foot-11 white center. Riley didn't think he could solve the current problem.

For Riley, the only solution is to pinch Gan Guoyang defensively and leave it to the magician to handle the offensive, further speeding up the offensive rhythm and quickly chasing points.

However, when Sabonis was on the field, Gan Guoyang's range of receiving the ball became larger and his position became more erratic. It would undoubtedly cost a lot to pinch Gan Guoyang, and it might not be effective.

On the other hand, for the Trail Blazers, Sabonis has sent out three assists in just over six minutes of playing. He serves as a big axis in the interior, which greatly liberates Gan Guoyang. He does not need to limit himself to the low position or the top of the arc. He can Make choices based on your own understanding and reading of the game.

"Avedas did a good job, but the Lakers will definitely speed up the offensive rhythm, and the defensive pressure will also increase. Be prepared to be double-teamed." Adelman reminded Sabonis.

Of course, Sabonis has also exposed some problems. His speed in returning to defense is still a bit slow. Riley will definitely further speed up the offensive rhythm and magnify Sabonis' weakness in returning to defense.

"Gan, put more energy into defense. Let Porter and Clyde control the offense now, maintain our advantage, and suppress them." Adelman also instructed Gan Guoyang to say.

Gan Guoyang nodded. So far, he has had enough "playing". He has tried all kinds of scoring methods, and he is basically complete with another three points.

However, after losing to the Lakers twice in the playoffs, and losing more than winning against the Lakers in the regular season, Gan Guoyang understands the horror of the Lakers. They can play extremely high-intensity defense in a short period of time and rely on this defense Play offensive**.

In the fourth game of last year's playoffs in Portland, the Trail Blazers led 2:1 in the first half and achieved a maximum lead of 13 points. As a result, in the last 2 minutes of the second quarter, they were defeated by the Lakers. A wave of 10:0 was played, and the point difference was narrowed to three points.

Then in the second half, the situation of the game was reversed by the Lakers. The Lakers' harsh double-team defense and windy offense overwhelmed the Blazers. In the end, the Blazers lost the fourth game and lost a great opportunity to lead 3:1. , and lost Tianwangshan together.

The key node of that game was the Lakers' sudden strong double-team defense, which caused the Blazers to mess up, and was led by Magic Johnson to play an attack wave, which caused the Blazers to lose a good board.

This time, Gan Guoyang decided not to let the Lakers and Pat Riley succeed easily.