The Golden Age of Basketball

The Blazers' win continues.

After unexpectedly easily defeating the Rockets and winning another duel with Olajuwon, the Blazers' next opponent is the Golden State Warriors, once a member of the Rockets Twin Towers Ralph Sampson, and Season [-]. Sitting on the bench as in the previous game, watching his former opponent Gan Guoyang get whatever he wants inside the Warriors, he can only look helpless.

The Trail Blazers, who played poorly before, finally recovered in this game and played a wonderful and fast offense again. Coupled with Gan Guoyang's personal ability, the Warriors surrendered after only resisting for three quarters.

Since the start of the season, many teams have handed over their guns after only three quarters.

Sabonis got plenty of playing time in the fourth quarter, and Adelman wanted to try the combination of Sabonis and Buck Williams.

Unlike the cooperation between Gan Guoyang and Sabonis, Buck Williams does not have the offensive ability of Gan Guoyang, and more often uses air cuts to rush to the basket. Sabonis uses overhead penetrating passes to tear apart the opponent's defense. .

At the same time, Sabonis also got more opportunities to attack independently to show off his shooting range as far as the three-point line, but he is still relatively cautious on the court and rarely takes shots unless he has great confidence.

After winning this game, the Blazers won 11 consecutive victories and continued to remain unbeaten since the beginning of the season.

However, after the game against the Warriors is over, the Blazers will start a long road trip to the Eastern Conference. They will play six consecutive away games in the Eastern Conference. This will be a huge physical and psychological test for the Blazers. The continuation of the winning streak has become a hot topic in the current NBA.

In the first game of the Eastern Conference tour, the Blazers are about to hit the iron plate. Their opponent is the old nemesis, the Milwaukee Bucks.

The Milwaukee Bucks have been the No. 80 player in the East for thousands of years. Since the early 80s, the No. [-] in the East has changed one after another. His No. [-] is very stable, but by the end of the [-]s, the Bucks have begun to show signs of fatigue.

After being eliminated by the Celtics in the 1986 season, the Bucks made a big deal in the offseason, using two draft picks and center Lester to switch from the Sonics to center Jack Sikma.

Then, the Bucks began hoarding long men inside, including the [-]-foot-[-] Randy Brewer, the [-]-foot-[-] "Human Eraser" Marvin Webster, the [-]-foot Paul Moksky, and the [-]-foot-[-] "Human Eraser" Marvin Webster. With the addition of the [-]-foot-[-] Jack Sikma, the Bucks hoarded so many long men to deal with the Celtics' strong frontcourt.

However, the soul of this tough Bucks team was Moncrief, who was injured in the 1986 playoffs. After being injured that year, Moncrief never fully recovered from the injury.

In the 1987 playoffs, they easily defeated the 76ers in the first round, putting the coffin lid on Dr. J Irving's career.

Then they encountered the Celtics again in the semi-finals. The Celtics with Len Bias had a complete lineup, while the Bucks suffered from injuries. They persisted tenaciously for 6 games and were eliminated by 2:4. .

The Bucks seemed destined never to make it past another big mountain in the east.

In 88, the Bucks, who were suffering from injuries, failed to cross the first round and died under the claws of the Eagles.

By this season, the Bucks have finally begun to decline in an all-round way. Moncrief and Terry Cummins are all starting to age. Jack Sikma is not a superstar who can support the entire team. With 11 wins and 6 losses, it only ranks fourth in the Central Division.

However, the Bucks have always maintained an advantage over the Blazers in the past few seasons. The Blazers, who are good at fast breaks, will suffer every time they encounter the Bucks on the offensive end. It is obvious, not to mention that they also have Jack Sikma, who can often embarrass Gan Guoyang when he was in the Supersonics.

It is precisely because the bones are hard to crack, on the plane before the game, the Blazers players began to discuss and prepare how to deal with the Bucks.

"I got 40, Clyde got 30, Terry got 20, Jerome got 15, Buck got 15, and then the rest of the bench got 20, so that's... 140 points! The deer must not get 140 points, so they will lose." Gan Guoyang first expressed his "opinion".

When Gan Guoyang said this, the others laughed, knowing that this guy started making fun of everyone again.

"Hey Gan, why do you get 40 points and I get 30 points? I think I can get 40 points, just give me 30 shots." Drexler said with a smile.

In the game against the Supersonics, Gan Guoyang took 31 shots. In the locker room summary meeting after the game, Adelman believed that it was abnormal and unreasonable for an insider to take so many shots.

Of course Gan Guoyang didn't care about this, and he also knew that Adelman said this just to scare himself. Who made Gan Guoyang like to scare Adelman?

Now that Drexler used 30 shots as an example, Gan Guoyang immediately counterattacked: "With Clyde, you have never scored 30 points against the Bucks!"

The Blazers and the Bucks scored much lower than the average points per game in each game, and Drexler had to face the Bucks' best defensive player, Moncrief, in the game, and often played often.

For example, the Trail Blazers also lost the game against the Bucks in the first game last season. Drexler scored 21 points, 5 rebounds and 4 assists, but made 19 of 6 shots from the field, and his shooting percentage was only a poor 30.00%. .

This is still the performance of Moncrief who was injured and only played for more than ten minutes. If the best defensive player plays the whole game, Drexler's performance will be even worse.

Seeing that he was about to be turned over by Gan Guoyang, Drexler hurriedly slapped haha ​​and got confused.

Adelman watched the players under his hand "discussing" there. He didn't have the time to meddle. He had more important issues to solve.

Years of assistant coaching career, learning from Jack Ramsey, gave Adelman the basic thinking of a coach.

The regular season is long, with 82 games. If targeted changes and arrangements are made according to the opponent's situation, then the players' ability to adjust will be against the sky.

The best way is to formulate a stable and efficient routine for the team, and then make appropriate fine-tuning according to different opponents, and this fine-tuning can also be done step by step.

Especially for a strong team like the Trail Blazers, it must be "self-centered". It is best not to make changes yourself, but let the opponent make adjustments. Once the adjustment is unfavorable, the Blazers will take advantage of it.

Now, the Blazers have a well-organized lineup, a deep bench, a stable and strong core, while the Bucks are aging and seriously injured, and the core players have not been able to recover from the serious injuries.

Adelman is currently the main concern, one is the small forward position off the bench.

After Vandeweghe left, Cauchy took over, and the problem of the Blazers' unfavorable flank defense for many years was finally fundamentally resolved, but they did not have a stable substitute on the flank.

Jim Paxson is getting older. On the offensive end, he can provide scoring and passing. On the defensive end, he is further slack, and he is a shooting guard.

The only other wing candidate was Andre Blans, a second-round pick in 1985 who was selected by the Bulls, then traded to the Lakers, then went to the Nets, and finally came to the Trail Blazers as an addition to the trade.

A complete, tossed homeless player, it seems that Adelman is not ready to count on him.

At the same time, the Trail Blazers are somewhat saturated inside. The two big centers Sabonis and Duckworth obviously overlap in the center position. At present, Sabonis has better effect and greater potential, and even has a qualitative impact on the entire team. Ascension, Adelman is also gradually increasing Sabonis' playing time.

At the same time, there are still two insiders, Steve Johnson and Richard Anderson, on the bench, and the Blazers' frontcourt strength is already bursting.

From the games against the Lakers and Rockets, it can be seen that when Sabonis is on the court, the bonus to Gan Guoyang is obvious, but the aggressiveness on the defensive end has declined slightly, and the ability to defend against fast breaks will also decline.

Moreover, Sabonis' foul control is not very good, and he is too easily troubled by fouls.

Therefore, Adelman is hesitating, hesitating in the end what kind of program is the best choice.

………………

The game against the Bucks was held at the Bradley Center on the night of the 29th. Milwaukee in the north was at its coldest right now. At the same time, it was far away from the ocean, and the climate was far less warm than Portland. The enthusiasm of the fans followed suit. The weakening of the strength of the Bucks is gradually fading.

However, most of the time, Gan Guoyang likes to play in Milwaukee, because in such a cold small city, he can stay in the hotel before and after the game instead of going out to drink and have fun with his teammates. At this time, Gan Guoyang will always choose to call home Talk to Wang Fuxi on the phone.

Tonight, Gan Guoyang was not in the mood to talk on the phone with Wang Fuxi. The game at the Bradley Center was as hard as expected.

The Bucks' power forward Terry Cummins showed his prowess tonight. Buck Williams was suppressed by Cummins in a one-on-one matchup. Cummins scored 30 points in the game.

And Moncrief, who has been plagued by injuries before, seems to be starting to shine again. He beat Drexler to shame on both offensive and defensive ends. He scored 23 points in an efficient offense and once again defended Drexler into 30.00% of his hits. Rate, Drexler only scored 11 points.

The two sides struggled until the fourth quarter, when Adelman finally made an important change, replacing Buck Williams with Sabonis, and letting Gan Guoyang play power forward against Cummins.

This change finally gave the Trail Blazers an advantage. Gan Guoyang, Sabonis and Jerome Cauchy, who played well in this game, formed an offensive and defensive triangle. A wave of 10:0 ** established the advantage. Since then, the Bucks have never been able to Turn over.

The Blazers finally defeated the Bucks by 7 points in the away game. Gan Guoyang played 44 minutes and scored 30 points and 11 rebounds. However, under the siege of the Bucks Giants Forest, he only hit 26 goals in 10 shots and relied on free throws. Only got 30 points.

After returning to the hotel, Gan Guoyang felt a little tired. With 12 consecutive victories, he could finally take a rest again.

Soon, the phone in the hotel rang, and it was the receptionist who was calling, and someone was looking for him.

"Is it Fuxi?" Gan Guoyang thought to himself.

But it was David Stern's voice that came on the phone.