The Golden Age of Basketball

Needless to say, the state of the Trail Blazers. After entering January, they continued to advance in the league. After winning the Lakers, they shook the United States with a wave of 11 consecutive victories. "It will be brought out for discussion again, and now everyone is waiting for the Blazers' second defeat.

Originally people thought that the Lakers could stop the Trail Blazers at home, but they didn't know that the Lakers didn't do too much resistance and were crushed into paper by the Blazers like a steamroller. Naturally, others didn't know what Riley was thinking, and thought the Lakers might really There is no way to compete with the Blazers.

However, no matter how strong the team is, there will be ups and downs. As the season deepens, problems such as fatigue, injuries, and burnout will appear one by one. Object, the coaching staff of all teams are carefully studying the Blazers' tactics and rotation characteristics, and trying to deal with the Blazers in various ways.

The first to find a breakthrough was the Sacramento Kings. Before January 1th, the Kings had played against the Trail Blazers twice. The Kings, who lacked internal strength, were disheartened by two losses. Basically, there was not much room for resistance. Their The starting center is Jim Peterson, who used to be Olajuwon's backup for the Houston Rockets.

This 6-foot-10 white skinny guy basically turned into a white dough ball when he met Gan Guoyang.

Then on January 1, the Kings went to an away game to challenge the Blazers, but they almost knocked the Blazers to the ground at the Memorial Stadium.

It can be said that the Kings made full preparations and targeted arrangements before the game. First of all, they launched the most rigorous attack on Gan Guoyang on the defensive end.

Now Gan Guoyang is actually not that afraid of flanking. First, although his assists are mediocre, his speed and experience in moving the ball are already very good. It is not so easy for opponents to rely on flanking to disrupt Gan Guoyang's rhythm; secondly, as long as Sabo Gan Guoyang's attack range will expand when Nice is present, which also makes it more difficult for the opponent to pinch Gan Guoyang.

However, no matter how powerful the personal ability is, the star will definitely suffer in a one-on-two situation, let alone a one-on-three. The king launched a brutal three-person attack on Gan Guoyang.

In addition to Jim Peterson, there is also a former Rockets player in the Kings team, that is McGregor. After the collapse of the Rockets Twin Towers, he was also traded to the Kings together with Peterson in a transaction. He was the starting small forward. Strong in stature, he once caused a lot of trouble for the Blazers in the battle between the Rockets and the Blazers. Among them, his quick pincers gave Gan Guoyang a headache.

In addition, the king's starting lineup also has a future Rockets player in their point guard Kenny Smith, a crafty, sophisticated perimeter player with weird but accurate shooting posture.

Peterson, McGregor, and Smith, three players more or less connected with the Rockets, formed a double-team team and launched a frantic double-team attack on Gan Guoyang. Since Gan Guoyang asked for the ball inside, Smith was eager to move closer to Gan Guoyang. McGregor is also always ready.Once Gan Guoyang catches the ball, the two will rush forward to double-team without hesitation. No matter how strong Gan Guoyang's personal ability is and no matter how fast his speed is, it is impossible for him to crack this targeted three-person double-team. spread out.

On the king's bench sits an old fritter Danny Ainge. He also has a lot of experience in dealing with Gan Guoyang. There are not many harassment attacks, and his outside shots are equally accurate.

The king's move is obviously on the edge of illegal defense, and the Blazers are one of the promoters of this defense in the league. Now Gan Guoyang is also beginning to suffer from this defense.

Just double-teaming Gan Guoyang is obviously not enough, because the other players of the Blazers have got more chances to score. Drexler, who has been in good form recently, has Gan Guoyang's containment in this game. Whatever he wants, but no matter how he scores, the Kings always firmly double-team Gan Guoyang and will not relax.

At the same time, on the offensive end, the Kings also took out one of their sharp weapons in this game-three-pointers.

The Blazers' defensive features are very distinctive. The players call and support each other very well, and the frontcourt players have extremely strong single-defense ability. Under the training of Behrman, the players on the field only need a few simple actions and A slogan can instantly change their defensive posture.At the same time, Gan Guoyang, as the defensive core of this team, provided extremely stable backcourt rebound protection, free throw line, and quick auxiliary defense near the three-second zone.

The Kings did not have a strong offensive point inside to contain Gan Guoyang, and when the opponent blocked the space inside and did a good job, the three-pointer became their best choice. The wide open space allowed the players of the Blazers to respond to each other. Weakened, after many runs involved, the gap is easily pulled out, the key is that the Kings' three-pointers in this game are surprisingly accurate.

In the last season, the average number of three-point goals per game of the entire league team was only 1.6, less than two, but in this game Kenny Smith and their shooting guard Rick Berry showed superb shooting skills , Barry even made 3 of 3 three-pointers with a 6% hit rate. The Kings team hit 50.00 three-pointers with a hit rate as high as [-]%.

These six three-pointers are not as simple as scoring 18 points. The opening of the opponent's perimeter forced the Blazers to change their defensive formation to man-to-man defense, which gave the Kings a better chance to attack.

In this game, the Blazers were led by the opponent tactically for the first time, while the Kings relied on sufficient preparation and extraordinary performance to fall into a tough fight with the Blazers in the away game. Overtime, overtime tied again and entered the second overtime.

In the second overtime, Drexler, who scored 50 points in the game, was exhausted, but the opponent's physical strength was also exhausted. At this time, Gan Guoyang, who had been troubled by double-teaming for the whole game, finally got his chance Breaking through the shackles, he scored 9 points in a row in the second overtime game and hit a key hook. With the final word, he finally helped the Blazers seal the victory. In the end, the Blazers fought hard in the double overtime at home and beat the Kings 145:142 hard to win. 12 consecutive victories.

In this game, Drexler scored a season-high 50 points, but his performance in the backcourt defense was disappointing and was shot through by the King's shooter; while Gan Guoyang was still stiff under the King's strict defense Knocked out 27 points, and at the same time continued to be efficient and stable in rebound protection, scoring 15 rebounds.

But tonight's Blazers' defense was not good. Gan Guoyang was blocked on the offensive end alone, and the defensive end was like a tinkerer on a broken ship.

........................

Although the Trail Blazers won this game, the Sacramento Kings showed all the NBA teams a good way to deal with the Trail Blazers: defend against Gan Guoyang and attack with long shots.

Of course, this method was not just thought up by the king. Double-teaming Gan Guoyang is the consensus of many teams when they face the Trail Blazers, but the double-teaming is so thorough and lasts so long like the King’s tonight, so they don’t hesitate to release Drexler. It is quite rare to score 50 points. This also reflects how important Gan Guoyang's tactical position is in the Trail Blazers. This is different from Gan Guoyang who scored in a single way in previous seasons. Now his rich and diverse offensive methods are A weapon that destroys the opponent's defense.

Strengthening the long-range shooting can be regarded as the king's good touch tonight. It is impossible for other teams to always have such a good three-pointer. Points against the Trail Blazers have become the consensus of all teams.

In general, the Sacramento Kings sounded the clarion call for the entire league to encircle the Blazers through this game. Based on the previous two principles, each team resorted to their own restraint tactics to create trouble for the Blazers.

On January 1th and January 7th, the Trail Blazers played two consecutive games against the Seattle SuperSonics. The Supersonics inherited the experience of the Kings and shot three-pointers in the game against the Trail Blazers. The first game made 1 shots Three-pointer, but the shooting percentage was not good, and was wiped out by the Blazers at home.

Immediately came to Portland, the Sonics once again made 11 three-pointers from the outside and hit 7 goals!The supersonic substitute, "x-man" McDaniel came off the bench for 28 minutes and scored 14 points on 12 of 29 shots. Buck Williams had nothing to do in front of him, showing his old age.

In the end, the Sonics gave the Trail Blazers their second defeat of the season. They used the experience of three-point convulsions. At the same time, someone on the bench must come out to disrupt the situation and hit the Blazers in the middle distance.

On January 1, the Utah Jazz beat the Trail Blazers again at the Memorial Stadium. The Jazz's new coach Jerry Sloan let Karl Malone and John Stockton exhaust their tricks in defense. Sabonis played six fouls for the first time in his career, and Sloan asked Stockton to deal with Drexler from time to time. The small moves made Drexler unbearably disturbed, and the audience was 17 of 15.

For the remaining three, Sloan asked small forward Jaffroni to keep a close eye on Gan Guoyang, Mark Eaton to defend at any time, and Darryl Griffin was pure cannon fodder. Attack tempo.

At the same time, Bailey also stood up on the Jazz bench. This 6-foot-11 sixth man also became a spoiler. He used the Blazers' rotation to score points, made two three-pointers, and scored 23 points. Helped the Jazz to give the Blazers their third defeat.

In the remaining games in January, the Blazers suddenly found that their opponents seemed to have become stronger. Every game was played extremely hard, and the situation of winning the opponent in three quarters never happened again. It depends on the superstars in the team to get it done, and the number of the team's losses has changed from 1 to 5, which means that the Blazers lost 5 games in January alone.

When the Trail Blazers defeated the Los Angeles Clippers in Los Angeles on February 2 with 1:108, relying on Gan Guoyang's tip-up before the end of the game, their next opponent was the Los Angeles Lakers.