The Golden Age of Basketball

There is a small studio in Bristol, New England, in the northeast of the United States. This is the core area of ​​the American sports TV station ESPN, because most of their TV broadcasts and recorded programs are in this venue. completed in.

In 1979, espn was established. This is a TV station with the purpose of "letting everyone in the world enjoy sports programs anytime, anywhere". Of course, at that time they only had one live broadcast room, but they dedicated all their channel programs 24 hours a day. It was given to sports, which seemed extremely crazy at the time, because abc, cbs and nbc had already monopolized the broadcast and recording of most large-scale sports events, and the difficulty for espn to get a share of the pie can be imagined.

At 1979 o'clock in the evening on September 9, 7, ESPN started its first live broadcast. The host Leonard uttered ESPN's declaration: "There is an infinite sports world in the vast universe. Now, you are standing On the edge of the future. In the next minute, the next day, the next year and beyond, we will take you into the world of sports."

In 1989, ten years later, epsn faltered and slowly opened up a new path of their own in the sports world. More and more viewers watched espn. From the beginning, they could only broadcast some corner sports events , to 1987, ESPN and NFL signed a broadcast contract, for the first time has the right to broadcast the four major sports events in the United States.

Subsequently, in Stern's strategy of expanding the NBA market, ESPN also became a partner of the NBA. The two signed a broadcast contract in 1988. At the same time, this time the strategy of the big market also directly led to a sharp increase in the wages of NBA players. Many superstar players and teams broke their contracts and re-signed their contracts.

In 1989, the tenth anniversary of the establishment of ESPN, ESPN got a heavyweight figure, that is, Don Patrick, a well-known host in the American sports circle.

Don Patrick was originally named Don Pan. Before he came to ESPN, he worked as a sports announcer on wvud, a sports radio station in the United States. In 1983, he joined the famous CNN TV station and began to explain the baseball world game (that is, mlb), the nba finals and even the winter olympics, and he also started hosting a talk show called "wags-and-elliot".

After coming to ESPN, Don Patrick started his work and started a new commentary career at ESPN's "Sports Center". On March 1989, 3, Don Patrick ushered in a special person during the commentary. The guest, that is the retired NBA star, Bill Wharton.

Walton won a freshman after he went to Boston in 1986. Before he was plagued by injuries, he played almost a full season and won the title of the best sixth man. Game mvp, and the player who won the best sixth man.

By 1987, Bill Walton was once again troubled by injuries, but the arrival of Len Bias injected fresh energy into the old Celtics, and the veterans of the team got more rest time. He also won the 1987 championship with the Celtics. Since then, Walton has had no desires, and his body has not allowed him to continue fighting on the field, so Walton retired from Kyle. Special people retired.

After retiring, Wharton was unwilling to be lonely. Wharton, who liked to go to the streets to play sports as early as his student days, also thought about re-employment after retirement. In 1989, Wharton got an opportunity, and ESPN invited him to go to the cloth. In Ristol's studio, I participated in an NBA broadcast as a guest as an experience.

Tonight, ESPN will be broadcasting the Portland Trail Blazers game. The Trail Blazers will face the recently strong Golden State Warriors at home.

Don Patrick hadn't been informed before the telecast that he was partnering with Bill Wharton tonight. It was a temporary decision, so Patrick was visibly upset before the telecast began. What will happen to the big red-haired man in the broadcast.

However, when Wharton arrived at the broadcast room, after a few pleasantries with Patrick, the ice wall between the two sides was quickly melted. Patrick found that Wharton was quite talkative, with a hearty smile and humorous words, not at all weird and tricky as rumored The two of them chatted quickly.

Soon, when the broadcast of the program started, Wharton's performance was also very natural. He was able to cooperate with Patrick tacitly, and he didn't look timid in front of the camera. After all, he was once a superstar and had long been accustomed to being in the spotlight. life.

The topic of the two quickly shifted to the two teams in the game. For the Trail Blazers, Walton naturally has deep feelings. One of his championship trophies was won in Portland, while the other championship trophy Acquired by beating Portland.

For this game, Walton is also optimistic that the Blazers can win, but he thinks that the Warriors can bring a lot of trouble to the Blazers.

Unlike the previous opponent Cavaliers' coach Lenny Wilkens, the Warriors' head coach is Don Nelson, a coach known for his bold tactics and even crazy tactics in the future. After leaving the Bucks, Nelson was in Golden State Warriors Started his tactical innovation, Chris Mullin and Mitch Richmond became his vanguard, Mullin played an outstanding performance this season, averaging 26.5 points per game, the best in the league One of the scorers.

And Richmond also locked in the best rookie of the season in advance, averaging 22 points per game, which already indicates that he has entered the ranks of the league's top players.

The backcourt double guns formed by the two are full of firepower under Don Nelson's open tactics. In the case of poor performance at the beginning of the season, they exerted their strength in the mid-term and won successive battles. Big surprise.

Therefore, when the game really started, Don Patrick and Bill Walton were surprised to find that the Golden State Warriors were not inferior to the Trail Blazers in the battle.

"The pace of the game between the two sides is quite fast. The Warriors' Mullin and Richmond's offensive power is strong. Their only task on the court seems to be to score, score, and score again."

"That's right, it's scoring. Of course, besides scoring, I don't know what else these two guys can do." Bill Wharton began to show his talent in the commentary world at this time. Of course, what he said It's not entirely wrong, because in Nelson's system, Richmond and Mullin are used to score. As long as they score more than each other, the team can win. This is the concept that Nelson is instilling in the Warriors.

In comparison, the Portland Trail Blazers in the first half were almost the same as the Golden State Warriors. Everyone was scoring, scoring and scoring again. Drexler scored 14 points, 10 assists and 8 rebounds in the last game. Quasi-triple-double, he started to score wildly in the first half of this game, and scored 20 points in the half.

At halftime, the Trail Blazers led the Warriors by 4 points. The score between the two sides was 70:66. , That’s why they played like a warm-up match, if they knew that it was ESPN and Patrick and I were commenting on the game, then they would definitely play the same performance as they played in the finals.”

Bill Wharton's words were naturally suspected of flattering ESPN, but in the second half, both sides seemed to know that this was a live broadcast of ESPN, at least the Blazers knew it.

In the third quarter, the Blazers reduced the fast break and began to launch more positional offenses. At this time, the Blazers once again resorted to Gan Guoyang’s high pick-and-roll routine. No matter who ends the final offense, most of this offense is from Gan Guoyang The pick-and-roll was initiated in the high position-the remaining half of Gan Guoyang directly played in the low position.

Then the Golden State Warriors found that they couldn't stand it anymore, and Don Nelson began to try to double-team Gan Guoyang, but in the position of the horns, which extends in all directions, unless four people form a circle to surround him, there is no way to double-team Gan Guoyang, and Gan Guoyang Don't go where it's easy to be double-teamed.

"Oh my god, I suddenly discovered that the Blazers seem to have mastered an unsolvable tactic, and then they keep using it all the time, and they are going to kill the Warriors!" It is very strong. The Blazers' tactics are not complicated. Many teams can use them, but they are used on Gan Guoyang. It is really powerful.

"You mean Gan, as a center, is always in the high pick-and-roll tactic?"

"That's right, Patrick, you are a genius. I recommend that you go to UCLA as a coach. The Blazers' tactic is not complicated, but first, few teams like pick-and-rolls so much. Their number of pick-and-rolls in a quarter is higher than other balls Then, Gan’s threat in the high position is too great, really, his shooting is unexpectedly good, I still remember his three-pointers in 1986, it really scared me at the time Bad, I think this guy must have rigged the ball. I bet this seemingly simple play will be the key to the success of the Blazers, although they are successful enough."

Walton talked about two key points. One is the number of pick-and-rolls for the Blazers. Indeed, almost as long as Gan Guoyang is in a high position, he will definitely pick-and-roll, and he will block repeatedly; the second is Gan Guoyang's shooting. After receiving the ball at this position, regardless of the open space and starting to face the defender with strong shots, the shooting percentage is very high and the threat is great.

In this way, when the position near the horns becomes the core point of the Blazers' tactics, the entire tactical situation of the Blazers is suddenly opened up, and the opponent cannot backhand at all. Gan Guoyang is like a whirlpool, attracting everyone's defensive attention. This also brings more opportunities for Cauchy, Williams and Sabonis.

The Warriors were finally defeated, a complete defeat, 41:15, which was the score difference between the two sides in the third quarter. Gan Guoyang scored 24 points in a single quarter, leading the team to defeat the Golden State Warriors in one quarter.