The Golden Age of Basketball

() (Sorry, there are more and more things recently, and I am a little busy, so the update will be unstable, please forgive me.)

For the first time, Gan Guoyang felt that playing basketball was still so painful.

In the past three years, as long as he stood on the basketball court and touched the basketball in his hand, he could feel a kind of happiness and fulfillment. Playing basketball was the happiest thing for him.

Even in fierce and brutal games, he can enjoy the fun that basketball brings to him.

In the game against the Texas El Paso Miners, although the scores of both sides were extremely low and the audience was full of turnovers and iron strikes, Gan Guoyang was still able to find the basketball spirit in his excellent defense and a large number of blocked shots. His excitement and excitement.

But just 5 minutes into the game against George Town, Gan Guoyang wanted to pass the ball after getting the ball.

Because Georgetown's pincer attack was too aggressive and fierce.

In the previous games, Gan Guoyang was often flanked, but he could always distribute the ball in time to create good opportunities for his teammates; or sometimes he simply scored the ball directly with one against two.

But facing Georgetown, Gan Guoyang was confident to deal with Ewing alone, but the constant harassment and double-teaming by other opponents made Gan Guoyang very annoyed.

He can't even dribble to adjust his pace, and the moment he gets the ball, he will be robbed by the opponent's defender or front.

Quick transfer and distribution of the ball is not Gan Guoyang's strong point, and other players' lack of personal ability, even if he passes the ball to other players, the stretchable Georgetown defense can always fill in the loopholes in time, and does not give Gonzaga a chance .

This is almost the highest level of defense in college basketball, making man-to-man defense have the effect of zone defense, and making zone defense feel like man-to-man.

Therefore, in the opening 5 minutes, Gonzaga struggled abnormally, and their most reliable scoring point was taken care of, while Stockton, their backcourt engine, was a clever woman who could not find a match with him. people.

He also tried to play a pick-and-roll with Gan Guoyang, but Georgetown's defense in the pick-and-roll was extremely tight. Ewing's outstanding maneuverability and great deterrence inside made Stockton's inside cuts ineffective.

Gan Guoyang, who has lost his ability to stabilize mid-range shooting due to weight gain, can go down but not up after the pick-and-roll. The offensive threat is greatly reduced, which also reduces the power of the pick-and-roll.

So in many cases, Stockton had to complete the final blow.

When a team needs their point guard to get the job done, there's something wrong with the team's offense.

Gonzaga scored 2 points in the opening game except for Gan Guoyang's layup, and only relied on Stockton's two mid-range shots to score 4 points. The other players did not score a point. The team only scored 5 points in the opening 6 minutes.

On the other hand, life in Georgetown is not easy, they also fell into a quagmire on the offensive end.

Georgetown University, as a traditional strong university team, first emphasizes the collective, so Ewing is not like Gan Guoyang. Although he is the core of the team, the scoring task on his shoulders is not as heavy as Gan Guoyang's. Gan Guoyang has so many.

Georgetown's other players can contribute points to the team. They play a collective offense, although their collective offense does not play well under Gonzaga's defense.

Gonzaga's defense is different from Georgetown's. They don't perform double-teams except man-to-man, because Georgetown's ball transfer and personal ability are stronger than Gonzaga's. Once the double-team leaks open space, it basically loses points .

The strategy they adopt is to let the shots go, and all the peripheral players adopt close defense. If you want to break through, you can, but the defensive players who want to shoot will not make you comfortable.

The reason why Bellman adopts this strategy is, on the one hand, to make up for the team's lack of individual defensive capabilities. Letting them close-up defense and shooting is already doing their best. If they defend two steps away, they may not be able to defend against breakthrough shots; On the one hand, relying on Gan Guoyang's strong defensive ability on the inside, any player who dares to break into the inside will face Gan Guoyang's giant palm.

Gan Guoyang has an advantage when defending, that is, he doesn't sway, and has a particularly high recognition rate for fake moves, which makes it almost impossible for players who break through to avoid Gan Guoyang's interference, either being slapped or failing to make a shot.

Even if you choose to pass the ball, because Gonzaga pursues a non-teaming strategy, there is almost no way for the breaker to pass the ball to the open player.

After trying many breakthroughs and being rejected by Gan Guoyang with 3 big caps, Georgetown could only use mid-range jumpers and pick-and-roll shots to solve the problem.

Under the close defense of Gonzaga players, it is as difficult as it is to shoot. Forced jump shots are not the strong point of college players.

In this way, although Gonzaga defended only 6 points, Georgetown only scored 8 points.

At 5 minutes and 25 seconds into the game, Georgetown University coach Thompson called the first long timeout. The team's offense obviously did not satisfy him.

And Gonzaga University also has the opportunity to make adjustments.

"Our defense is very good, but offensively, we give too little support to the inside! We played too hard and almost didn't have any vitality. We must increase your aggressiveness, so that the opponents will not dare to unscrupulously attack the inside. double-team!" Behrman shouted loudly.

At the Great Western Forum, the noise was so loud that the coaches had to yell at the top of their voices.

"At the same time, effective cooperation must be made between the outside line and Stockton to give full play to your shooting ability and not let the point guard take on too many offensive tasks!"

Bellman has discovered the biggest problem in the team's offense, which is the separation between the core players and other players, and the two core players have no connection with each other, making the entire team's offense disjointed.

"Gan, how do you feel?" After setting up the tactics, Behrman asked Gan Guoyang, who was sweating profusely and drinking water non-stop.

"No problem, trust me." Gan Guoyang still said confidently, but he knew in his heart how tired he was from playing these five minutes.

On the offensive end, he was constantly double-teamed by opponents. On the defensive end, he almost had to face the impact of the entire Georgetown. More importantly, he had to fight hand-to-hand with Ewing all the time. The 5-minute game had already made him sweat. Drenches his jersey all over.

But he knew that he could not rest or relax. As long as he relaxed, Georgetown would make efforts to make the situation unbalanced.

"Come on, you have never let me down." Bellman patted Gan Guoyang on the shoulder and said to him.

At the end of the timeout, Gan Guoyang threw away the towel on his head, stood on the brightly lit stadium again, looked at the auditorium full of fans, and couldn't help being a little dazzled.

Georgetown continued to invest in the offense, and the lineups of both sides were not adjusted.

On the defensive end, Bellman did not adjust his strategy, and continued to let the players defend close to him, letting Gan Guoyang sit on the inside.

But Thompson can be described as scheming. He didn't use any special offensive tactics. He used a very simple strategy to break Bellman's defensive arrangement.

That's the low post.

However, Thompson did not let Ewing play Gan Guoyang in the low post. He had already seen that Gan Guoyang was Gonzaga's defensive strength, and using Ewing to fight this strength would only get twice the result with half the effort.

He chose to use the team's shooting guard David Wingate and small forward Reggie Williams to get the ball in the low post and single out the opposing shooting guard and small forward.

In the 80s, when the three-point shot was not widely used, low singles was a compulsory course for every player, so in the 80s games, many forwards and guards with a height of less than [-] meters were found to be singles masters.

Like James Worthy, Adrian Dantley is a great threat in the low post.

Thompson seized the loopholes in Gonzaga's small forward and shooting guard's height disadvantage and lack of personal ability, and arranged for the forward and guard players to play singles.

At the same time, Ewing pulled up to a high position to cover for other players, the most important thing is to lead Gan Guoyang out of the three-second zone.

Since Ewing has a very good mid-range jumper, Gan Guoyang had to follow up to the perimeter and hand over the three-second zone to Anderson.

In this case, Williams can easily get a position in the low post on the right. Claremont, who defends against him, obviously suffers in terms of height and strength, and cannot hold Williams at all.

Williams scored two points with a beautiful turn-around low layup, and Anderson missed the defense and did not interfere with the layup.

"Fuck! This is terrible." Behrman, who was on the sidelines, thought something was wrong when he saw Georgetown's tactics. He knew that the team's biggest weakness had been discovered by the opponent.

Bellman's previous thinking was very clear, which was to use Gan Guoyang's super defensive ability to wipe their buttocks for the deficiencies of outside players' lack of personal ability through the migration of defense, so as to achieve a complementary effect.

But now, Thompson's simple tactics exposed Gonzaga's disadvantages on the perimeter, and Gan Guoyang was beyond his reach.

The anxious Behrman could only squat on the sidelines, observing the situation on the field while racking his brains to find a countermeasure.

At this point, Gonzaga finally had some changes in offense.

Gan Guoyang no longer sank to the low position, but mentioned the high position to cover for Stockton.

In the previous pick-and-roll, Gan Guoyang always chose to go down, but the inside channel was blocked by Ewing, and Stockton couldn't pass the ball.

But this time, after the two blocked, Gan Guoyang chose to pull 45 degrees to the right. Due to the high quality of this screen, Stockton cut very smoothly at once, and Jackson, who was defending him, couldn't keep up.

Ewing had to follow Stockton to defend, otherwise Stockton would have made a layup, leaving Gan Guoyang free.

Stockton decisively split the ball and passed the ball to Gan Guoyang, but Gan Guoyang's current mid-range shot is not stable. Although the shooting opportunity is good, he is not fully sure.

And this is not the end of the tactics arranged by Bellman. Just as Stockton cut into the inside, Matthews also started from the top of the arc and went straight to the bottom line along the diagonal cut.

He just bypassed Gan Guoyang, used Gan Guoyang's body to make an off-ball screen, and gained an open space at a zero-degree angle on the baseline.

Therefore, after Gan Guoyang got the ball and made a screen for Matthews, he passed the ball to Matthews hand in hand, and Matthews made a mid-range shot from the bottom line!

"Boom!" The opportunity was good, but the ball was missed, and the rebound was naturally caught by Ewing, who followed to the basket.

"It's okay, the opportunity has come out, defend well!" Gan Guoyang comforted Matthews who missed the shot, and immediately ran back to the backcourt to defend.

Matthews' shooting has always been relatively stable, and he is also a very important scoring point for the team, but in this game, his feeling is really different from playing other teams.

He also wanted to provide strong support for Gan Guoyang and Stockton, so he kept running and cutting, but Wingate, who was facing him, was faster, taller, and stronger than him, and his defensive skills were extremely solid. No matter how you shake it off, you can't shake it off.

Not only can't get rid of it, Wingate can also use his energy to interfere with double-teaming Gan Guoyang, which means that he doesn't need to do his best when defending Matthews.

Now Matthews is not making open shots, which further dampens his confidence.

This is the case with pitchers, you must have confidence, even if you don't score the first nine shots, you must throw the ball with the confidence that you will score the tenth ball.

And once there is no confidence, even if the front is as wide as the sea, you will miss the shots that you usually have to make.

On the defensive end, Matthews' confidence was further hit.

Georgetown repeated the same trick, this time it was replaced by Wingate holding the ball on the right waist to single Matthews.

As the No. [-] scorer of Georgetown University, Wingate is very proficient in various skills. His card position is as fierce as an inside player. .

Matthews had almost no choice but to watch as Wingate turned over his head for a jumper and filled in two more points for Georgetown, 12:6. After the timeout, Georgetown had already scored 4 points in a row, and the scoring method was abnormal Easy and simple.

"Come on, Matthews, don't be afraid of your opponent, have confidence." Stockton said with his guard partner while dribbling the ball across the half.

Matthews looked visibly sluggish, and nodded slightly after hearing Stockton's words, wondering if he could regain his confidence.

But Gan Guoyang knew that they had to score at this time, and they hadn't scored for several rounds.

Gan Guoyang pretended to mention the high position and continue to cover for the outside line, but he and Stockton winked, Stockton understood, and did not pick and roll with Gan Guoyang.

Gan Guoyang was holding Ewing's clothes with his hands, while observing the positions of the opposing players in the three-second zone; and Ewing was also following behind Gan Guoyang, making small movements with his hands.

At this time, Gan Guoyang suddenly seized a gap, rushed to the three-second zone with one step, and directly blocked the ball in front of the basket, blocking Ewing behind him.

This is a fleeting opportunity. Once there is a slight delay, Gan Guoyang will be three seconds away, and Ewing behind him is desperately pushing him out.

And Stockton was well prepared and sent the ball to Gan Guoyang with a through ball without hesitation.

Being so close to the basket and in a frontal position, of course Gan Guoyang would not give up such a good opportunity. He pressed Ewing with his body and turned around to force a layup with his left hand!

Ewing was unable to take off due to being pinned down, and the defensive players did not follow up in time, and Gan Guoyang made a layup.

However, due to Gan Guoyang's excessive force and his full defense, under the action of two phases, Gan Guoyang fell heavily to the ground again after a successful layup. This is the second time he has fallen to the floor.

The teammates had no time to help Gan Guoyang, because Ewing did not foul, and Georgetown had already quickly served and launched a quick counterattack.

When Gan Guoyang got up from the ground, Georgetown's ball had already passed halftime, and he didn't care whether he was injured, so he hurried to the backcourt to defend.

However, just after halftime, he realized that he had to go back again.

Georgetown, who played four-on-five in the frontcourt, passed three passes and two leads, and passed the ball to Ewing who cut in the middle. Ewing faced the three-second zone without Gan Guoyang, took off the ball directly, and dunked with one hand!

"Yeah!" Ewing roared like King Kong after the dunk, and the entire Great Western forum was boiling because of this dunk.

But Gan Guoyang could only stand silently in the middle circle, with no one behind him.