Healing Basketball

  Chapter 752 752. The first center forward!

  The Italian team began fierce hand-to-hand combat at the beginning. Luca Garry and Angelo Giri, led by the twin towers, dragged the game into the quagmire of iron-blooded warfare from the very beginning.

   Liu Xiu decisively adjusted his style of play, launched an offense around Yao Ming, helped Yao Ming feed the ball, and defended with all his strength.

  Knowing that he will meet the Italian team in the group stage, Liu Xiu has already prepared for such a defense during the preparation stage.

In the first two games, he fought hard defensively. He played Japan out of instinct, and he played against Angola to prepare for the Italian team. Defensive whistleblowing is much looser than in the NBA.

  In previous years, the Chinese men's basketball team was a little bit afraid when they encountered a fierce opponent like the Italian team. This was the case when they played against the Lithuanian team in the Athens Olympics.

   That was Liu Xiu's first entry into the national team. He didn't understand some things, and his ability was not as strong as it is now.

At this time, he took the initiative to defend against the opponent's 203cm and 104kg striker Adrian Micheloli. He fought fiercely again and again, and his posture was more fierce than the opponent, which inspired the bloodiness of his teammates... Under the leadership of Liu Xiu Under the circumstances, the whole team worked hard to help Yao Ming reduce the pressure of protecting the frame, so that Yao Ming can devote more energy to the offensive end.

  Yao Ming is not used as the main C in normal games. For example, in the last game against Angola, although Yao Ming scored the highest score in the game, most of them were catching the ball or turning around and shooting. He did not consume much energy... Tonight's physical strength is good!

In the second quarter, Yao Ming once again relied on his own strength to lead the team to deal with the Italian team in regular time. With 7.9 seconds left in the second quarter, Yao Ming grabbed a defensive rebound and hit the ball behind his head after landing. Liu Xiu at the free throw line, Liu Xiu received the ball and turned around to counterattack, Marco Belinelli retreated in place, and took the initiative to press up to fight after Liu Xiu entered the inside line... Liu Xiu knocked Belinelli away and smashed the ball into the basket with one hand frame, and also caused a foul by the opponent's thugs!

  The referee confirmed that the goal was valid, and Liu Xiu got an extra penalty!

   Liu Xiu also made an additional penalty. The Chinese team returned the Italian team's 18-14 single quarter in the second quarter, overtaking the Italian team by 2 points 32-30!

   After returning from the intermission, after the start of the third quarter, the Italian team had a problem... The scoring performance was very unstable!

  In the opening stage, the Italian team played continuously. Belinelli was taken care of by Wang Shipeng, Sun Yue, and Liu Wei in turn. This quarter played very badly.

  Baggnani did not participate in the World Championships, and the biggest problem of the Italian team was exposed.

   In the third quarter, Yao Ming tried his best to defend the frame, and Angelo Giri, Luca Gary, and Richard Lorca, three insiders with strong impact and rushing ability, plummeted in scoring.

  The reason why Yao Ming can defend with all his strength without worrying about the offensive end is because Liu Xiu seized the opportunity of the opponent's outside line to hit the iron continuously and launched a continuous counterattack to establish the lead!

After Belinelli hit the iron at the beginning, Liu Xiu, who grabbed the rebound, decisively issued the command of "Kobe time" and fought...It was very lucky. After the counterattack was successful, the Italian team was ironed for two consecutive rounds. , Liu Xiu grabbed rebounds by himself, or relied on Yao Ming and Wang Zhizhi to grab rebounds, catch the ball and counterattack, and scored consecutively, triggering 'Kobe time'.

After scoring 3 goals in a row, and then scoring 2 goals in a row, a three-pointer and a short-range emergency stop throw, Liu Xiu played a climax of 11 to 2 alone, making the score 43 to 32, expanding the lead To 11 minutes!

  Although the Chinese team only scored 7 points in the rest of the third quarter, 1 point less than the 8 points of the Italian team, they still led the Italian team 50 to 40 after three quarters, establishing a 10-point lead.

  In the final quarter, the Chinese team and the Italian team played a very low-scoring quarter. The Chinese team only scored 9 points, and the Italian team scored 12 points.

In the end, relying on Yao Ming's 22 points, 8 rebounds, 3 assists and 3 blocks, and Liu Xiu's 18 points, 9 rebounds, 4 assists and 4 steals, the Chinese team narrowly defeated the Italian team 59-52, won the third victory in the group stage, and locked in the top 16 in advance seats!

  …

  After the final whistle sounded, the players of the Chinese team hugged and celebrated as excitedly as if they had won the world championship.

  Two years ago, they lost to the Lithuanian team in the semi-finals. The players of the Chinese team were full of unwillingness, and it became a psychological shadow of this group of people in the international competition.

  After this tough battle, Liu Xiu said, hehe, the little Lithuanian team... let the US team deal with it.

  Thinking that after the U.S. team hit the mountain in Puerto Rico, they had to face Lithuania and Greece head-on, and then look back at the match against Italy that almost drove him crazy... Liu Xiu began to gloat.

  For the game between the Chinese team and the Italian team, although more than 8,000 seats were filled, the live viewership was not good.

  It was early morning in the United States, and there were not many people watching the game. The Japanese hated the Chinese team after the opening match, and their enthusiasm for watching the game dropped sharply.

  Even in China, this afternoon, the Chinese team played against the Italian team, which was rated as the ugliest team in this World Championship, and the ratings were not satisfactory.

  But it doesn't mean that people don't pay attention to this game, on the contrary, they are very concerned about it!

  Group D has a chance to beat the Chinese team, only the Italian team and the Slovenian team.

  The ratings of this game were not high, but the popularity after the game made people think that this was a popular game with a very high ratings.

  For the Italian team's loss to the Chinese team, people's evaluation is that the Italian team has done a good job defensively, but lacks a stable world-class scorer.

But if Bargnani, a 'stable world-class scorer', is chosen as the main attacking point of the Italian team, Bargnani's defense, which has already been scolded by the locals in the youth team, will overwhelm the Italian team's defense. With collapse.

  The Italian team's iron-blooded tactics are brought about by their twin towers. No matter which position Bargnani plays in the frontcourt, it will be a disaster for the Italian team's defense.

   Some media commented that the Italian team is like the Spurs. Their strength lies there. There is not much room for improvement, but it is difficult to chew.

When the Italian team is playing against teams that are weaker than them and have no superstars, they are steady. But if the opponent has superstars, they have to be careful. They can only hope that the opponent will not explode. Once the opponent explodes, they can only strengthen defense.

  When Liu Xiu succeeded in the West Coast in the opening of the third quarter, the Italian team's strong and powerless feeling proved this very well.

After defeating the Italian team, the Chinese men's basketball team has 3 wins and 0 losses in the group stage, refreshing the best record after expanding the team to 24 teams in the World Championships. The previous best record was 1994, with 2 wins and 1 loss in the group stage. Apart from Brazil and Argentina, in terms of the number of wins, the Chinese men's basketball team has set a record in the history of the national team this year, but the winning rate is still higher in the World Championships in 1994.

   However, the winning percentage record was quickly broken.

   On August 22, under the leadership of Yao Ming with 29 points, 7 rebounds, 2 assists and 2 blocks, the Chinese team defeated the Senegal team 102-77 at the Sapporo National Stadium, and the group stage record reached 4 wins and 0 losses!

   After the game, the Chinese men's basketball team secured the first place in the group one game ahead of schedule, with at least 80% winning percentage, which also exceeded the winning percentage of the Chinese men's basketball team in the 1994 World Championships, creating a new record in team history!

  (end of this chapter)