Chapter 1109 1108. The Wolf King’s Roar (Asking for Monthly Votes)
Garnett is going to explode on the spot!
After fighting for so long, the opponent came up with two unreasonable three-pointers, which suddenly widened the score difference to 8 points!
And his two best outside teammates, Szczerbiak played poorly against strong teams, and Ricky Davis made him unreasonably and stubbornly maintain a hit rate of just over 40% no matter who he played against. He had such a hit rate against the Lakers and Spurs, and also against the Bobcats, Trail Blazers, and Knicks. But although Ricky Davis is useful, he is not good enough against Liu Mang, McGrady, and even Jason Terry!
Starting from the second half of the first quarter, the Hawks started Liu Mang's wave after McGrady's wave, and McGrady's wave after Jason Terry's wave.
The Hawks' ship doesn't even need oars! Although the Hawks had obvious flaws in the outside line, the Timberwolves' three-man outside line had the ability to attack with the ball. Rashard McCants was the Atlantic Division's scoring champion during the NCAA period. He scored three consecutive goals against Jason Terry, which made the Hawks start to double-team. The Timberwolves' scoring efficiency also improved, but the Hawks scored more!
The effect was immediate. The Hawks' three eagles were replaced and quickly turned the slow-paced offense led by the Timberwolves into a fast-paced offense that they were better at.
When the Hawks shot faster and the Timberwolves had more scoring opportunities, the Timberwolves' rhythm naturally picked up, because there were scoring opportunities when they got faster, and the Timberwolves' players didn't play well when they slowed down, so the rhythm naturally followed the Hawks.
This is the Hawks' strategy, giving up part of the defense, giving the opponent a little sweetness first, and bringing up the opponent's rhythm. Slowly, from the Timberwolves' rich experience in using low scores, they transitioned to the Hawks' rich experience in playing with a wild style!
After the first quarter, the Hawks led the Timberwolves by 7 points, 29 to 22, into the second quarter.
After the second quarter, the rhythm began to be truly controlled by the Hawks.
Garnett could no longer control it!
He could use his unique temperament to let his teammates focus on defense to defeat strong teams repeatedly, but the Timberwolves were a group of players in their contract years after all. How could they not rush up and fight when they saw a chance to score?
Usually, the Timberwolves fought on the defensive end, mainly because the opponents saw that their offense was poor, so they wanted to use defense to make their offense worse, but instead entered the Timberwolves' grinding rhythm style of play.
Don't look at the Timberwolves' second-to-last record in the West, with a record of 18 wins and 25 losses, it's not that bad, it's just that the West is too wild. Except for the Trail Blazers, who are ranked last with 10 wins and 33 losses, even teams like the Timberwolves with 18 wins and the Rockets with 19 wins can stir up the situation in the lower half of the Eastern Conference playoffs if they go to the East.
Those teams that lost to the Timberwolves, just like the Hawks played the Timberwolves for the first time this season, and did not expect the Timberwolves, the second-to-last team in the West, to have such good defense, and were defeated by the Timberwolves with rich low-scoring experience.
And not many teams pay attention to the Timberwolves, after all, they are only the second-to-last team in the West.
But the Hawks are different this time. The coaching staff and players attach great importance to the team that defeated them. After feeling the opponent's strong defense in the first half of the first quarter, they immediately changed their style of play. They did not continue to oppress the Timberwolves to score, but gave them some sweetness to let the Timberwolves run with them!
In the second quarter, after running completely, Garnett began to fall into despair.
On the Hawks side, Liu Mang, McGrady, Jason Terry, Korver, and Rasheed Wallace took turns to throw three-pointers. Iguodala, Josh Smith, and Kwame Brown ran and no one could stop them. The eight-man rotation of the Hawks at the beginning of the second quarter completely played out the offensive rhythm, and it was flying!
Garnett's roar gradually became desperate. His teammates tasted the joy of scoring, and like a group of addicted drug addicts, they began to ignore defense and wanted to score for themselves.
However... although Garnett hated this kind of scoring, he still enjoyed it very much. He ran the most actively and his scores began to increase.
The two teams scored 35 to 30 in the second quarter. The Hawks led by 12 points at halftime, 64 to 52!
Garnett scored 19 points at halftime...
From the second quarter, Garnett couldn't even shout at his teammates, so he started a sharp attack.
In the fast-paced play, Garnett, who is at his peak, is really useful. He can make mid-range shots, cut into the air, and serve as a counterattack pioneer. He is definitely an inside player who is beyond the times. Compared with Anthony Davis, the future No. 1 center in Liu Mang's impression, Garnett can be regarded as an enhanced version of Anthony Davis. The key is that he can lead the team to the Western Conference Finals without getting injured when the team has only one All-Star teammate. Anthony Davis can't do this. Anthony Davis withered in the second round of the playoffs.
Unfortunately, Garnett roared again and again, shot again and again, but couldn't stop the Eagles, a big ship driven by waves, from moving forward!
This time, the Eagles made full preparations. When they saw that defense didn't work, they started to wave. The Eagles, who had already studied the Timberwolves' shortcomings, had waves after waves.
Finally, in the third quarter, the Timberwolves wanted to play with waves, but they couldn't beat the Eagles' huge waves and were beaten to death on the shore.
In the third quarter, the Hawks scored 32 points, while the Timberwolves only scored 23 points. At the end of the third quarter, the Hawks had widened the score to 96 to 75, a 21-point difference!
Liu Mang scored 6 three-pointers in three quarters!
Although he had fewer assists today, he still had 7 assists in three quarters, and scored 25 points, 5 rebounds, and 7 assists in three quarters.
McGrady scored 18 points in three quarters and made 4 three-pointers. Jason Terry scored 12 points and made 3 three-pointers. They played as much as they wanted.
In the fourth quarter, the three Hawks of the Hawks were not sent up at the beginning. Coach Kruger wanted the team's three main scorers to rest more and reserve their physical strength for the game against the Spurs the day after tomorrow.
Seeing Garnett still play in the fourth quarter, Coach Kruger was still a little worried.
However, after the start of the fourth quarter, Kwame Brown, as a high school student representative of the Hawks, angrily confronted the opponent's high school student Garnett on the court, imitating Rasheed Wallace's roar. With the help of Calderon, Iguodala, Korver, and Josh Smith, he withstood Garnett's offensive performance of 11 points and 2 assists in the fourth quarter, limiting Garnett to only two rebounds in the fourth quarter, and helped the Hawks maintain the lead until the end.
In the end, with Kwame Brown's performance of 8 rebounds in a single quarter, the Hawks defeated the Timberwolves 122 to 106, with a 16-point advantage.
Garnett scored a lonely and desperate 41 points, 11 rebounds, 8 assists, 3 blocks, and 2 steals. Looking at the three eagles on the other side talking and laughing with Duncan next to them on the bench, Garnett walked towards the player tunnel dejectedly.
"Ding... The Wolf King's Roar mission is completed. Congratulations to the host for obtaining 10,000 superstar points."
Hearing this news, Liu Mang thought of Garnett's performance today. Thinking of Garnett's ubiquitous roar today, Liu Mang still felt a little sad. Maybe he will never hear Garnett's roar as the Wolf King in the game again. Maybe Garnett will go to a strong team, have better teammates, and play better results, but the Wolf King will no longer be the Wolf King.
Although the group was the peak group mode opened by the 03 generation of the Big Three, Garnett's successful group was the fuse that triggered a series of group formations afterwards. After all, the 03-04 Lakers Big Four did not succeed, and Garnett's group formation was successful. Only success can bring hope to others...
However... Liu Mang does not want those who group to succeed...
No matter where Garnett goes, Liu Mang has the confidence to knock them down.
"Ace... Ace..."
Liu Mang's shoulder was tapped. He turned around and saw that Duncan and others had stood up. Duncan called Liu Mang who was thinking for a long time and couldn't help tapping him: "Oh, Ace, what are you thinking about so much?"
Liu Mang looked at Kwame Brown, who scored 22 points and 21 rebounds today, and went to be interviewed. He replied to Duncan: "Nothing, I was thinking about our party tomorrow and accidentally got lost."
"Oh, then see you tomorrow. When can I come?" Duncan is looking forward to tomorrow's party. Usually, few NBA players invite him to play together.
"Come early, let's play music together!"
"Cool! See you at nine o'clock tomorrow morning?"
"See you at nine o'clock..."
...
...
39 wins and 4 losses!
After returning to the home court, the Hawks won three consecutive victories.
Next came the "Spring Festival War" or "Champion Revenge War" that fans in both China and the United States paid close attention to, where the Hawks played against the Spurs at home.
In China, even on the important New Year's Eve, fans were also paying attention to the pre-game news of this game.
Duncan has a unique charm. Even though he doesn't like to show off, has few gossips, and doesn't have those particularly explosive performances, there are fans who like him.
Before Duncan was in China, only professional fans noticed him. But last year, after the Spurs and the Hawks, the most popular team in China, played a finals, Duncan's simple but extremely strong style of play, which can almost be regarded as a level higher than other power forwards in NBA history, won the love of a large number of domestic fans.
Regarding this point, the famous American media USA Today analyzed Kobe, Duncan, McGrady, Iverson, Carter, Garnett and others in China at Christmas. The American reporters were very puzzled. McGrady and Kobe were already very popular in China before they partnered with Liu Mang and Yao Ming, two Chinese players. Especially Kobe, Iverson and McGrady, inexplicably have such high popularity in China, and the fans are very loyal, which is another unsolved mystery in the NBA.
Just when fans were imagining whether the unpredictable Hawks and the evil Spurs were carrying out some conspiracy, the core players of the two teams were happily playing music together on Chinese New Year's Eve...