Chapter 1370 1369. The Beginning of Madness

It is a big problem that the inside line cannot be defended. Fortunately, Liu Mang has strong offensive containment, and McGrady and Rondo can also break through to create opportunities, so that Battier, Jason Terry, Marion, and Granger, who are on the court alternately, can have empty cuts or mid-range and long-range shooting opportunities.

When these teammates really can't make a shot, Liu Mang will do it himself.

Today, Liu Mang has a good touch, and he can play inside and outside like a beast. The head coach of the Nuggets, George Karl, can only put the two guns on the court for a long time. With Iverson's breakthrough, mid-range shots, and passes, coupled with Anthony's excellent confrontation under the basket after gaining weight, plus a group of role players who can run, jump, and some can shoot, they can counter the offensive of the three eagles.

Super offensive battle! They ran more fiercely than the Hawks against the Suns.

Because both teams can't defend each other, and both teams have taken advantage of the loopholes in the opponent's defense, the scene is very hot, and the scores of both teams are constantly rising.

Liu Mang scored 19 points in the third quarter, plus McGrady's 6 points and 3 assists, Rondo's 2 points and 2 assists, Jason Terry's 5 points, Kwame Brown's two tip-ins and dunks, and Granger, Battier, Marion and others' off-ball scores, the Hawks scored 38 points in a single quarter!

The Nuggets were not bad either, with 32 points in a single quarter. After three quarters, Liu Mang's connection with Rondo at the last moment created an opportunity for Rondo to cut in and score. The Hawks led the Nuggets by 1 point with 99 to 98 and entered the fourth quarter.

In terms of the strength of the starting lineup, the Hawks are still much stronger than the Nuggets, mainly because of the large gap in the substitute lineup.

However, there is Liu Mang, the perpetual motion machine!

After playing 6 minutes less in the second quarter and being beaten 33 to 27 by the opponent in a single quarter, Liu Mang played the full third quarter and successfully returned a 38 to 32 to the opponent.

Liu Mang scored 35 points in three quarters!

…

At the end of the quarter, Iverson had to start a one-on-one match with Anthony.

The main reason is that the role players can no longer run!

Camby and Nene, two big centers, can only be said to have average physical fitness, not bad, but not excellent. If Kenyon Martin is there, they have more options. If Kenyon Martin is not there, the two of them can't stand the Hawks' running and playing in turns. Moreover, they can't run. If they don't run, the Hawks will run and fall into positional warfare. Their offensive efficiency is not as high as running and playing. The reason why the Nuggets are nicknamed the track and field team is that in addition to their good physical fitness, they have a higher success rate when running and playing.

Although the Nuggets also like to run and play, they don't run and play throughout the game. Generally speaking, opponents will try to limit their speed. But the Hawks are different this time. They can speed up as fast as possible. Only Liu Mang does not move, and other positions rest when they are tired. Anyway, most of the time they are five small players. It doesn't matter who is replaced. They can go up if they have the physical strength.

McGrady scored 19 points and 7 assists in three quarters. He ran and played for 28 minutes in three quarters and was exhausted. In the fourth quarter, he pointed at Liu Mang and Jason Terry.

It was mainly because of Liu Mang!

Anthony scored a mid-range goal, Liu Mang shot from outside the three-point line, Iverson made a mid-range jump shot, Liu Mang rushed to the inside to attract the defense and passed to Marion who scored two points, Anthony scored a second attack under the basket, and Liu Mang caused a foul...

Liu Mang's touch was completely explosive in the second half!

Iverson considered himself a physical master who could torture his opponents to death, but every time he met Liu Mang, he felt that he didn't have enough physical strength!

In the middle of the fourth quarter, Iverson began to breathe heavily, and Liu Mang was still rushing to the basket and causing fouls.

The Nuggets could only commit fouls. Double-teaming was the limit. The advantage of a small lineup was that there were many shooters. With double-teaming and a three-on-four zone defense, they could also control the Hawks' outside shots. If they couldn't make it, Kwame Brown or Marion would cut in and score two points. Anthony and Iverson would just fight back. But if the Hawks opened up the outside shots and made three-pointers, it wouldn't be a matter of one ball.

But...

The Nuggets' inside players, whose physical fitness declined, committed frequent fouls when they started to defend Liu Mang in the third minute of the fourth quarter!

In the eighth minute of the fourth quarter, Camby got his sixth foul of the game and left the court!

By this time, Liu Mang had already scored 20 points in a single quarter!

3 of 5 three-pointers in a single quarter, 5 of 9 field goal percentage, 7 of 9 free throws, and 11 free throws in a single quarter, including the two free throws that had not been taken!

Liu Mang went to the free throw line and made one of two free throws, which was directly shot down by Camby. Liu Mang's free throws were also affected to a certain extent, and the first free throw was not made.

However, the Hawks were already leading by 5 points at 126 to 121!

Liu Mang's personal score also increased to 56 points!

The Golden Twins have scored 71 points so far, which is quite impressive, but Liu Mang of the Tri-Hawks scored 56 points, McGrady scored 24 points, Jason Terry scored 16 points, and the Tri-Hawks scored 96 points!

At the critical moment, the Nuggets called a timeout!

…

After the timeout, the Hawks sent out the strongest lineup of Tri-Hawks + Marion + Kwame Brown.

On the Nuggets side, Iverson, JR Smith, Anthony, Reggie Evans, and Nene played the strongest lineup available.

Relying on Anthony's three-pointer, the Nuggets narrowed the gap to two points, easing the crisis.

When the Hawks attacked, after Liu Mang advanced to the frontcourt, Iverson and JR Smith began to double-team Liu Mang in advance.

Liu Mang shot one-on-one against defense, and his hit rate was higher than others. He had already made 19 of 33 shots in the whole game. They would rather give the Hawks an open space than let Liu Mang continue to play one-on-one with the ball.

At this time, Liu Mang did not think about getting 60 points. It's not like he had never done it before. He had already scored 60+ points 6 times. Not counting Kobe, other active players combined may not have as many 60+ times as Liu Mang. He was not as obsessed with this as before.

Now Liu Mang was in a state of high concentration. He immediately switched to the mode of organizing the offense and sent the ball to McGrady who was on the court with him.

McGrady played as a shooter for most of the fourth quarter. His physical strength recovered a little. He rushed into the inside and scored two points on the head of Nene who was defending without Camby.

When it was the Nuggets' offense, Anthony had the Mamba spirit. After scoring one, he immediately shot the second one, regardless of his 1-of-5 three-point shooting rate today. It was a miss!

Kwame Brown protected the defensive rebound and passed it to Liu Mang immediately.

Liu Mang rushed up, and a group of Nuggets chased him. Liu Mang slowed down a little, waiting for Marion to rush into the three-point line, and then passed the ball to Marion. Marion counterattacked and dunked to get two points!

130 to 124, the score difference reached 6 points!

The Nuggets began to panic. Iverson made a mistake in breaking through and passing the ball, and was intercepted by Jason Terry!

Liu Mang rushed to the front court first, but Jason Terry ignored Liu Mang in the counterattack and chased for a three-pointer...

When Liu Mang was about to say XXX, Jason Terry made a key three-pointer!

133 to 124, relying on Jason Terry's key three-pointer, the Hawks widened the score difference to 9 points!

Jason Terry's wave at the critical moment, not only Liu Mang, but also the fans and other Hawks players at the scene were shocked, but it went in!

When the Nuggets called a timeout again, the Hawks players immediately surrounded Jason Terry...

Waves are the hard truth!

…

After the timeout, the Nuggets still didn't score in their first attack. Iverson's pull-up jumper was intercepted and only touched the front of the basket.

Liu Mang grabbed the rebound and pushed forward to the frontcourt.

With 4 points to 60+, Liu Mang saw Iverson and JR Smith double-teaming him. JR Smith was sticking to Liu Mang. Liu Mang wanted to throw it directly at this time... What's the overall situation, what's not to care about... I still want it...

"Stay steady, don't shoot randomly!"

At this time, Liu Mang heard a shout and missed the best opportunity for a pull-up shot. Iverson had already double-teamed him.

Liu Mang passed the ball to Jason Terry. He wanted to twist Jason Terry's ear and ask him: Who started the sloppy shot?

Jason Terry received the ball, took a step and dribbled the ball between his legs in the middle distance. When Nene came out to make up for the defense, Jason Terry blocked Nene and shot a pull-up jump shot in the middle distance...

Two points hit!

135 to 124, the Hawks are leading by 11 points!

Liu Mang is about to vomit blood!

What happened to the promise to keep steady and not waste time?

But he scored!

Liu Mang looked at Jason Terry with resentment and hurried back to defense.

Anthony's three-pointer from outside the three-point line... also didn't go in, but fortunately Nene made a tip-in to score two points.

There is 1 minute and 47 seconds left!

For the Nuggets, a 9-point difference is nothing, and only 1 minute and 47 seconds left is not a big problem. If they can make a counterattack, they still have a chance. The key is that Iverson, who has played for more than 46 minutes, has begun to have problems with his physical strength!

Iverson is the Nuggets' best physical player. He has problems with his physical strength, not to mention others.

Although Iverson still wants to fight, the other Nuggets are now only thinking about not letting Liu Mang get their first 60+ of the season on their heads.

Liu Mang will definitely score 60+. The Nuggets players are sure of that. Many of their players entered the NBA after Liu Mang and have seen Liu Mang's crazy start to his career. Except for his rookie season, Liu Mang has scored 60+ every season since then. But they don't want to be the first soul to score 60+ under Liu Mang's knife this season.

The Nuggets players began to double-team Liu Mang's serve and receive!

This is obviously not the defense arranged by George Karl, but it is very effective in curbing Liu Mang's scoring. They simply didn't let Liu Mang receive the ball.

Marion received the ball and rushed to the frontcourt. Only JR Smith chased him. Marion easily slammed and scored two points.

In the last minute or so, the score difference was around 10 points. The Nuggets could not defend and could only block Liu Mang's scoring. The Hawks could not defend either. However, Anthony was very bad at three-point shooting this year. In the fourth quarter, he did not go to the inside line to shoot, but just shot from mid-range and long distance. Nene scored 7 points in the last moment when Kwame Brown was tired, 3 of 3 shots, plus 1 of 2 free throws, but failed to help the Nuggets turn the game around.

In the end, the Hawks defeated the Nuggets 139 to 131, with an 8-point advantage, and won the first victory in mid-January!

The two teams shot like crazy in this game. The Hawks shot 98 times, and the Nuggets... shot 110 times. Anthony's 41 points and 13 rebounds contributed greatly, and he had 8 offensive rebounds... Shooting a lot, scoring a lot, the Hawks' overall hit rate reached 45% with such a high shot rate, which was quite good. That is, the Hawks alone contributed more than 50 rebounds. In addition to 33 points and 10 assists, Iverson also had 6 rebounds.

The two teams got a total of 110 rebounds!

Liu Mang looked at his own data of 56 points, 12 rebounds, 6 assists, 6 blocks, 1 steal, and 4 turnovers... 19 of 34 shots, 7 of 9 three-pointers, and 11 of 15 free throws... Except for the free throw shooting rate, which was a bit lower because of the confrontation in that era, Liu Mang seemed to see the data of the king 13 years later...

This game was a bit like the game that Liu Mang remembered ten years later under the league's rules of curbing defense and encouraging offense.

I played happily because I won.

However, Liu Mang reviewed this game after the game... I felt that a lot of things were missing. I scored more points, but I felt that I couldn't fully use my skills!

Especially defense, there was a feeling of boredom, that feeling was like the feeling of the saint mode after watching Ozawa's movie, it was cool, but there was nothing to recall.

Although I got 56 points, there was much less to recall than losing to the Lakers and getting 40+...

...

Liu Mang entered the saint mode and began to worry about whether he could get used to it after the big changes in the rules in the future.

But after thinking for a while, Liu Mang stopped thinking about it. That would be seven or eight years later. It might be a little earlier because of him, but it would definitely be after the next labor-management negotiation. There would not be such a big change in five or six years. Maybe they would be used to it by then.

People always change with the changes in the surrounding environment. Liu Mang is still looking forward to the defensive rules in the future where a single touch would result in a foul. In addition to the king and the strange man who chose the most difficult path, is there anyone who can adapt to that rule better than him?

Liu Mang was thinking about it, while others thought that this night gave many team managements a headache.

The Hawks lost a defensive first team, the best pitcher in the league's bench, and the key backup center. It is true that their strength has been greatly damaged at this stage, but... a beast has been released!

The gap between the Hawks' strength and the first group has become a little bigger, but it has also become more uncontrollable!

The horror of Liu Mang's average of 38.1 points per game that season was just two years ago. Now Liu Mang has "grown up" two years older and his personal ability has become stronger.

Originally, when the Hawks had no trades and needed to share more playing time with the substitutes, some teams competing for rankings or playoff spots would be relatively easy to win against the Hawks. The main players of the Hawks would play less because they had a large number of young players to train.

But now it is different. Without Korver and Prince, Rondo and Granger have stable playing time directly, and the main players of the Hawks will play longer!

It is not a good thing for the Hawks to alleviate the physical problems of the players, and it is even worse for the opponents!

Liu Mang's current simple and rough scoring-oriented style of play does sometimes give opponents opportunities because of Liu Mang's poor touch.

But once Liu Mang is accurate...