Chapter 820 819. Falling in Love with a Team Is that Simple

"Can we get a player who can pass the ball to Yao?" Van Gundy was overwhelmed!

After the official timeout in the first quarter, the Rockets replaced Yao Ming for a rest. When Yao Ming was there, at least he could contain the pressure defense of the Hawks from the inside.

After Yao Ming left the court, the Rockets could no longer defend.

It was completely out of the pre-match plan!

Van Gundy and Thibodeau wanted to rely on Yao Ming's positional battle rim protection ability and low-post singles to deal with the Hawks. They were ready to play around Yao Ming, but it was completely useless!

Who would have thought that the Hawks, who were grinding positions with the Heat in the last game, suddenly became as unrestrained as the Suns in this game?

The key is that this is still a fast-paced offense and defense transition with defense. It is not just for the sake of speed. Do your best to defend. It is Coach Kruger and Mike Woodson's request for the ball. Play like the Suns, not to mention that the coach does not accept it, even if Liu Mang says something, McGrady will not pay attention.

It may be that the Rockets, except for the dual cores, are really too bad, which allows the Hawks to play their strongest advantage - physical fitness for the first time since the start of the season.

The previous positional warfare, steady single defense, zone defense, positional warfare singles, pick-and-roll, and offensive rebounding, could not fully play the Hawks' athletic ability. After changing the style of play, the biggest "reward" is not the advantage in score, but the advantage of athletic ability!

The Hawks' 15-man roster, except for Korver, Calderon, Varejao, and Kevin Willis, are all players who can run, jump, and defend!

Coach Kruger originally thought that it was just Liu Mang's whim to make things happen, and wanted to change to a relaxed style of play in the regular season. Unexpectedly, it really brought out the enthusiasm of the players and used the athletic ability that had been unsuccessful!

And this does not mean that Calderon and Korver are useless. On the contrary, because the advantages of other people's athletic ability are brought into play, Korver's catch-and-shoot three-pointers, Calderon's catch-and-shoot three-pointers, and third or second passes are better!

McGrady is not like a No. 1 player who only thinks about assists when passing the ball. When Liu Mang was replaced and he played with Calderon, Jason Terry, Josh Smith, and Rasheed Wallace, he saw that Calderon's second or third pass was selfless and accurate, and he was able to take advantage of the opportunity after his teammates tore the opponent's defense apart, so he decisively created more opportunities for Calderon.

After the first quarter, the score was 33 to 14 by the Hawks, leading by 19 points in a single quarter!

After Yao Ming came on the court in the second quarter, the Hawks' defense was even stricter against Yao Ming. The Rockets did not have a good pick-and-roll player. Yao Ming, Jim Jackson, and Richard Jefferson were all pick-and-roll players, not the ones who used the pick-and-roll. Bob Sura did not have that ability. Their backup point guard was Charlie Ward... 34 years old, about to retire, and Jon Barry was a catch-and-shooter...

When Yao Ming was off the court, there was no good backup center. When Yao Ming was on the court, no one could pass the ball to him, not the point guard, and not the power forward.

Both of these points were targeted by the Hawks.

And the strategy that Van Gundy had planned for almost a month to deal with the Hawks was made useless by the Hawks' change of play!

Whether it was the strategy to defend against the Hawks or the strategy to deal with the Hawks on the offensive end, none of them came in handy!

At the end of the first half, the Hawks scored 71 to 45.

It's not that the Rockets' scoring got better in the second quarter. They scored 31 points in a single quarter because the rhythm was too fast! The number of shots increased significantly. They could still suppress the rhythm in the first quarter, but in the second quarter, McGrady became more and more familiar with the style of play. He sent out 7 assists in a single quarter, which completely destroyed the rhythm of the unprepared Rockets and entered the rhythm that the Hawks wanted!

Four assists in the first quarter, seven assists in the second quarter, and eleven assists in the first half! McGrady got into the state as he played!

Seeing that the situation in front of him was completely unexpected and he couldn't even think of a coping strategy, Van Gundy swore that if he was given half a month, he would definitely be able to think of a way to deal with the Hawks, at least a tie would be possible. After all, this is an away game, and the Rockets have an advantage. The more they encounter a devil away game, the more advantages they have.

But now he can't think of it for a while! He really wants to call his brother to ask if he has prepared a small note that can just deal with the Hawks...

However, it's not only Van Gundy who wants to cry, there is also someone on the Hawks who wants to cry.

After halftime, Liu Mang still scored the most points for the Hawks. It was not that he did not want to pass the ball, but that McGrady was addicted to passing the ball. After finally meeting a team like the Rockets that was so brainless and played a defensive counterattack, McGrady was obsessed with passing the ball and did not even dribble for Liu Mang. Liu Mang only needed to rely on his temporary "engine" characteristics to drive the rhythm of his teammates. McGrady took the ball and organized the offense. When Liu Mang came on the court in the second quarter, he was responsible for shooting...

The Hawks scored 38 points in the second quarter, and Liu Mang scored 20 points with 7 of 13 shots...

However, the assists that Liu Mang was looking forward to were two in the first quarter and one in the second quarter...

...

After trailing by 26 points at halftime, the Rockets struggled in the third quarter, but the score difference widened to 33 points. After three quarters, the Hawks led by 33 points, 101 to 68. The Rockets players did not want to struggle anymore.

What the hell!

Because as long as Yao Ming comes up, he will be targeted, and the Rockets do not have good on-the-spot command, and they have no idea of ​​a solution during the halftime break. They have been preparing for a month, who would have thought that the Hawks would change at the drop of a hat? They even thought about the various changes during the Eagles' position battle and how they would deal with them, but they never imagined that the Eagles would play like this!

Yao Ming played a miserable three quarters and only took 7 shots for 25 minutes. He scored 10 points, 6 rebounds and 2 blocks on 4 of 7 shots...

Liu Mang refused to pass the ball when he received it in the third quarter. He secretly cursed the four shooting guards as bad guys while throwing the ball after receiving it. He quickly devoted himself to his first scoring option in the tactical plan and actively ran Bits thrown wildly.

If you don't get assists, just score points!

6 points in the first quarter, 20 points in the second quarter, and 18 points in the third quarter. Taking advantage of the Rockets' confusion, both offense and defense did not know how to play. Liu Mang made 15 of 27 shots in the three quarters, 7 of 11 three-pointers, and 8 free throws. Hit 7 and scored 44 points!

Tracy McGrady sent out 3 assists in the third quarter, mainly because a certain player was too independent and just took the ball without caring. His idea of ​​trying to hit 15+ assists or even 20 assists in a single game was shattered. .

However, 14 assists in a single quarter still broke McGrady's personal record of 13 assists in a single game! With 14 points, 14 assists and 3 rebounds, McGrady became more and more obsessed with organizing offense.

Without 15 assists, what else could McGrady do? He could only choose to forgive the unlucky kid.

Liu Mang and Tracy McGrady were both replaced in the fourth quarter, and the Rockets stopped struggling. Jason Terry led Iguodala, Korver, Josh Smith, and Varejao to go up and shoot the ball.

In the end, the Hawks slaughtered the Rockets 129-93, a 36-point difference!

Liu Mang looked at his own statistics, 44 points, 7 rebounds and 4 assists. He felt that the world was so strange: I was ready to get assists, but why did he just get points?

It’s unscientific!

Yu Jia and Director Zhang, who were broadcasting the game live, were speechless for a long time. Did they agree on a big showdown between the top picks?

The promised battle between the three major stars of the 2001 class?

The two leading scorers Liu Mang and Tracy McGrady were promised to play against MJ?

Today, Yao Ming scored 10 points and 6 rebounds, and Richard Jefferson scored 16 points. The Rockets were in a completely disorderly and tactical situation. It felt like they were not prepared for this game.

"Not prepared", this is what Director Zhang mentioned most in the commentary in order to protect the Rockets' face.

If little Van Gundy knew what Coach Zhang said, he would definitely run to the bathroom and cry: "It's not that I was unprepared! It's just that I was too prepared, and I couldn't even adjust my strategy to deal with the Suns!"

…

…

129 points in a single game!

The Hawks broke the single-game scoring record for a single team this season, which was set by the Suns when they played the Nuggets in the second game of the season with 127 points!

The Rockets team scored 93 points, which is actually not too unexpected. After the Rockets' average points per game this season have almost stabilized, they are only 96 points. 93 points is considered normal.

But the process by which they scored so many points was abnormal, and their shooting rate was too low. They only hit 33 goals in 97 shots, and their shooting rate was almost 35%!

Their average number of shots per game so far this season is 80, which means that the pace has been accelerated by nearly 25%!

This is unacceptable for a Rockets team based on the defense of Yao Ming and Richard Jefferson.

Because the Hawks shot 51 of 101 from the field, the team's shooting percentage was over 50%, while the Rockets have limited their opponents' shooting percentage to 42% so far this season, ranking sixth in the league, but let the Hawks With such a high number of shots, the team shot over 50% from the field and scored 15 three-pointers in a single game. The key is that the Eagles only got 17 free throws, which means there was almost no pressure on the defensive end. sex.

In other words, the Rockets were beaten by the Hawks and were unable to fight back!

This is the famous Houston 50-50 team! Especially the visiting Rockets!

However, what surprises people most is that even the Eagles started to play run and gun?

The defending champion is going to go against the odds with a run-and-gun attack!

Liu Mang tried to set off a small ball storm, but other teams did not agree. From the beginning, there were more doubts, instead of starting a small ball storm like the Warriors did from the beginning.

The main thing is that in the current environment, there are so many teams with powerful insiders, who will go to play small ball with the Eagles...

…

On the American side, there were mostly doubts and surprised reactions.

Domestically, since the Suns have not received even one live broadcast from China, who knew the Suns would play so well before the season, and now the impression of them is just that they score high.

The gorgeous offense played by the Eagles in this game made domestic fans excited.

The reason why so many people miss the Suns is because their offense is not just a love, but a belief. This is D'Antoni's belief, and it is also the belief of the Suns players, and they even fall in love with it. Their fans also regard it as faith.

But the Suns gave Liu Mang the idea of ​​​​starting the small ball era. Although he was questioned at the beginning, as the first team to cause a small ball storm in the country, the Eagles had won championships and won 70 games before. It didn't cause such a big response, but this time the competition attracted a lot more supporters.

Sometimes, it is so simple to attract fans. Maybe you fall in love with Jordan after watching his cool fadeaway jump shot that seems like he is leaning against a wall in the air. Maybe you fall in love with McGrady because of his free-hand jump shot that despises all players who claim to be super talented. Maybe you fall in love with Kobe because of his arrogant attitude when he holds his jersey in his mouth. This time, because of the unrestrained style of play of the Hawks, just one game, the ratings of the Imperial Sports Channel have been rising steadily. The average ratings of this game reached 3 percentage points! The number of fans who have watched this game for more than one quarter is estimated to be more than 40 million!

Many of them fell in love with the Hawks just because of this game, for no other reason!

…

On the Hawks side, Liu Mang is the most likely to be wild, but he is also the calmest after the game. He knows that it is too rare to play against the Rockets. He himself did not expect that he could play the small ball tactics so smoothly.

The more so, the more cautious you have to be.

After accepting the interview from the court station, Liu Mang returned to the locker room and saw that the players were all preparing to make plans for how to play in New York tomorrow. They were all very excited.

There was no way. In addition to Liu Mang's 44 points, the others scored a total of 85 points. Everyone played too well.

Liu Mang snorted: "Kang Mang, don't be too happy too early. We haven't really played the tactics well yet!"

"Yes, yes, boss, we know that we won't compete with you for shots, but don't compete for my assists!" McGrady joked.

"..." Liu Mang felt aggrieved when he heard this, but he couldn't say anything. Today, he threw 27 shots and made 15 shots. To a large extent, it was the credit of the whole team. He finally enjoyed the opportunity that his teammates could take away the defense and let him shoot easily.

I promised that I would teach you how to play small ball!

Liu Mang began to look at McGrady with resentment again.

However, McGrady's interruption made the atmosphere, which was a little awkward because of Liu Mang's words, lively again, and everyone laughed.

Liu Mang understood what McGrady meant by not discouraging his teammates. Liu Mang also felt that he was a little too calm.

His teammates had worked so hard and were immediately rewarded. It was normal to be happy.

Nodding to McGrady, Liu Mang went to the bathroom and prepared to draw a circle to curse the bastard who stole the assist...