Chapter 832 831. Exposed Weaknesses, Direction of Adjustment (7000-Word Chapter, Please Vote!)

The old senior has seen a lot. Hill passed the ball to Nelson, and then took the initiative to ask for the ball from the backcourt to advance, controlling the rhythm and preventing the team from speeding up due to Liu Mang's strange three-pointer.

That kind of unexpected play is too easy to make people want to fight back.

Or, it's too annoying!

After Hill advanced to the frontcourt, he still started to sit and play from the outside. Liu Mang double-teamed him again. Hill immediately passed the ball to Nelson. Nelson did not force a shot, but rushed to the basket from the right side, avoiding Liu Mang's defense. McGrady came up to defend, and Nelson passed the ball to Christie in the right corner.

Christie did not shoot after receiving the ball. He immediately cut inside after receiving the ball. Even though Christie was 35 years old, he still needed someone to defend him when he entered the basket with his height of 1.98 meters tall shooting guard. Rasheed Wallace stood on the right side of the three-second zone to assist in defense, and McGrady also retreated to the baseline.

At this time, Christie's passing ability was reflected. He threw it towards the free throw line, and Rahim quietly retreated to a position one step inside the free throw line to receive the ball!

Liu Mang immediately made up for him, and Rahim received the ball and faced Liu Mang's defense, and shot a close-range jump shot!

In his last year with the Hawks, he played a blue-collar role of catching and shooting for a year. What Rahim gained the most, in addition to the championship, was a more stable catching and shooting ability!

Rahim's close-range jump shot also hit! He scored four points in a row at the beginning!

The game entered a stalemate from the beginning!

The Hawks tried to speed up, but the Magic insisted on playing a slow-paced tactical match.

Rahim knew the Hawks too well. Although the new version of the cavalry tactics was very different from the previous cavalry tactics, the concept was the same. Rahim had played the cavalry tactics for three years with the Hawks. He knew very well how terrible the Hawks were after they brought up the rhythm, especially now that the Hawks were playing the new version of the cavalry tactics, which made Rahim very afraid, so he had already discussed with Hill to control the rhythm.

And Hill is an all-around organizing forward of the older generation who can control the rhythm very well.

Back-to-the-basket is one of the best ways to control the rhythm and organize the offense!

The two teams fought for more than four minutes. The Magic team kept creating opportunities for the outside and then switched to the inside attack, maintaining a steady rhythm.

The Hawks team failed to speed up for a long time because the rebounding ability of the Magic team's frontcourt trio was too good. The three of them were flexible, tall and rebounding-conscious frontcourt players. The Hawks were at a disadvantage in rebounding and could only speed up instead of counterattacking.

The Hawks wanted to speed up but couldn't fight back. They encountered a big rhythm problem. The Hawks' physical advantage was curbed, which in turn affected their outside shooting. After Prince and Rasheed Wallace missed two consecutive open three-pointers, the Magic team began to exert more defensive pressure on Liu Mang. When McGrady singled out Christie, his outside shooting was not effective. Howard and Rahim, who had strong defense, did not perform well in the inside.

At 4:15 in the first quarter, Kwame Brown grabbed an offensive rebound and dunked, and the Hawks led by one point again with 11 to 10.

It was the Magic's turn to attack again. After Nelson advanced to the frontcourt, he passed the ball to Hill in the top corner on the left side of the free throw line. Hill continued to play singles in the high post.

Only Prince, who is 2.06 meters tall and has a wingspan of 2.2 meters, can defend Hill. McGrady is not so good at defending back, and Liu Mang is short.

Nelson had already made a three-pointer, which put pressure on Liu Mang to defend the three-pointer. Nelson is also a convulsion player. It is hard to say whether he shot accurately. At this time, Hill took advantage of the fact that no one was double-teaming him and turned around and cut in quickly from the middle. He did not look like a guy who was worried about ankle injuries after being reimbursed for four consecutive seasons. His footsteps were sharp, as if he had returned to a dream ten years ago, and he went straight to the basket from the middle.

Rasheed Wallace held Howard, Kwame Brown came out to help defend, Hill made a wonderful inside pass, Kwame Brown sent the ball out from his waist, Raheem received the ball and faced Rasheed Wallace's defensive pull-up and low-hand layup.

Four minutes and thirty seconds!

12 to 11, the Magic team once again overtook the score!

The Hawks were beaten at home and called a timeout first!

After the Magic team saw that they could stabilize the score, they played more and more confidently, and even the pressure of the away game was suppressed!

…

Liu Mang saw that the timeout was called, took the ball and prepared to shoot a few shots to find the feel, and made one with his left hand, but couldn't make a shot with his right hand later. He played too badly today, a feeling of not being able to exert his strength, the feeling of wanting to run and play but running was too awkward, there was no advantage in rebounding, the speed was not up, and he couldn't fight back, the shooting rhythm was wrong, the shooting rhythm of his teammates was also wrong, and the defense he encountered was stricter... All kinds of situations combined, resulting in Liu Mang's whole state is not good.

As soon as Liu Mang got the ball from the referee, he heard Coach Kruger calling: "Ace, come here!"

Liu Mang immediately ran back to the bench. Is the coach going to make some changes?

"Ace, you and Tracy should take more shots. Andre, you should defend Hill's back-to-the-basket. Nazr, go up and increase the impact of rebounds..." Coach Kruger adjusted the lineup.

Iguodala was immediately full of energy when he heard the back-to-the-basket defense. He didn't know when he became the best at back-to-the-basket defense.

Muhammad felt a lot of pressure when he heard that he was going to play against Rahim, but he was never one to shirk responsibility, and he would fight even if he was not strong enough.

When Liu Mang heard about this arrangement, he wanted to ask whether to replace Josh Smith, because Muhammad could not keep up with the speed, but he was afraid of offending Muhammad. The higher you go, the more you worry.

…

After the timeout, the Hawks team had Liu Mang, Iguodala, McGrady, Muhammad, and Kwame Brown on the court.

The Magic also changed players, and the new, middle and old "three cores" Hill, Rahim, and Howard continued to play. Hill is really a magical player. Except for the first four or five games at the beginning of the season, he only played for more than 20 minutes. After he got into shape, his average playing time per game exceeded 35 minutes. Rahim and Howard both played 40 minutes per game. Both of them are iron-man players.

The Magic replaced DeShawn Stevenson as point guard, Turkoglu as small forward, and Hill as shooting guard. In other words, this lineup has no point guard, and the small forward and shooting guard organize the offense.

However, this lineup is extremely powerful in mid-range and long-range shooting!

Liu Mang saw that the Magic replaced the "one star and four shooters" lineup when he came up!

Turkoglu and DeShawn Stevenson both have three-point shooting ability, Hill and Rahim are very accurate in mid-range shooting! And there are four players with a height of 2.03 meters and above!

The Hawks attacked and chose the frontcourt ball. After Liu Mang received the ball, DeShawn Stevenson defended.

Stevenson, the "little emperor's enemy" with height, speed, strength and defensive talent, put a lot of defensive pressure on Liu Mang. Liu Mang saw Turkoglu defending on McGrady's side and immediately passed it to McGrady.

McGrady received the ball and immediately accelerated to break through. He ran faster and faster in the first three steps, leaving Turkoglu behind. Turkoglu couldn't keep up at all. At this time, Liu Mang rushed from behind McGrady and Turkoglu to the right corner. Muhammad came out to help Liu Mang block DeShawn Stevenson. McGrady rushed to the inside and brought all the defenses on the right side of the basket to the basket, then passed the ball to Liu Mang. Liu Mang received the ball in the corner and turned to shoot a three-pointer...

"Ding... Fast Shooting Master Level 5 is triggered. This time, the shot is not affected by running, and the shooting speed is increased by 30%..."

The discomfort after Liu Mang's fast running completely disappeared. When he turned to shoot, he felt the same as standing there to receive the ball and turn to shoot, and the shooting speed became faster. Before DeShawn Stevenson actively got rid of Muhammad's pick-and-roll and rushed over, he had already turned and thrown the ball to the basket!

With a perfect shooting feeling, Liu Mang received the ball and turned to shoot a three-pointer!

14 to 12, the Hawks led by two points again.

It was the Magic's turn to attack again. The Magic's lineup... was too tall!

The key was that Hill's ball control was too good. Iguodala pressed Hill all over the court, but he couldn't steal the ball.

After reaching the frontcourt, Hill passed the ball to Turkoglu, who attacked with the ball at the top of the arc, as if he was "afraid" of Iguodala's ability to defend back.

With a height of 2.08 meters, he plays the position of small forward. He is one of the few truly organized forwards in the league, taller than McGrady who was defending in front of him.

Turkoglu's iconic sideways body leaned against McGrady to avoid being stolen because of his high center of gravity. At this time, the other players of the Magic began to move, and Hill cut into the inside to take away some of the defense.

Liu Mang followed Stevenson. This guy played against the Cavaliers twice this season and became addicted to arguing with James. He was the first player this season to say that James was a "despicable clown" and said that the league favored James. "Terminator-of-Kings" means Kings Terminator, Little Emperor Terminator, Little Emperor's Enemy. It became his self-proclaimed nickname and he became a little famous in the United States.

But this guy is really accurate in three-pointers. He once made three consecutive three-pointers under James' defense, the kind of one-on-one singles. The career-high 26 points were scored by James at the beginning of the season when he had not yet practiced defense.

Just when all the attention was on Hill and DeShawn Stevenson, a man who had been low-key in rebounding last season and was easily ignored even though he averaged 25 points per game this season was ignored again.

Rahim ran back, Hill helped Rahim block Muhammad, Rahim cut into the basket, Tegekru turned his body sideways as if watching DeShawn Stevenson's running position, but threw the ball to the basket, Rahim dunked and scored two points!

Turkish magician!

The Magic team still played positionally and insisted on positional play, especially after changing to a big lineup, the rhythm was extremely slow.

When the Hawks attacked and played small ball, there was actually no clear shooter. Whoever had the opportunity would be given the ball, but the flaw of that style of play was that when the counterattack was not played and the rhythm was wrong, there was no clear shooting choice, which often led to hesitation in shooting, because there was no good way.

Fortunately, Coach Kruger asked Liu Mang and McGrady to strengthen the double-player cooperation, and there was a clear shooting choice, which was much better for Liu Mang.

Liu Mang did not hold the ball himself, but passed the ball to McGrady, who passed the ball to Liu Mang after advancing to the frontcourt.

Liu Mang got the feeling, received the ball and shot a three-pointer against DeShawn Stevenson's defense!

"Ding... Quick Shooting Master Level 5 is triggered, this time the shooting speed is increased by 30%..."

"Ding... King of Pull-Up Level 5 is triggered, this shot ignores shooting interference..."

The touch was smooth! DeShawn Stevenson didn't expect Liu Mang to shoot like this. When he rushed to defend, Liu Mang's shooting speed was too fast, and he had no time to interfere.

Liu Mang scored two three-pointers in a row!

It was the Magic's turn to attack again. The Hawks began to strengthen the defense under the basket. These four players over 2.03 meters tall plus a 1.96 meter 3D shooter, except Liu Mang chasing DeShawn Stevenson outside and McGrady defending Turkoglu at the top of the arc, the other three people retreated.

Turkoglu made a gesture when he saw this, and then directly used his height to block McGrady's three-pointer!

Although he had a height advantage, the difference in jumping was too big. Turkoglu was five centimeters taller than McGrady, but he was forced to lean back and shot by McGrady, and decisively missed.

However, the Magic's inside advantage once again played a powerful role. Kwame Brown had to fight with Howard. Howard didn't care about anything today, and he fought with Kwame Brown for rebounds. Howard, who was holding back a sad and angry mentality, really held Kwame Brown back!

Rahim attracted the attention of Iguodala and Rasheed Wallace. Hill grabbed the offensive rebound and threw the ball into the basket when he landed, and he also hit it!

Both sides played very efficiently. The Hawks started Liu Mang's scoring show. After Liu Mang's touch came out, he relied on McGrady to make the ball for him. After the first quarter, he maintained an efficient shooting performance. He scored 16 points in the next eight minutes and 19 points in a single quarter. The Hawks also maintained their leading advantage.

But the Magic did not fall behind too much. After the first quarter, the Hawks scored 31 points, but the Magic also scored 26 points!

…

The Magic did not waver in their style of play because of Liu Mang's scoring, and they kept playing in position.

In the second quarter, Liu Mang continued to maintain a good shooting performance. McGrady played both offense and defense in the first quarter, which was very tiring, so Jason Terry was replaced to help Liu Mang.

But Jason Terry mainly focused on holding the ball and playing singles. Liu Mang mainly ran to open up space for Jason Terry, or occasionally received the ball and shot.

Liu Mang played well, scoring 11 points in the second quarter, but Jason Terry was blocked by DeShawn Stevenson! In the rare situation of being able to counterattack, Jason Terry was blocked by DeShawn Stevenson, resulting in the Hawks scoring only 21 points in the second quarter!

It was not easy to organize the offense with Iguodala. Calderon replaced Jason Terry for a while, but Jason Terry was not easy to use. The rhythm was not right. Except for Liu Mang, other people's open shots were not accurate.

The Magic team has been sticking to their style of play. On the defensive end, they mainly defended Liu Mangjia to keep the backcourt rebounds. On the offensive end, they relied on outside shooting and rebounding ability as well as Rahim's personal advantages to insist on playing positional defense.

At the end of the first half, the Magic team overtook the score!

Relying on Rahim's brutal performance of 22 points and 9 rebounds in the first half, as well as Hill and Turkoglu's rhythm control, the Magic team scored 28 to 21 in the second quarter, and overtook the Hawks by two points at halftime with 54 to 52!

…

At halftime, when Liu Mang saw that the score was overtaken, he realized what was wrong with the Magic team's offense at the beginning of the game. Now he finally understood that the Magic team's first goal from the offensive rebound was indeed John Davis's tactic!

The Magic team played the tactics of Howard's peak period in the future!

Howard did not start shooting from the outside and rushing for offensive rebounds in the inside after he entered his peak period. He started to play like this from the beginning. The Magic team has been training Howard in this direction since they had him. They have been working hard to train Howard in rebounding and defense.

Because Howard does not have O'Neal's skills or the body of O'Neal. Apart from his talents in rebounding and defense, he does not have dominant talents in other aspects of his body. In particular, his lower limb strength was very average from the beginning. He is the ultimate version of a jumping center. Howard has basically no ball control, and his upper limb strength is strong but his muscles are hard. Therefore, the Magic team did not let Howard practice face-to-face singles, nor did they let Howard practice back-to-basket. They trained Howard in rebounding, secondary offense, and defense from the beginning.

This training method was not suitable for the time when Howard met Francis, who was mainly a breakthrough ball-controlling core. The Magic team waited until Francis was sent away before they touched the playoffs for the first time, and they were always far away from the playoffs.

But this time is different. In addition to Howard, they also have Rahim, and Hill has the opportunity to hold the ball. He is not delayed by Francis's sticky ball play. Hill, Rahim, and Howard immediately make the Magic have the strength of the playoffs. Moreover, Hill, who has the worst rebounding ability among the three, has the ability to average five or six rebounds per game. The three form the strongest rebounding trio in the league.

That is, the three-pointers of the Magic's current lineup are too ordinary. Otherwise, with Hill's high-post coordination, Turkoglu's top arc organization, Rahim and Howard's rebounding ability, and Rahim's low-post strong eating, the Magic can already take off. Taking advantage of Rahim's peak and Hill's ability to fight, they can completely experience the feeling of a truly top-level team with rookie Howard who has good rebounding ability.

Liu Mang also understood why Coach Kruger did not replace Josh Smith, but replaced him with Muhammad, because in the last few minutes, the Hawks were beaten 10 to 4 because Josh Smith was on the court.

Does Coach Kruger not know that Muhammad cannot keep up with Rahim?

No, it’s because Josh Smith is not as good as Muhammad in rebounding. He also went up and used Josh Smith to defend Rahim’s mobility, which did work. But the Hawks’ rebounding protection was very poor at that time. Although Rahim’s cuts and singles were restricted by Josh Smith’s defense, the Hawks and Magic’s scores in the second quarter were still tied. But as soon as Josh Smith went up, the rebounds were exploded. The Magic played a wave of 10 to 4 before the end of the half and overtook by two points.

…

When the opponent has a top star like Rahim in the interior, the most important thing is that the opponent has Howard and Rahim, the two major interior combinations, and the rebounding advantage is obvious. The Hawks’ small ball tactics have been greatly impacted!

Sure enough, the situation that McGrady and Coach Kruger worried about occurred, and Mike Woodson and Liu Mang did not have a good solution.

Return to the positional warfare style?

Coach Kruger did not do this. He wanted to see how many of the team's existing small-ball shortcomings could be exposed so that he could make better changes to these shortcomings. Moreover, McGrady rested for one quarter, so it was no problem for him to play the full second half.

After playing several small-ball games, Coach Kruger has seen that, as Liu Mang said, the future is an era of small ball, and they are creating a new era.

Although other teams in the league do not agree, Coach Kruger sees the potential of small-ball tactics, that is, defensive run-and-gun. Many people now mistakenly believe that the Hawks play the same tactics as the Suns, but they don't see that the Hawks' net score during the small-ball period is 5 points higher than that of the Suns!

The average net score advantage of 11 points per game during the small-ball tactic is not as good as the unprecedented 14 or 15-point net score advantage last season, but it is still the top performance in history. In the past 20 years, except for the Hawks themselves last season, only the Bulls in the last three consecutive games have a higher net score than the current Hawks in the small-ball tactics! The Bulls in the first three consecutive games only had a net score of 9 points.

Since there are too many powerful inside players now, other teams are unwilling to play this kind of game, but the Hawks do not have such a dominant inside player. The best inside players are Kwame Brown and Rasheed Wallace. Kwame Brown is a man with physical fitness who is very suitable for small ball, and he can also defend low-post offense and has good positional defense, but he and Rasheed Wallace do not have the ability to attack inside, so the switch to small ball is what Coach Kruger must do after he finds that this can bring out the team's talents. In addition to the inside players, Iguodala and Korver on the outside are also suitable for small ball tactics.

…

After the start of the second half, Liu Mang continued to score mainly, and only he and McGrady could score steadily.

After Liu Mang came up in the third quarter, he continued to shoot mainly, but because the team offense was suppressed worse and worse, the Hawks played and only Liu Mang and McGrady scored. This can be seen most clearly from McGrady's 9 points in a single quarter, which is McGrady's score in a half game!

Liu Mang was under greater defensive pressure in the third quarter. He took 10 shots in a single quarter, hit only 3 balls, and scored 11 points.

McGrady scored 9 points, but only had two assists in this quarter.

The Magic team played more and more smoothly, and their defensive counterattacks against the Hawks became more and more targeted.

Coach Kruger has been substituting players to try to adjust, but it didn't work very well.

Mainly rebounds!

Liu Mang scored 41 points in three quarters, but the Hawks were 9 points behind the Magic with a score of 75 to 84!

In the fourth quarter, the Magic team had already started to gain momentum. Rahim scored 16 points in the fourth quarter alone, completely blowing up the Hawks' inside line. Rahim, who scored 33 points in the first three quarters, scored 16 points in the last quarter, and scored 49 points and 16 rebounds in the whole game!

Howard was bullied badly by Kwame Brown, but the angry Howard and Kwame Brown were very restricted. Howard only got 6 points and 9 rebounds, and Kwame Brown only got 11 points and 10 rebounds, which did not play a big role, that is, he was matched with Howard.

But Kwame Brown was replaced by Howard, and no one could compete with Rahim for rebounds!

The Magic team's rebounds in this game were 51 to 39, grabbing 12 more rebounds than the Hawks!

Especially offensive rebounds, the Magic team grabbed 18 offensive rebounds! And the Hawks only had 5!

Although Liu Mang also scored 12 points in the last quarter and 23 points in the second half, the Hawks only scored 23 points in the third quarter, and only 20 points in the fourth quarter, and only 43 points in the first half, and Liu Mang alone scored 23 points!

McGrady tried to organize the offense but to no avail, so he could only try his best to pass the ball to Liu Mang. His outside shot was interfered by Turkoglu, and he was double-teamed when he broke through. No one else on the Hawks could make a shot, and only he and Liu Mang could score.

Liu Mang scored 53 points, 4 rebounds, and 4 assists, while McGrady scored 21 points, 5 rebounds, and 10 assists, but 7 of the 10 assists were passed to Liu Mang, accounting for 70%. In a normal game, McGrady's direct pass to Liu Mang usually accounts for about 30% of the assists. Liu Mang's high percentage of receiving the ball was because other people on the team also passed the ball to him, not just McGrady.

When McGrady's assists were 70% for Liu Mang, it proved that there was a big problem with the Hawks' offense!

In the end, Liu Mang scored 53 points, and together with McGrady, he scored 74 points, but the Hawks lost to the Magic at home with a score of 95 to 102! The seven-game winning streak was ended!

…

…

With 14 wins and 3 losses, the Hawks' record was tied by the Suns and the Pistons.

Losing is common, but the loss must be worthwhile. Players like Liu Mang and McGrady were very depressed, but the coaching staff was still very satisfied.

Liu Mang and McGrady were working hard throughout the game, and others were also working hard, but they were just restrained.

But this game was the first time that the Hawks encountered a real challenge after they started playing small ball tactics!

But this also really discovered the team's problems.

How to respond when encountering such a team with a strong power forward has become another research topic for the Hawks coaching staff.

Many ways were thought of in the game, but time was tight and no effective response was really made.

Now that they have lost, the Eagles coaching staff did not blame the players, but praised their efforts, and then the coaching staff had to stay up late to work overtime again...

The most depressed person is Liu Mang, 53 points!

He actually lost the game!

Isn't this the 50+ loser?

...

Please vote for me~ There should be another chapter before 2:30~ I will try to update more today. I feel a little guilty for only updating more than 10,000 words yesterday~