The way of the center

Chapter 418 Weaknesses of the Almighty Center

The Chesapeake Energy Arena is always buzzing with people these days, and now the Western Conference Finals are being held here, so even if there is no game, there will always be people here to train and visit.

"I'm sorry, please let me go." A middle-aged Caucasian man with a strong body and thick body hair hurriedly shuttled through the player tunnel.In order to maintain the wooden floor of the stadium and ensure that the players of the Thunder and Trail Blazers can play in the top-level environment, many workers who disassemble and assemble the floor came to the Chesapeake Energy Arena today.Therefore, the already busy player channel is even more crowded today.

The white man swiftly pushed open a closed door. Behind the door was the home team's training ground for the Thunder.But now, there is no one here. Yesterday's game just ended, and Van Gundy didn't want his players to risk injury by arranging early training.What would Van Gundy do in the morning?What he wants to do is inseparable from this hurried white man.

"Jeff, here comes the video." The white man walked directly into Van Gundy's office without knocking on the door.

"Thank you Mogan. Let's call Carl here too. We have to study together." Jeff Van Gundy brought a bench and beckoned the white man named Mogan to sit down.This guy is an assistant coach for the Thunder, one of Jeff Van Gundy's right-hand men.And his duty is to study the Thunder's defense.

"Hello? Carl, come to the office. Yes, right now, okay." Morgan hung up the phone, and then inserted the USB drive he brought into Van Gundy's laptop.To say that this era is really convenient, when Jeff Van Gundy wanted to record, he had to go through multiple channels, and there were not necessarily any.Now with only a small USB flash drive, Van Gundy can absorb all the content he wants.

"Grizzlies vs. Trail Blazers, Magic vs. Trail Blazers, Knicks vs. Trail Blazers. Jeff, why do you have to watch the tapes of these games?" Morgan asked puzzled.

"Why? Gasol Jr., Howard and Stoudemire, these guys are the four toughest guys Ann has ever encountered this season. The fourth? The fourth is Morris! I want to see Ann How to deal with a strong enemy, he must have his own method, and our job is to completely kill this method!" Said, Van Gundy clicked on the video of the game between Gasol Jr. and Anjie , looked at it carefully.

"But Jeff, Aldridge was the one who scored the most points on the Trail Blazers last game." Morgan had to remind his partner that Morris's defense in the last game was already very good.

"You have to know that without Ann, Aldridge couldn't have gotten such a high score. Look, we will get the answer." Jeff Van Gundy took a sip of coffee. In fact, he has long been immune to coffee, but This has become a habit of his life.

"Listen, you don't need to participate in the confrontational training later today." At the Chesapeake Energy Arena visiting team training ground in the afternoon, Ricard said to Anjie before the daily "reserved project" confrontational training was about to start. An ultimatum was issued.

"Got it, got it, I'll obediently go to the treatment room to cooperate with Raspaign's massage. Hey Camby, you can have a good night's sleep today!" said Anjie and Marcus Rath on the other side of the field. Camby joked.Angie does not participate in confrontational training, which is simply great news for Camby.At least today, he doesn't have to be tormented by that brat who is always energetic.

The reason why An Jie agreed to Ricard's request so quickly was because all of An Jie's protests throughout the morning ended in failure.An Jie knew that no matter what he said now, Ricard would not change his mind.Instead of wasting your tongue arguing with the stubborn Rickard, it's better to enjoy a massage meal.Anyway, after An Jie's confrontation with Morris, many places on his body were indeed very sore.

Just like Popovich on GDP, Ricard is always full of confidence in Anjie's state.Things like Anjie's abnormal performance will also happen, but the probability is very, very small.Now, only by adjusting Anjie's body to the best condition can Anjie continue his excellent performance.

At first, An Jie really wanted to play against his teammates, but he was really tired, and he fell asleep comfortably after being massaged for less than 15 minutes.
No matter what method is used, in short, the Blazers and Thunder are carefully preparing for their next game.Van Gundy's well-intentioned, Ricard's cautious.Morris doubled his training, and An Jie's body recovered.Although today is a day for the two teams to rest, everyone will not really go to rest today.

What is the effect of the two teams' adjustments on this day, and the outcome of the next game will reveal the answer.

An Jie pushed Morris hard, but found that Morris was not moved at all.

"In this case." An Jie stuck out his tongue. Morris must be so strong, he must be very forward.So Anjie suddenly leaned on Morris and turned to break through, planning to kill the basket.

When dealing with most opponents, An Jie can usually use this trick to help him get out of trouble.But today, before he finished turning around, Morris took a step forward and completely blocked An Jie's turning space!

An Jie was so topped by Morris, he stumbled to the bottom line, and almost lost control of the basketball.Morris let out a nervous breath, he just thought that An Jie was going to succeed!
Anjie wanted to pass, but found that the Thunder's tight defense did not leave him any room to pass.In this situation, the Thunder made it clear that Anjie was going to attack!

Forcing Anjie to attack, other teams would not allow Anjie to pass the ball quickly, lest their own penalty area be unsafe.Only the Thunder team dared to force An Jie to attack.The key to the Thunder daring to do this is Jeff Van Gundy with his arms folded on the sidelines and Andrew Morris standing between Anjie and the basket.

This morning, Van Gundy, who has been studying the tape all day, told Morris a lot of precautions when defending Anger.First of all, you must be tough, and you must withstand An Jie's initial back blow.If An Jie failed to play back, the rest of the Thunder team immediately forgot about the team's defense and stared at the opponent in front of them. At the same time, Morris paid attention to stepping up to guard against An Jie's sudden breakthrough.Of course, this is just one of the points Van Gundy emphasized to Morris.Through the confrontation video between Anjie and his rivals, Van Gundy and his coaching staff have studied the attacking habits of Anjie, an all-around center.

And all these arrangements were well executed by Morris on the court.

"Morris is simply the roundworm in Ann's stomach. He can always predict Ann's next move. Ann was very difficult on the offensive end today. Now the game has reached the last moment of the fourth quarter, but his scoring But it still stays at 16." Kenny Smith looked at the scene suspiciously, Anjie was rarely so aggrieved by any insider alone defense!

In fact, Morris was also very nervous, but unexpectedly, most of the points Jeff Van Gundy told him were fulfilled.

An Jie is holding the ball in the mid-range position on the bottom line at the moment. He almost lost the ball just now, he can only hold the ball with both hands at this moment, and cannot dribble.Morris raised his arms to defend close to his body, and the rest of the Thunder also bit their own matchups.

Aldridge seemed to have a little space to catch the ball. Seeing that there were only ten seconds left in the attack time, Anjie rushed out the ball, hoping that Aldridge could complete the attack for him.

However, before the basketball reached Aldridge, it was intercepted by the Congolese Ibaka.This ball leaves too little space for An Jie. Even if his passing skills are superb, it is difficult to complete the pass under such circumstances.

Seizing the defensive counterattack after the opponent makes a mistake, this is the way the Thunder are best at scoring points.Durant and Westbrook slanted into the penalty area, one left and one right, while Nicolas Batum ran beyond the arc top three-point line.In just an instant, the Thunder established three very threatening offensive points in the Trail Blazers' half.

In the end, Ibaka's long pass came to Batum outside the three-point line.Batum didn't adjust, and directly threw the ball in the direction of the basket again.At the same time, Durant, who was about to cut inside, stood up, caught the basketball that was still in the air, and pressed it into the basket.

"Wonderful aerial coordination! The Trail Blazers were helpless against the Thunder's counterattack!"

The momentum of the Chesapeake Energy Arena is huge. Today, they finally played their own rhythm.

81比90，雷霆队已经领先了9分。而留给安杰和开拓者队的时间，只有2分35秒。

After the attack, Raymond Felton directly handed the ball to Aldridge.Aldridge still used an elegant turnaround jumper to score points on Ibaka's head.Anjie didn't touch the basketball during the entire offensive process, which is also very rare in the Trail Blazers' games this season.

The Thunder did almost perfectly, but if Jeff Van Gundy was wrong about anything, it was that he was wrong about Aldridge's form.

He thought that Aldridge would not be able to break out again in this game, but things backfired. Today Aldridge still beat Ibaka, a terrifying shot blocker, to no avail.

Counting the goal just scored, Aldridge has scored 28 points.However, 28 points are not worth mentioning under the strong offensive lineup of the Thunder.

Anjie was strangled, and Aldridge had to fight alone.other people?Others lack Anjie's restraint in the paint, and it is difficult to break through the iron wall of the Thunder with their personal abilities.

As the game time passed minute by minute, An Jie, who was gnashing his teeth, found that it was still very difficult for him to lead the team to reverse.

An Jie could see that Morris was not feeling well either, and Morris gave almost everything to see himself dead.But most of all, he succeeded.As long as he can successfully contain An Jie, Morris doesn't care how much effort he will spend.

Until the end of the game, the Thunder failed to reverse the score, and Anjie's score still did not exceed 20.

This season's playoffs scored a new low. An Jie never expected that he would set this embarrassing record in the Western Conference Finals.

Durant's still exaggerated 37 points and Westbrook's 27 points, coupled with the 21 points scored by Bledsoe and Batum, made Aldridge's 28 points look so pale.

What about Anjie?As the leading star of the Trail Blazers, he was defended by Morris today with only 19 points, and his shooting percentage was only 48%, less than half.

This data is definitely not the data that An Jie should get after playing normally.

94 to 100, the Thunder moved the score to a one-to-one tie at home.Equalizing the score is a common situation in the playoffs, and it stands to reason that the Trail Blazers have nothing to be nervous about.

But the Thunder won by strangling the strongest point of the Trail Blazers, which has to make Ricard pay attention to this loss.

Morris kept waving his fist towards the audience, and Van Gundy walked into the player channel amid the applause of the fans.An Jie was watching all this from the sidelines. He was not surprised that these two guys knew themselves best and could find a way to limit themselves.

Morris and Thunder, are they really going to win themselves?An Jie clenched his fists, turned and left.

(End of this chapter)