start with scouting

Chapter 445 What I Want Is Momentum
After watching the videos of the four games repeatedly for more than ten times, Su Yang, Snyder and other assistant coaches came to the conclusion: other teams are not afraid of the king, but also treat the king as the object of casual bullying in the past, which leads to contempt and lag behind a lot, and they are not afraid of falling behind.

Snyder complained: "Those teams are not afraid of us, they are quite confident in handling offense, and it is easy to perform at a super level, so we played against the Trail Blazers and Clippers, leading by a large score, and then almost tied, and it was difficult to widen the gap against the Hawks and Warriors. "

The psychological advantage is esoteric, but it does exist.

Just like Jazz Deron, who eats and sleeps and beats the Hornets Paul. He has a total record of 12 wins and 4 losses. Every time he meets, he gets a fat beating.

The Kings have not made it to the playoffs for seven years since the first round of the playoffs in 06. The image of a weak team is deeply rooted in the league, unlike the Clippers, who have the god of point guard Paul and White Warcraft Griffin, the name is quite bluffing.

"We should give the players some vicious nicknames..." assistant coach Di Brown suggested jokingly, "What Cousins ​​and Cousins, what Giannis Antetokounmpo, and GAY Guy, sounds a little friendly, like the TV series Friends..."

Everyone smiled when they heard the words. The lack of momentum of the team is difficult to solve in a short period of time, because people's evaluation of things often lags behind. Just like Paul George was able to win the best defensive team last season, but this season he really won. arrive.

"Apart from our image as a weak team, there is also an objective problem that our starting defense in the backcourt is indeed not good..."

Su Yang made a brief analysis. The king started with two players in the backcourt. Thomas Jr.’s defensive level is needless to say, and his height is too disadvantageous. The other starter, Marcus Thornton, is 193 cm tall. He also suffers from his height when he meets standard players in the same position. The key point is that Thornton is quite strong, which is very suitable for his nickname bucket, but his lateral movement ability is really bad, and he is easy to fall into a disadvantage in terms of speed.

In short, the King's backcourt defense is poor.

After the analysis, McMillan said: "I suggest letting Isaiah Thomas come off the bench for the highest benefit."

"Can consider it…"

Su Yang nodded in agreement and understood the logic, but decided not to be in a hurry. After all, he hadn't renewed his contract with Thomas Jr. before. Now if he hastily withdraws the starter for no reason, although there is no promise, it will easily lead to unnecessary speculation.

"First find a way to win a few more games, kill a few strong teams, and slowly announce our strong rise to the entire league."

Rest for three days, on November [-]th, the Kings will face the Nuggets.

ESPN broadcast live across the United States, and the Sleep Train arena was finally full of fans. Su Yang made a special speech before the game to express his gratitude to the fans.

The Nuggets won the opening jumper, and Lawson led it all the way through the half court, easily used the screen to escape, and shot a three-pointer against Thomas Jr..

The basketball slammed into the net with a bang, Lawson made a pistol movement when he turned back to defend, his face was full of confidence, he didn't pay attention to Thomas Jr.'s defense at all, and took the initiative to defend Thomas Jr. Also short players, very excited.

The rest of the Nuggets are preparing for zone defense and double-teaming at the same time. Joel Karl really wants to beat Su Yang's king. He sees that Lawson, Randy Foye, Anthony Randolph, JJ Hickson, McGee and others are not good at it. Single defense, especially single defense without the ball.

As far as McKinna's habit of watching the ball and not people, if he arranges to defend Cousins, the King's scoring efficiency inside will be greatly improved.

The Kings looked at the Nuggets' defense and didn't do much. Thornton used Cousins' cross to cover the ball and made a three-pointer against Randy Foye and Lawson. Anthony Randolph grabs the rebound.

The Nuggets took the opportunity to launch a fast break. In a flash, Thomas Jr. steals Lawson, makes a backhand long pass to Antetokounmpo, and scores a dunk.

The two teams quickly entered the rhythm of coming and going, and it was difficult to widen the gap. After the first quarter of the game, the Kings led the Nuggets by three points.

The game entered the second quarter. The kings will follow Su Yang's arrangement, and use various cover moves to help Guy get many good scoring opportunities, either open shots, or Gay's good position to take the ball, but Gay's performance is stretched, Scoring efficiency is extremely low.

"It is estimated that there are two games in the last 6 days. The rest time is too sufficient, so the state is not connected..." Regarding Gay's performance, Su Yang complained in his heart, but he also understood that if Gay can maintain a stable performance for a long time, he will really be at the peak Mai level, too difficult.

After halftime, the Kings only led by 3 points, and the main three-pointers failed to make a wide range of shots, making a total of 11 of 3 shots.

Returning to the locker room during the halftime break, Su Yang temporarily explained some routines for breaking the zone defense, mainly including cross running, chin cover, thumb support, and asked Cousins ​​to be in charge of command and dispatch, so he scratched Cousins ​​on the spot cheek.

"Coach, I'm not very good at..."

"Practice if you don't know it. Middle school students understand it. You can do it."

Su Yang insisted on rushing the ducks to the shelves, took advantage of the regular season to improve Cousins' command level, and cultivated his leadership ability in an all-round way.

The second half of the game started immediately. Under the command of Cousins, the Kings broke through the zone defense. The effect was mediocre. However, the Nuggets were limited by the low threat of internal offensive and the difficulty of connecting internal and external lines, so there were too many simple offenses. , failed to score efficiently.

In the last 20 seconds of the game, Cousins ​​singled out a layup and hit the iron. Gay followed up and scored a dunk. The Kings led by two points.

The Nuggets hurriedly asked for a timeout and came back to arrange a three-point tactic. Su Yang saw through it on the spot and directed Cousins ​​to run to the left corner where there were no Nuggets players ahead of time, successfully interfering with the Nuggets player Evan Fournier's emergency stop Catch the ball for a three-pointer and win a narrow victory.

Participating in the press conference after the game, facing reporters asking about the final defense, Cousins ​​replied with a face full of shock: "At first, I thought Coach Su Yang didn't distinguish between the left and the right. There is no Nuggets player in the left corner. Why? I needed to stand in advance, and it wasn’t until Fournier ran in front of me that I realized that I was the one who was stupid. Coach Su Yang predicted the Nuggets lore move in advance...”

In a few minutes, some fans made a GIF animation of Su Yang commanding Cousins ​​to stand in an unoccupied position, vividly showing Su Yang's wisdom and determination, as well as Cousins' little skeptical conflict at the beginning, and the end that crazy joy.

ESPN and other media reposted the GIF, and LeBron and other fans liked it one after another. Big baby Davis emphasized that Rondo would do the same.

Amidst the many compliments, the Kings flew to Portland overnight to challenge the Trail Blazers in back-to-back away games. Su Yang woke up early in the morning to replay the game against the Nuggets. He found that Thomas Jr. only took 9 shots in the game, and his scoring efficiency was quite high. Efficiency lags behind.

The Kings started five times, Cousins ​​had a defensive efficiency of 89, Antetokounmpo 87, Millsap 92, Thornton 102, Thomas Jr. 103, which led to Thomas Jr.'s offensive value not being fully reflected, which is a waste of resource allocation and needs to be improved .

In the twinkling of an eye at six o'clock in the afternoon, the Kings Blazers started playing.

Limited by the lack of physical strength in continuous combat and too many points lost in the backcourt defense, the Kings fought hard for four quarters and finally lost to the Trail Blazers 97 to 104. The five-game winning streak came to an end. Pu and others had a maximum of 35 points.

The whole team flew back to Sacramento, according to the schedule, ready to face the visiting Brooklyn Nets, the legendary Big Five.

When it came to training on the game day, Su Yang called the whole team together and spoke: "We started with 5 wins and 1 loss, and our record is second in the league, but we have not been recognized. This time against the five giant Nets is our opportunity, and we are going to die Playing the Nets..."

(End of this chapter)