Bishop of the Abyss

Chapter 17 17. "The Great General's Criticism Meeting!"

February 12.
Entering December, the first opponent the Timberwolves face will be the Washington Wizards.

Last season, the Wizards only had a record of 25 wins and 57 losses, ranking third from the bottom in the Eastern Conference.

In the new season, the Wizards are currently ranked fifth in the Eastern Conference without much change in the overall lineup. It all starts with the acquisition of Antawn Jamison in the offseason.

This summer, the Wizards acquired Antawn Jamison from the Mavericks through a trade. It was the arrival of Jamison that allowed the Wizards to get rid of the hat of a big team and officially promoted to a playoff team. Team.

In fact, Jamison has proven himself as early as the Warriors, and in the 00-01 season, Jamison also averaged 25 points, 9 rebounds and 2 assists per game.

However, Jamison, who was traded to the Mavericks last season, was not comfortable. In the Mavericks, Jamison could only play as a sixth man.

且场均数据也从02—03赛季的场均22分7篮板2助攻，下降至15分6篮板以及1助攻。

This unpleasant way of getting along naturally made Jamison feel dissatisfied, so Jamison asked the team to trade himself during the offseason, and turned to the Wizards to join forces with the "General" to attack the championship.

As one of the few big players in today's league who has made a name for himself through shooting, Jamison's game performance has always been very stable, and his shooting percentage has remained above 45% all year round.

Last season, Jamison shot a career-high 53 percent and hit 40 percent of his three-pointers.

The arrival of Jamison has added another helper to the general, making the Wizards even stronger this season.

At present, the Wizards also have "General" Arenas, "CIC King" Larry Hughes, and Jamison, three players with full offensive firepower.

And as of now, the three have averaged more than 20 points per game, and the "General" Arenas has averaged 26.7 points per game, ranking fifth in the league.

Therefore, facing a team like the Wizards who is purely bayonet on the offensive end, whether they can limit the general's offensive firepower is definitely the key to whether the Timberwolves can win the game.

Considering the average defensive ability of the Timberwolves back line, this game will be a test for the "alien" Cassel and the head coach Luke.

After all, although the Timberwolves' defensive efficiency can be ranked among the top five in the league, when facing some teams with the league's top guards, the Timberwolves' defense will always be blown to pieces.

Although Luke felt helpless about this, he never had a good solution.

As the saying goes, you can't have both fish and bear's paws. Even though the Timberwolves are sitting on the back line with defensive giant Trenton Hassell, Hassell's offensive ability is really too broken.

If you choose to replace Hassell, it means that Luke must accept the fact that there is one less player on the offensive end to participate in the offense.

This also led to Luke rarely letting Hassell stay on the court for a long time except in the final stage of deciding the outcome of the game.

Because Hassel is a double-edged sword, his performance on both ends of the offense and defense is too extreme. The whole person is a bit similar to Robertson of the later Thunder, so Luke has to use it carefully.

Before the start of the game, players from both sides warmed up for shooting in their respective halfs, while Luke pulled Garnett aside alone and told him: "We will defend a 3-2 zone defense in this game, and I will arrange you in the The right side, so you have to watch your defensive moves."

"If you commit too many fouls, then the zone defense will naturally break down and the team will be passive."

For this game, Luke arranged a defensive tactic in advance, that is, let the players defend the three-two zone defense.

The position of the three-two defense is mainly to block shots and empty the basket. Like the two-three defense, it can be regarded as a targeted defensive tactic.

It's just that the second and third defenses mainly defend the penalty area, and the third and second defenses mainly defend shooting.

As for Luke putting Garnett on the right side, the main reason is that Arenas and Larry Hughes are both good at attacking from the right side.

Therefore, Garnett's defensive task in this game will be very important. Once Garnett is troubled by fouls, it will be a heavy blow.

"Also, remember what I said, you just need to be stuck in Gilbert's offensive line. Once he breaks into the inside, Karl will naturally help you defend."

"At this time, you must not go to the basket with Carl at the same time, because the entire right side can only rely on you and Wally to defend the outside line, especially the bottom corner. No one can help you in that position." Lu Ke will repeat the schematic diagram drawn in advance to Garnett, even though Garnett already knows the position of the three-two zone defense very well.

"Don't worry, no one can score arbitrarily in my defensive area, Kobe can't, and Gilbert can't." Putting on his braces, Garnett has always maintained confidence in himself.

After the game started, the Wizards got the ball first. The Wizards' starting lineup for this game is: Arenas, Larry Hughes, Jamison, Kwame Brown, and Haywood.

A standard twin-tower lineup is also the most common match in this era.

The Timberwolves are still: Cassel, Madman, Szczerbiak, Garnett, and Karl Malone.

As soon as the game started, the Wizards took the lead in starting to exert their strength. This season, the Wizards' play style has always been very simple, that is, let go of the three guns on the outside, and the two towers on the inside desperately grab.

After all, the Wizards' twin-tower configuration is too cheap. Whether it is Kwame Brown or Heywood, both of them have average low-post offensive capabilities.

In most cases, the score is completed by the second attack after grabbing the offensive rebound, or the two-handed dunk after receiving the pass from the teammate.

On the defensive end, Wizards head coach Eddie Jordan couldn't help frowning when the Timberwolves defended a three-two zone defense at the beginning of the game.

Because in Eddie Jordan's view, the Timberwolves dared to defend the three-two zone defense unscrupulously on the court, because they were sure that the Wizards' offensive ability of the inside twin towers was average.

As long as there is an existence like Gasol in the Wizards Twin Towers, the Timberwolves will never dare to defend the three-two zone defense, which has a huge internal loophole.

But Eddie Jordan has nothing to do about this. After all, every family has hard-to-read scriptures. Reinforcement is never something that the head coach can do as he wants.

Although his name is Jordan, he is often kicked (Eddie) in front of the general manager.

The Timberwolves' three-two defense on the field is obviously very effective. In the first few offensive rounds, the Wizards' offensive hot spots have been occupied by Timberwolves players.

This also caused the Wizards to have to find ways to hit the ball more to the basket, because the Timberwolves' defensive center of gravity has always been outside, whether it is mid-range or three-point shooting, they must withstand huge defensive pressure.

On the contrary, the Wizards put much less pressure on the interior defense, so after two strikes, Arenas began to attack the basket with the ball, intending to use a breakthrough to break the Timberwolves' three-two defense.

However, although Arenas had a good idea, he obviously underestimated Luke's formation.

The reason why Luke placed Garnett on the right side was because of Arenas' offensive habits.

Knowing that he is used to breaking through from the right side after using the pick-and-roll, this leads to when Arenas starts to break through with the ball inside, he has to face a triple defense, the second of which is played by "Wolf King" Garnett .

This defensive method of moving directly to the right after the pick-and-roll made Arenas obviously not used to it.

Even though Arenas is not completely incapable of attacking from the left, Arenas' offensive efficiency on the left is obviously lower than that on the right.

In this way, a more interesting picture appeared on the field, that is, Arenas has no shot space at the mid-range position.

When breaking through to the inside, Garnett can always get stuck in his breakthrough route, driving Arenas to the left side, or simply passing the ball to the inside.

However, the offensive ability of the Wizards Twin Towers is still very average when breaking through the ball. With Karl Malone sitting in the penalty area, whether it is Kwame Brown or Heywood, it is difficult for both of them to score easily.

This scene really made the general feel uncomfortable, and even once made a shot two meters away from the three-point line, as if he was using this method to vent the unhappiness in his heart.

As time passed quietly, the Timberwolves played steadily on both offense and defense throughout the first quarter.

Especially after getting used to the general's offensive rhythm, Garnett's supplementary defense has become faster and faster, and he can basically get stuck on the breakthrough route of the two one step ahead.

Forcing Arenas to make some difficult shots of head-on defense, and such difficult shots will naturally reduce the general's offensive efficiency.

From this point of view, the Timberwolves' defense in the first quarter was very successful.

Although inside center Haywood scored eight points in a single quarter, the Timberwolves led the Wizards by 6 points at the end of the first quarter, ending the very painful "generals' criticism meeting" in this quarter!
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(End of this chapter)