Bishop of the Abyss

Chapter 34 34. Wolf and Horse War
On January 1, the Timberwolves ushered in the team's first game after entering January, and it was also a high-profile focus battle.

In this game, the Timberwolves will sit at home to meet the challenge of the San Antonio Spurs.

In recent seasons, the Spurs have been one of the league's biggest favorites to win the championship. Before the start of this season, the Spurs' winning odds once reached the top of the list, even more promising than the defending champion Pistons.

The reason is because the league has revised the rules of the game in the new season, among which the most unfavorable to the Pistons is planning the handcheck as a defensive foul.

This also means that the league does not allow defensive players to make any hand and forearm contact with players holding the ball outside the penalty area. Defensive players can only rely on sliding and walking to judge the opponent's offensive direction.

This reform is basically to push the league into the offensive era and suppress teams like the Pistons that rely on close combat.

Otherwise, what the audience will see will always be a group of big men on the field constantly flexing their muscles. This kind of reckless defensive play is really boring and boring.

As of now, the Spurs temporarily rank fourth in the league, second only to the Timberwolves, Suns and Pistons.

In addition, Duncan and Garnett are definitely the two strongest power forward players in the current league, so fans have been looking forward to this game for a long time, and want to see who can have the last laugh in this wolf-horse battle.

It is worth mentioning that the Spurs are currently considered by many fans to be one of the dirtiest teams in the league, especially small forward Bruce Bowen, who is a player that everyone hates very much.

If players like Big Ben and Artest play fiercely on the court, then Bowen's playing style on the court is absolutely dirty.

Compared with other villains, Bruce Bowen always thinks about how to disable a player, and actions such as stepping, flying kicks and criminals are even more commonplace.

However, since Luke took over the Timberwolves coach in the new season, the Timberwolves have been branded with the four characters of "extremely vicious".

Head coach Luke is even more representative of the league's use of violence to control violence, so many people want to see what kind of state Bruce Bowen will become when he meets this Timberwolves.

Whether he will still play dirty as usual, or become submissive under the deterrence of the Timberwolves, even if most fans think that Bowen will definitely become a cowardly dog.

The Spurs' defensive ability is very strong this season, and they mainly rely on the troika to score on the offensive end.

Overall, the Spurs are a team that wins on defense. This season's 87.4 points per game is second only to the Pistons, ranking second in the league.

However, on the offensive end, the Spurs' ability is obviously a little bit broken. Except for the troika, the average points per game of the entire team are not in double figures. Even Bruce Bowen, who has the fourth highest score in the team, is only 8.4 points only.

Before the start of the game, Luke stood on the sidelines and did not explain anything to Garnett and others. Instead, he pulled his former disciple Nehbar to keep exhorting.

It seems that Luke intends to mention Nehbar to the starting lineup, because Nehbar has changed his rest clothes and is preparing to warm up with Garnett and others.

I don't know what Luke's plan is for this game, but the reason why Luke didn't explain too much to Garnett is because Garnett and Duncan have a high probability of exploding each other on the court.

With Duncan's offensive stability, even if Garnett is at the peak of his career and his defensive dominance has reached the highest level in history, if he wants to lock Duncan in one-on-one, it is somewhat difficult.

After all, Garnett's real strength lies in switching defenses and replenishing defenses. With a height of two meters and one by one, Garnett has the lateral movement speed that can switch defenses against smaller players. This is where Garnett really has no solution.

"Remember what I said before. Manu's breakthrough route is difficult to judge. You must maintain a good center of gravity. This should not be difficult for you."

"If Manu still gets past your line of defense, then there will naturally be someone behind you to help defend you." Looking at the slightly excited Nehbar, Luke subconsciously straightened his tie, and began to look forward to Nehbar's relationship with Nehbar. Matchup between Ginobili.

Today's Ginobili has not been placed on the bench by Popovich, and the "Demon Sword", whose hair is still alive, has always appeared as a starting guard.

The reason why Luke chose to put Nehbar in the starting lineup was mainly because neither Madman nor Szczerbiak was suitable for defending a player of Ginobili's type.

Relatively speaking, Nehbar, who was born in Europe, will be more familiar with Ginobili's style of play. After all, most of the shooting guards in European leagues are like Ginobili, who reduce physical confrontation and mainly use rhythm to complete kills.

In this regard, Nehbar has a lot of defensive experience, which is definitely better than the reckless madman and the slow-moving Szczerbiak.

After the game started, the Spurs got the ball first. The Spurs' starting lineup for this game is: Parker, Ginobili, Bowen, Duncan, and Nesterovic.

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

At the beginning of the game, the Timberwolves did not defend the zone. Instead, they used the most standard man-to-man defense, which was completely opposite to the defensive strategies of other teams when they played against the Spurs.

Because the Spurs' offensive ability this season is average, and Popovich is still the coach who hates three-pointers the most in the league today.

Therefore, most teams in the league will defend the zone defense when playing against the Spurs, mainly focusing on the inside.

Especially when the Spurs can only hit 6 three-pointers per game, the Spurs' lethality outside the three-point line can basically be ignored.

However, unlike other coaches, Luke knows that if he defends the zone defense against this Spurs team, there is a high probability that he will be blocked by Ginobili.

After all, even the Pistons, a top zone defense team, were beaten by Ginobili in the finals. Luke, who knows this well, naturally doesn't want to try.

Even though Luke is very arrogant on weekdays, he is not so arrogant that the Timberwolves' defense is stronger than the Pistons.

Facing the Timberwolves' man-to-man defense, Parker played very smartly on the offensive end, knowing that Duncan would not be able to take advantage of Garnett at this point. A group of disparities.

Kassel is 35 years old this year, and his movement speed has become very slow. He is naturally at a disadvantage against the young Parker.

So Parker played pick-and-roll with center Nesterovic at the beginning of the game. He continued to kill Kassel at this point, and succeeded in mid-range jumpers for two consecutive offensive rounds.

As for why Parker didn't use conventional play to partner with Duncan in the pick-and-roll, it was mainly because Parker didn't dare.

Parker is afraid that Garnett will help him after the pick-and-roll, and Garnett's excellent movement speed can definitely ensure that Parker will return to Duncan the moment the ball is released.

In this case, Parker can only choose to play pick-and-roll with Nesterovic. Even if Nesterovic has no shooting threat in the high post, Parker can only choose this way.

Seeing that Parker scored two consecutive open goals against Kassel at the beginning of the game, Luke sat down below the court expressionless, as if he had expected this situation a long time ago.

Or in other words, this is exactly the offensive system that Luke wants the Spurs to implement, at least there is no emotional fluctuation on Luke's face.

Even when Parker chose to make an emergency stop after the pick-and-roll for the third time, Luke still had a sneer on the corner of his mouth.

(End of this chapter)