Bishop of the Abyss

Chapter 46 46. Arresting the Phoenix "Drag Racing Party"

During the rest period, the team's offensive performance obviously made head coach D'Antoni look ugly.

The Suns are the team with the strongest offensive firepower in the league, and D'Antoni has always maintained full confidence in his offensive philosophy.

As a result, the Suns were not only slowed down by the Timberwolves in the first quarter, but also only scored 19 points in a single quarter defended by the Timberwolves. This is a shame in D'Antoni's view.

As an avid magic ball offensive coach, D'Antoni can tolerate his team being blown up on the defensive end, but he can't stand his team being restricted on the offensive end.

Especially when the Timberwolves are likely to become a threat to the Suns' championship, this makes D'Antoni feel a little irritable.

Back in the second quarter, the Timberwolves have the "alien" Cassel attacking in series, coupled with Karl Malone who is also placed on the bench, which also enriches the Timberwolves' offensive methods.

"Shua~" As Karl Malone hit this high jumper after receiving a pass from Cassel at the free throw line, the Timberwolves are gradually pulling the score toward double digits.

The Suns' bench lineup this season is actually not bad. "Brazilian Lightning" Barbosa and "Reaper" Smash Parker are all rotation players with outstanding personal abilities.

But the key is that D'Antoni's coaching habits are like this. D'Antoni doesn't like to reuse substitutes. In most cases, D'Antoni chooses to believe in the starter.

And the sun's regular rotation is 8 people. Only when the team leads or falls behind by a large score, D'Antoni will increase the number of rotations to 9 to 10 people.

Luke has known this for a long time. After all, D'Antoni used a seven-man rotation when coaching the Rockets in later generations, which can be described as very frenzied.

Throughout the second quarter, "Alien" Cassel and Barbosa completely exploded each other.

Barbosa's nickname is "Brazilian Lightning". From this point, it is not difficult to see that Barbosa's breakthrough speed is very fast, especially the acceleration of the first step, which can basically easily pass Kassel's defense.

Since there was no Garnett on the court to defend Kassel during this period of time, Kassel was typically powerless on the defensive end, and could only watch Barbosa rush into the inside again and again from his side.

However, Kassel, who has excellent court experience on the offensive end, can also play with Barbosa in applause.

Barbosa just entered the league last year. The 22-year-old Barbosa is still just a rookie. Against Kassel, who is good at using pick-and-rolls on the offensive end, what Barbosa can do is try to use speed to make up for his lack of experience. .

But Cassell is definitely a representative figure of the active league getting older and more demonic. If it is facing Nash, Cassell may not be able to play the court easily.

But when facing Barbossa, Luke suspects that Cassel is just letting him use half of his mind to trick Barbossa into a blind eye.

"Shu~"

"duo~"

Using the pick-and-roll to break through to the inside, Cassel once again fouled Barbosa on the court, and the basketball went into the basket, a perfect two-plus-one goal.

Seeing Kassel who fouled himself again, Barbosa stood on the field with his hands on his waist, with a helpless and helpless expression on his face, as if he was planning to start doubting life.

Counting this time, Cassel has already played two plus one in the second quarter, and used the pick-and-roll to play very smoothly with Karl Malone, which made Barbosa look somewhat embarrassed.

Especially when D'Antoni stood off the court and his face became more and more ugly, Barbosa only felt his heart beating faster, for fear of attracting D'Antoni's abuse after he left the court.

In the next period of time, D'Antoni began to bring the main players back to the field. At present, the Suns have fallen behind by double digits. This made D'Antoni completely lose confidence in his face, and he was more sighing and helpless standing on the scene. .

At the end of the second quarter, instead of the Suns failing to narrow the point difference, the Timberwolves extended their lead to 13 points.

After returning from the second half, Nehbar's performance on the offensive end was very eye-catching. Facing Nash, Nehbar was very aware of his physical advantages and could always make the best balance between offense and connecting teams.

Since Nehbar's shooting percentage can reach 36.7% from beyond the three-point line, compared to the "alien" Kassel, Nehbar's offensive hotspot can be regarded as covering half of the court, which also puts the already disadvantaged Nash became more difficult to guard.

First, using Garnett's pick-and-roll, Nehbar suddenly combined the ball and made a three-pointer from outside the three-point line. Then Nehbar passed the ball without looking at the fast break counterattack, and assisted Salmons to make an alley-oop. .

After these few offensive rounds, Nehbar has fully used his ball quotient to the extreme, using his body when he should use his body, and using his technology when he should use his technology.

This seemingly weak, but in fact free-wheeling style of play is the hallmark of European basketball.

European players rarely use their bodies when playing, and most of them use skills and tactics to create opportunities, which also makes outstanding European stars and NBA stars look out of place.

If American players are described as black and hard, then the most appropriate word to describe European players is white and soft. Sao.

Two different styles and systems can often exert the most favorable effects at different stages.

At the end of the third quarter, the Timberwolves still held a 12-point lead thanks to their excellent overall offensive and defensive performance.

In the last quarter, D'Antoni planned to break the boat. The substitute players only played for more than three minutes, and D'Antoni directly replaced the five main players. It seemed that he wanted to launch a counterattack in advance.

Faced with D'Antoni's oppressive substitution of overdrafting the main players' rest, Luke sat off the court with cold eyes, and he couldn't see his inner thoughts at all from his expression.

But at the same time, Luke did not act rashly, but carried out the rotation normally, making it clear that he did not intend to take the main force in advance to deal with D'Antoni's substitution.

At this stage, the Timberwolves were obviously at a disadvantage in the lineup, but the second team led by Cassel, "Penny" Hardaway and Karl Malone was still able to withstand the pressure very well, allowing the Suns to only narrow the score to 8 points.

With Luke also taking the main force in the last half of the quarter, the Timberwolves immediately suppressed the rhythm of the game, basically delaying every offensive round until the end of 24 seconds before completing the shot.

This kind of behavior obviously made the Suns who were behind in the score feel sick, especially when the Suns couldn't beat the Timberwolves in the positional battle. D'Antoni only felt that his current mood was like a fishbone stuck in his throat.

That obviously painful but helpless feeling of strangeness made D'Antoni really want to grab Luke by the collar and yell at him loudly: "Are you the one who studies basketball or me!"

Of course, D'Antoni can only think about this kind of thing in his mind, even if he gave D'Antoni ten courages, he would not dare to do it.

We all know Luke is a nut!
Who would care about a normal person like a lunatic!
Let me emphasize again, this is not cowardice, this is called Congxin!

Finally, the whole game ended. In this high-profile peak battle, Minnesota's "traffic police team" successfully arrested Phoenix's "motor car gang".

Pressing the speed of the sun below 60 mph all the way, I can only watch the Timberwolves win the game bit by bit in the positional battle.

There are many contributors to the Timberwolves' victory in this game. Strictly speaking, every player on the field contributed their strength.

Being able to defeat the sun is the result of everyone's concerted efforts.

But if you really want to find two core heroes, it is definitely Nehbar on the offensive end and the "Wolf King" on the defensive end.

进攻方面，内赫巴尔在登场33分钟的情况下交出了31分6篮板7助攻以及2次抢断。

Among them, 31 points are the third time Nehbar has scored more than 30+ points in a single game this season. From the perspective of a rookie, Nehbar can definitely afford the evaluation that his debut is the peak.

In terms of defense, Garnett's defense in this game is also a key factor for the Timberwolves to beat the Suns.

The Suns' scoring leader this season is the "Small Overlord" Stoudemire, who averaged 26 points and 9 rebounds per game.

Although Nash's performance is an important factor in determining the upper limit of the sun, Stoudemire's performance is completely related to the lower limit of the sun.

It's just a pity that Stoudemire, who is known for his mobility, encountered the defense of the peak Garnett in this game, which made Stoudemire have no advantage in terms of speed or strength.

Stoudemire was a little depressed by the feeling of having explosive power but nowhere to display it, as if she told you that you could only stand by the bed and watch when you had already taken off your pants.

At the same time, this game also made Stoudemire clearly aware of the gap between himself and Garnett.

No matter how mobile the "Little Overlord" is, it is only relative to the normal insiders, but Stoudemire gradually began to forget that there are always a few people in this league who are not normal!
In addition, Salmons, who had just ushered in the Timberwolves' debut and was sent by Luke to start, also performed well.

Although Salmons was at a disadvantage in the matchup with Joe Johnson, Salmons still handed over a data of 12 points, 2 rebounds and 2 steals.

Especially the defensive counterattacks in those chaotic games really impressed the fans.

After this battle, the fans don't know whether Salmons can get rid of the title of "good for nothing", but what the fans know now is that Luke is not only ruthless in character, but also so vicious in vision!

(End of this chapter)