super heavy artillery

Chapter 889 Transformation
Throughout the first half, the Lakers were in the lead.

Judging from the process of the game, neither the Lakers nor the Thunder played very well on the defensive end.Although both sides will spend a lot of effort in each offensive round, they can still score.However, from an efficiency point of view, the Lakers are more efficient.After all, most of their points come from the inside, or even the penalty area, which is much more stable than the Thunder's constant bow and arrow shooting outside the three-point line.

An Luo is still the mainstay for the Thunder to stabilize their position.With his continuous output on the offensive end, the Thunder can at least guarantee that the opponent will not widen the point difference when they are at a disadvantage when they cannot limit the opponent's scoring well.

At the end of the first half, the score was fixed at 72:65.The away game is in front, and the home game is in the back.

Judging from the score, the two sides are more like a half-court battle.But the actual situation is not the same.Whether it's the Lakers or the Thunder, the players put in as much energy on the defensive end as they do on the offensive end.It can only be said that the players on both sides are too strong!Whether it is the handling of the ball or the mutual cooperation between the players, they are all sharp weapons for them to overcome the opponent's tight defense.After the perfect combination of personal ability and tactical system, it is difficult to limit his scoring through defense.

The Thunder were able to score 30+ points in the first two quarters, and they played very well in the game.You know, although the number of offensive rounds in each game has increased a lot, players have a lot more chances to score, and the scores of the team and players have also increased accordingly, but the Thunder's average points per game this season is still less than 120.Under such circumstances, scoring 65 points at halftime is basically a great advantage when other teams play against each other.But they are still 7 points behind!This shows how terrifying such a Laker is.

Of course, the Lakers also have some problems.Their starting lineup played a little too much in the first two quarters.Although there are strong players such as Rondo, Howard, and Kuzma on the bench, their performance in tonight's game was not good, or even a little poor.

Kuzma didn't seem to be ready to win. During the 12 minutes he played in the first half, he was like sleepwalking, which was simply a nightmare for the Lakers.In fact, this season, when Davis joined the Lakers, Kuzma could only return to the bench and wait for the opportunity.Such a change has indeed caused great discomfort to this young man who is playing well.Therefore, in this season, Kuzma's performance has not been very stable.Sometimes super god, sometimes super ghost.

In the NBA, every player is special, and Kuzma is no exception.In the first two seasons of his career, Kuzma's state and personal abilities surprised the Lakers.After all, as an older rookie late in the first round, there really isn't much training value.But this guy just relied on his own ability, seized that not-so-good opportunity, and played far beyond his draft pick.

As a rookie at the end of the first round, he performed well in his first year, averaging 16.1 points and 6.3 rebounds per game.It can be said that because the Lakers did not have any stars at the time, rookies could get more opportunities.In the second year of his career, LeBron came to the Lakers.This season, Kuzma's data rose to 18.7 points and 5.5 rebounds.

You know, not all forwards can integrate well with LeBron.At this point, neither Bosh nor Love have done a good job.After all, these two guys were the team's leading stars before, and suddenly became the second or even third choice of a team. After losing a lot of possessions, their performance was not very good.But at this point, Kuzma has done a good job.

As he grows older, James' offensive threat has indeed declined to a certain extent.This point, even if this guy can often score 30+ points in the game, he still can't hide it.What's more, James has never been a scoring expert in people's perception.Therefore, there must be someone who is good at scoring by James' side.It just so happens that apart from scoring, Kuzma's performance in other aspects is indeed not very outstanding.In the game, he can use various methods to score.Has a good shooting percentage from the outside line, also has a good small hook and small drop shot at the basket, and is quite good at air cuts...

In fact, the Lakers still have high expectations for Kuzma.In the big deal of the Pelicans, although the Lakers seem to have kept the most worthless Kuzma, few people know that Kuzma is also the same as Ingram and Ball in the Pelicans' asking price. The young man whom the other party covets so much.In the end, the Lakers sent away Ingram, Ball and Hart, but kept Kuzma instead.But this is definitely not because Kuzma took off the No. [-] pick in the lottery ceremony to "save himself".For this reason, only those fans who watched the excitement would think that way.

In this season's game, Kuzma has not always performed sluggishly.In fact, whenever Davis is resting, Kuzma plays the fourth position of the trick and can always perform amazingly.

The Lakers played against the Pacers a few days ago, and Davis missed the game due to injury.But the Lakers did not lose, because Kuzma stood up.In this campaign, he made 24 of 16 shots and scored 42 points.What's even more terrifying is that because of the huge lead, he didn't play in the last quarter at all, and scored 29 points in 42 minutes.In that game, although James also contributed 22 points and 12 assists, in comparison, Kuzma was more like the one who led the team to victory.

But tonight's Kuzma did not perform well.The shot is not allowed, and the defense is out of shape.This situation, accompanied by most of the nights he came off the bench.Perhaps, Kuzma is not born to play off the bench.

Of course, Howard has a lot of problems, but everyone does not blame him.After all, the current Howard is no longer the omnipotent Warcraft back then!It's good that he can provide some help to the team on both ends of the offense and defense.

The Lakers' problems aren't limited to the bench.In fact, apart from Kuzma's poor performance, Danny Green is the player who disappointed everyone the most.He shot poorly from [-]-point range and contributed little to nothing offensively.However, Danny Green's performance has long been familiar to everyone.

In this case, Vogel can only grit his teeth and let the main players play a lot more time in the game.Although he doesn't want to do that, there are always a few games in the long regular season that need to be treated with caution.Maybe it has nothing to do with rankings, but it is also worthwhile to expose more things to those imaginary enemies in the playoffs.

During the intermission, the Chesapeake Energy Arena staged a unique performance-face changing.

In fact, since Yao Ming became famous in the NBA, many cultural performances with Chinese characteristics have become active in this league.Of course, it was more at the Toyota Center in Houston.Later, Yao Ming retired, and the Chinese players disappeared in this league, so these performances were also less.Until An Luo turned out to be born, everything began to recover again.The difference is that the location of the show was moved from Houston to Oklahoma.

In charge of the performance is a troupe from the Shu capital of the Celestial Dynasty, which is sure to be famous in the local area.As a skill that has been passed down for a long time, face changing is not only quite popular in the Shu capital, but also famous in the entire Celestial Dynasty.

A face that was alive and well, hot and trembling, as fast as the wind and lightning, with a brick of the head and a blink of the eyes, exquisite and exquisite.

Although in the capital of Shu, everyone has long been accustomed to this kind of performance, but in distant Oklahoma, this kind of art that only exists in the mysterious east made the audience suspicious and mesmerized.

However, for the two warring parties, whether it is Vogel or Donovan, whether it is James, Davis, Westbrook, and An Luo, they don't have any thoughts to pay attention to the excitement in the stadium.Two quarters have already been played, and both sides are very clear about their opponents.No one thinks this is an easy game, but until now, the players have become more and more uncertain.

Donovan took his own tactical board and carefully analyzed some problems that the players had in the first half of the game. The players gathered around him and listened quietly, including Westbrook and An Luo. .In fact, many times it is not that the players become unable to play, but that they are not very able to feel their own problems during the game, and even make various judgments and choices out of instinct.This is the reason why the so-called authorities are obsessed with bystanders.But when those questions are asked, the players experience a sense of enlightenment.

But this is not the point. What Donovan wants to talk about is how to make these players avoid the same problems, and how to use the flaws exposed by the opponent to play an advantage.It wasn't easy, and Donovan was just able to share some of what he discovered with the players.

The same thing happened in another locker room.Don't look at the Lakers leading the score now, but Vogel really doesn't have much confidence in winning the game.It is impossible for him to keep James and Davis playing. The Thunder is a very important opponent, but in the end this is just a regular season.Winning or losing a regular season is far less important than the health of core players.

The half-time break passed quickly, and players from both sides returned to the field.Chesapeake Energy Arena immediately burst into extremely enthusiastic cheers.Although the mysterious face-changing performance made the audience feel a little bit reluctant, but everyone is still looking forward to the next game.

After a period of rest, whether it is the Lakers players or the Thunder players, whether it is mental or physical, everyone has been greatly relieved.Therefore, the players on both sides are the same as they were at the beginning of the first quarter.

The difference is that James did not stand in the first position.Danny Green's sluggishness made the Lakers' flank offense extremely weak, and the Lakers can only put their hopes on James.However, it is worth mentioning that the Lakers began to firmly occupy the initiative of the game after putting James back to the third position in the first half.

However, in the second half of the game, everything changed.

Donovan decisively changed his defensive formation to a 3-2 zone defense and shrunk the defense to within the three-point line.This is obviously a change made in response to the Lakers' frequent impact on the penalty area in the first half.Of course, there is another very important reason. The Lakers' outside offense is not very reliable tonight.Not to mention the 3D player Danny Green who no longer has "3", but Bradley and James have poor long-range shots.On the contrary, Davis, who is an inside player, still throws a three-pointer from time to time.

This change by Donovan immediately changed the Thunder's defense greatly.

As the interior became quite crowded, the Lakers began to try to score in the long distance.But their outside shooters and the firepower of role players really can't take on that kind of heavy responsibility.In fact, the Lakers' tactics are not bad, and they can basically pull out the open space.But if you can't make the shot, it's not enough to have a vacancy.The feel of this thing is really a fucking thing.When it’s good, you can throw in random throws; when it’s bad, you can’t throw it in even if the basket is as wide as the sea.

It is not a particularly serious problem to shoot or not.After all, for these professional players, especially those who are good at shooting, as long as they dare to shoot, they can always shoot.But there is a very important issue here, rebounds must be guaranteed.The Lakers have been suppressing the Thunder in this aspect in the first half.But in the second half, the Lakers had a big problem protecting the rebound.

Westbrook switched directly to the "center" state and grabbed several rebounds over McGee's head.It is true that there is Adams' perfect "cover" relationship, but the most important thing is Westbrook's toughness and the Lakers' slack.Due to Howard's passiveness on the offensive end, Vogel did not let him appear in the game too much.Without such a rebounding expert, the Thunder did have a better chance to live.

After Westbrook grabbed the rebound, the Thunder's offense became easier.They are very good at this kind of defensive counterattack and fast break. Westbrook's push forward and An Luo's chasing three-pointer, plus Gallinari, who has maintained a three-point shooting rate of [-]%, is supporting him. , The Thunder will basically not give the Lakers time to build a complete line of defense.

(End of this chapter)