NBA: The man who passed the ball to Yao Ming

Chapter 160 Thorough crushing, rare in team history

The head coach of the Grizzlies, Mike Fratello, looked ashen. As far as the current situation on the field and the momentum of the opponent are concerned, he should indeed call a timeout immediately to give his players a chance to take a breather.

However, after the last game that caused huge trouble for the Rockets but ultimately lost, he and his players have made sufficient preparations for this match against Houston, vowing to take down the Rockets in this game. , shocked the Union.

If a timeout is called in the opening 4 minutes, it is tantamount to declaring that their pre-match preparations are completely invalid. In that case, the blow to morale will be too great.

In the end, the Grizzlies coach gritted his teeth, put the hand that had been raised in mid-air by his mouth, and shouted to his players: "It's okay, everyone, don't worry, and play according to the pre-match deployment. Gasol, You play one inside and help us stabilize the morale of the army."

Pau Gasol nodded, and after entering the frontcourt, he immediately stood to the right of the free throw line and successfully received a pass from Stoudemire.

At this time, defending Pau Gasol was the former backbone of the Grizzlies' perimeter defense, Sean Battier.

This is another test of Van Gundy's defensive lineup by taking advantage of Zhang Jinshui's strong performance during this period.

He replaced Birdman Anderson with Sprewell, let him play the shooting guard position, and pushed McGrady and Shane Battier to the small forward and power forward positions in turn.

Battier, who is clearly at a disadvantage in height, has shown his defensive IQ well.

He stuck tightly in front of Pau Gasol, leaving no room for the opponent to comfortably shoot directly.

After Gasol made a shot fake and dribbled inside, Battier took advantage of his slight advantage in movement speed and followed the opponent well.

In the end, although Sean Battier couldn't stop the opponent from rushing into the inside to complete the layup, his defense still successfully interfered with the opponent and let the opponent's layup bounce out of the frame.

"Good job, Battier." Van Gundy on the sidelines immediately applauded Sean Battier loudly.

This is just a 20-10 defense, but as long as Pau Gasol can be suppressed at the [-]+[-] level of an ordinary All-Star, without a superb performance, it will be of great help to the Rockets.

Who would have thought that the person that the Rockets found to limit the strongest point of the Grizzlies turned out to be the Grizzlies' former abandoner Sean Battier.

On the other side of the bench, Mike Fratello's face became even uglier.

Since last season, it was he who put Battier, who was relatively defensive, on the bench, and reused Mike Miller, who was good at offense.

And Sean Battier was kicked out this time, and it also happened under his leadership.

At least judging from this game, it seems like a funny drama of lifting a rock and shooting yourself in the foot.

Mike Flatlow still supported himself and repinned his hopes on the defensive round.

As long as Zhang Jinshui and the Rockets can be successfully contained on the defensive end, the Grizzlies will have a chance to breathe. He clapped his hands vigorously again and shouted to the Grizzlies on the field: "Run, defend one, Guard against one."

It's a pity that Zhang Jinshui, who took the ball into the frontcourt, looked up, and a purple light just flashed on the Grizzlies' basket.

The purple badge [Fulin Xinzhi] is activated.

Without any hesitation, Zhang Jinshui jumped up two and a half steps before the top of the arc, and shot a signature ultra-long three-pointer.

With strong confidence in Zhang Jinshui, almost all the audience at the Toyota Center raised their hands while the basketball was still gliding high in the sky, ready to celebrate at any time.

As the basketball focused everyone's attention, it flew to the highest point and then fell, and finally only heard the crisp sound of "swipe", and entered the net hollowly.

The sky above the Toyota Center immediately echoed with cheers from mountains and tsunami.

The voice of "MVP" also rang out in unison again.

"Beep" a whistle, Mike Fratello had to call a timeout.

Although he still wanted to hold on, if he didn't call a timeout, it wouldn't be a simple matter of failure in all the careful preparations before the game.

The demoralized Grizzlies are likely to be crushed into the dust by the Rockets led by Zhang Jinshui in the first quarter and lose the game directly.

After Zhang Jinshui landed, he raised three fingers of his right hand and vigorously shook them in the air.

Sprewell on the side rushed up excitedly, bumped shoulders with Zhang Jinshui in the air, and laughed heartily: "Zhang Jinshui, you are simply amazing, let me just say that you barely beat me yesterday The state, today will definitely beat the Grizzlies to find the north."

Zhang Jinshui glanced at this guy helplessly, not knowing for a while whether this guy was praising him or praising himself.

Yao Ming, McGrady and other players also surrounded him. Yao Ming rubbed Zhang Jinshui's head in relief, while McGrady looked "dissatisfied" and shouted: "What's the matter? Those who come to kill the Quartet, how come they become soy saucers?"

Zhang Jinshui smiled and apologized, and walked to the bench surrounded by his teammates.

At this time, the voice of "MVP" in the stands still did not stop.

In the previous games, Zhang Jinshui has caused the Rockets fans to cheer and scream countless times, but the most common voice of the fans is "Shenzhen Shot", and there are not many voices of "MVP".

As far as Zhang Jinshui himself is concerned, he was somewhat against the voice of "MVP" before.

After all, beside him, there are two superstars, Yao Ming and Tracy McGrady.

Zhang Jinshui initially positioned himself as the helper of Yao and Mai, and he didn't want to cover up the light of the two too much.

However, after playing 10 airport games together, the relationship between Zhang Jinshui and Yao Mai has become more and more harmonious, and his own strength has become stronger and stronger. Deep in his heart, he no longer rejects being the one who stands in front of Yao Ming and McGrady Go for the people who cheer.

Today, Zi Chunlin was sitting next to the Rockets bench. When passing by his girlfriend, Zhang Jinshui raised his right hand and pointed to the stands, as a thank you to the Rockets fans who shouted "MVP".

At the same time, he gave his girlfriend a dirty look.

This time, Zi Chunlin looked at him with eyes full of admiration and pride in his smile.

Taking advantage of this timeout, Van Gundy made adjustments to the lineup again, replacing McGrady and letting him rest early. He played with a substitute lineup at the beginning of the second quarter and replaced JR Smith at the same time.

Sean Battier will continue to stay in the defensive position of power forward, defending the Grizzlies' only arrow figure, Pau Gasol.

Zhang Jinshui can probably feel that Van Gundy continues to make these attempts at the power forward position, and the ultimate goal should be the Mavericks' Nowitzki and the Spurs' Tim Duncan.

After all, those two teams are not only the Rockets' opponents in the Southwest Division, but also two stumbling blocks that the Rockets must bypass if they want to break through the West.

However, Sean Battier's ability to provide a defensive possibility at the position of power forward is already the limit, and it is difficult to exert his top defensive strength on the outside.

After the timeout ended, the Grizzlies returned to the field and continued to pass the ball to Pau Gasol inside. Although Battier's defense was still effective, it could not prevent Pau Gasol from entering with his back against him. After range, he turned and hooked, hitting a 4-of-2 offensive success rate.

However, Battier has done his homework to be able to limit Pau Gasol to an average All-Star power forward on the defensive end.

To continue to control the situation on the field, we still have to rely on offense.

Because of Zhang Jinshui's fiery state, Grizzlies guard Amare Stoudemire did not dare to let him go to double-team Yao Ming.

Yao Ming, who has also adjusted his mental and physical strength to the best state today, will naturally not miss such an opportunity.

Facing the one-on-one defense of blue-collar center Lorenzen White, Yao Ming first kicked off his scoring prelude with a quick turnaround jumper after receiving the ball.

Immediately afterwards, Yao Ming began to use low-post singles skills again, pressing Lorenzen White into the three-second zone, attacking the opponent's basket with a turning hook, and when the opponent shrank the defense, he decisively distributed the ball to Spur on the outside Revell and JR Smith.

Nine minutes into the first quarter, Yao efficiently made 9 of 5 shots in the paint and also assisted JR Smith to hit an open three-pointer from the corner.

Coupled with a mid-range shot from Sean Battier, the Rockets' lead further expanded to 26-12.

Yao Ming and Zhang Jinshui, the twin stars of Huaguo, broke out continuously on the outside and inside, completely splitting the Grizzlies' defensive system.

By this time, the Grizzlies, which had been united at the beginning of the game, were completely bewildered, and a sense of helpless despair began to spread among their coaches and players.

The Grizzlies coach had to call a timeout again, trying to help the Grizzlies make some adjustments.

However, Big Mouth Barkley and Kenny Smith, who hadn't appeared at the Rockets game for a long time, directly asserted from the sidelines that all struggles are futile, and the Grizzlies will undoubtedly lose today.

Lahm, the host of SB with glasses, also tried to refute, claiming that the game has only started half a quarter, and it is too early to draw conclusions.

Barkley, the big mouth, was too lazy to chat with this "water black" who always used some wrong ideas to find the sense of existence, and directly threw out his bet invitation: "If the Grizzlies win, I will give you 100 million dollars!" Guobi, if the Rockets win, you just need to give me 1 beautiful Guobi, do you dare to bet with me?"

This is a huge odds of 1 to 100, but Ram, who has always claimed that the Grizzlies still have a chance, obediently accepted it.

Kenny Smith on the side laughed loudly: "There are so many words in the mouth, but the body is still very honest."

And the next process of the game also directly proved that the judgments of Big Mouth Barkley and Kenny Smith were correct.

Even though Van Gundy had put Zhang Jinshui and Yao Ming on the bench together in advance, with Madman Sprewell and JR Smith as the main firepower, the Rockets continued their fiery state.

Especially Sprewell, watching Zhang Jinshui and Yao Ming perform in turns, the madman who had swallowed several mouthfuls of saliva, immediately borrowed Chuck Hayes' pick-and-roll to enter the inside line, against Pau Gasol's The defense stumbled the ball into the basket.

After the goal, Sprewell flexed his arms proudly and yelled "softie" at Pau Gasol, which caused another burst of excited cheers from the stands at the Toyota Center.

In addition, JR Smith hit a three-pointer without hesitation from the outside. The two led the Rockets to continue to ravage the main Grizzlies. At the end of the first quarter, the score on the court became 34 to 14. The Rockets led the Grizzlies by 20 points.

In the second quarter, McGrady, who had been gearing up for a while on the bench, was finally on the court. Naturally, he would not let this unilateral slaughter end.

Facing the defense of his friend Mike Miller, McGrady made two consecutive unreasonable pull-up jumpers as soon as he came up, directly opening the point difference to 24 points.

At this time, anyone with a discerning eye can see that the Grizzlies have been completely stunned.

However, McGrady had no intention of holding back at all. On the defensive end, he directly intercepted the pass from the opponent's backup guard to Swift, drove straight in with the ball, and directly completed a one-handed dunk.

Now, McGrady's emotional lingering is not as simple as simply winning a game, he just wants to score and ravage the opponent.

Immediately afterwards, McGrady once again successfully interfered with Mike Miller's long-range three-point shot, and McGrady brought the ball to the frontcourt. After using Birdman Anderson's pick-and-roll to enter the inside line, he threw the ball high and assisted Birdman. Feitian, complete an alley-oop smash that can be selected as the top five balls.

So far, only 3 minutes into the second quarter, McGrady has helped the Rockets score 8 points, while the Grizzlies have not scored a single point.

The score on the field has come to an exaggerated 42 to 14, and the Rockets lead the Grizzlies by as much as 28 points.

The Grizzlies had to call the third timeout of the game again.

In less than a quarter and a half of the game, leading by 28 points and forcing the opponent to call three timeouts in a row, such a crazy performance is rare in the history of the Rockets.

The stands of the Toyota Center turned into a large-scale fun scene again. Fans from all walks of life were singing, dancing, or throwing popcorn and ribbons in the air, wantonly venting their inner excitement.

Beside the media area, fans kept shouting to the camera that turned around: "See, this is our Rockets!" "See, this is the true strength of our Yao Maishui."

And the atmosphere on the Rockets' bench, driven by Sprewell, was much better than the stands at the Toyota Center.

When Birdman Anderson walked off the court, Sprewell ran up and jumped on Birdman Anderson's back, shouting: "Brothers, I want to watch the halftime clock, I don't care, I want to watch halftime Check in."

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