Chapter 103 Victory in the first battle
"Richard, in the second half, you have to keep a close eye on that sophomore rookie and don't let him catch the ball so easily."

During the halftime break, Pistons head coach Larry Brown shouted to Hamilton that since the double team defense alone could not stop the opponent, let Hamilton follow him and prevent him from scoring.

If he is asked to keep running, he won't believe that there is anyone in this league who can compete with Hamilton in terms of physical strength.

The latter also nodded with a firm look in his eyes. Damn it, he would make that guy run until he vomited in the second half.

As for old Nelson, he didn't make any changes. They are still in the lead and it is not suitable to change the lineup easily. Let's wait and see what new tricks the Pistons will come up with.

However, he still emphasized the team's next focus.

"Pay attention to our defense, protect the rebounds, always pay attention to counterattack fast break opportunities, share the ball more, find the right outside shooting opportunities, and pass the ball to the right person.

I also need to emphasize one thing to you. In this game, we had a lot of physical contact with our opponents, but don't get into conflicts with them easily. I don't want you to leave the stadium or even be suspended.

But if they want to do something to us, especially if they want to hurt Zheng, I hope Eric and Josh can appear in front of Zheng in time.

We all know how important Zheng is to us!
If you need to pay a fine during this process, I will help you pay it."

Old Nelson looked at Dampier and Dachou. The two also understood what the head coach meant. He was worried that the Pistons would become desperate, so they deliberately angered Zheng Yang and then had a conflict with him and both left the court.

By then, it will be difficult for the Mavericks to compete with the Pistons without Zheng Yang.

Therefore, old Nelson must prevent such a situation from happening.

After hearing this, the two of them patted their chests and nodded.

"Don't worry, coach. We will protect Zheng."

……

The halftime break is over and the game continues.

The Pistons failed to score in their first attack after returning to the court, but they were not discouraged. Instead, they quickly returned to defense. At the same time, Hamilton came to Zheng Yang and stayed close to him.

Looking at the opponent's defensive formation, Zheng Yang immediately understood what the opponent meant. The opponent changed from a zone defense to a one-on-four zone, and this zone defense meant that Hamilton would guard Zheng Yang.

"There's no way you're gonna score any more points."

Hamilton shouted at Zheng Yang, who was speechless.

"Fuck you, can you have some f*cking manners? Can you stop being f*cking, f*cking!

No wonder the league's ratings have been declining over the years, the league's image has been ruined by you."

Hamilton: ???
How dare you say that to me?
Just say that your mother content is much higher than mine!
Who on earth destroyed the image of the alliance?
Zheng Yang was too lazy to engage in a verbal battle with him and forcibly received the ball by running.

Although the opponent's defense has changed, he has to shoot one first to know where the current difficulty in attack lies.

The first difficulty is catching the ball. Hamilton is not stupid. He will not wait until Zheng Yang receives the ball and is ready before going up to defend. He has been staring at Zheng Yang since he has no ball. Once Jason Terry shows any sign of wanting to pass the ball to him, he will immediately start to block for position with him.

After receiving the ball, Hamilton immediately pounced on him like a mad dog, opened his legs, lowered his center of gravity, and used his two long arms to constantly interfere with Zheng Yang's passing.

This may not necessarily steal the basketball, but it will make Zheng Yang's dribbling and offense more difficult, and this is Hamilton's purpose.

Of course, it is obviously a pipe dream to expect Zheng Yang to be unable to even sack the ball based on this alone. Zheng Yang is not a newcomer to the league. He is already the best scoring player in the league this season.

He also proved himself many times in the playoffs against higher-level opponents.

So Zheng Yang first squeezed out space for the ball and began to prepare for a breakthrough. At this time, Hamilton took a half step back. He had experienced the power of the opponent's breakthrough, so he needed to leave some reaction time.

Zheng Yang has a very good dribbling rhythm, and ordinary players don't dare to rush up to steal the ball easily, because there is a high probability that they will be passed by Zheng Yang in one step.

Smart Hamilton left Zheng Yang's left side empty in order to force the opponent to break through to the left.

Although this guy has balanced abilities with both hands, his left hand is relatively his weak side.

Moreover, Prince is waiting to assist in defense on the left. As long as Zheng Yang breaks through to the left, he will be double-teamed immediately, and the possibility of mistakes will greatly increase.

Zheng Yang understood the opponent's thoughts, but Hamilton's position at the moment made it difficult for him to break through to the right, so he could only rush to the left.

Before he had run two steps, Prince pounced over. His long arms covered Zheng Yang in an instant. He had no choice but to pass the ball.

Then he ran to the outside and waited for an opportunity, while Hamilton ran over to continue defending.

I have to say that Hamilton's defense is really good, definitely above the league average, worthy of being coached by Wizard Dan.

In addition, he has plenty of physical strength and can keep an eye on Zheng Yang all the time, so he will indeed cause Zheng Yang considerable trouble.

Without Zheng Yang's restraining power, the Mavericks' offense was frequently blocked in the next few rounds. They couldn't make shots from the outside or from the inside, and the score difference was tied in an instant.

Old Nelson had no choice but to choose to call a timeout. Now the Mavericks' offense had problems. If they were not solved in time, it would be difficult for the Mavericks to play next.

Old Nelson could see where the problem on the court lay, so he spoke to Zheng Yang.

"Zheng, we need you to play a role of running without the ball and then finishing. Although Hamilton will always keep an eye on you, if you can score the ball under his defense, the Pistons' defense will be torn apart, and then others will have the opportunity to attack."

As long as Zheng Yang can score the ball under Hamilton's defense, the Pistons will have to come up with new ways to limit Zheng Yang, so their current defensive formation will be broken.

The chances of other Mavericks players scoring will naturally increase.

However, it is not an easy task to score points explosively under Hamilton's defense. The opponent has good physical strength and is not slow, so it is difficult for Zheng Yang to get rid of him.

In other words, his shooting space will be very limited, and if he is not careful, he may be blocked or make a mistake.

The successful implementation of this plan depends on Zheng Yang's personal strength.

Zheng Yang never said no to the tasks assigned by old Nelson. Even if the opponent asked him to play one against five, Zheng Yang would just nod and say it was okay. After the timeout, Zheng Yang started his own off-ball running. It must be said that Hamilton's endurance is really amazing.

He had always heard about it before, but only until now when he was tightly entangled with him did Zheng Yang feel the horror of his talent.

No matter how many covers you use, the other party will catch up with you again, as if they don't feel any fatigue at all.

But the good news is that this is not a long-distance race. Zheng Yang only needs to use the screen to create a gap between himself and the opponent, and then complete the shot before the opponent catches up again.

Although this sounds difficult, it is completely doable.

First of all, Zheng Yang and Jason Terry have a great understanding of each other. The two have been working together for a whole season. The latter has made countless quick passes to Zheng Yang. The current situation does not put much pressure on him.

Secondly, Zheng Yang's shooting speed is very fast and his shooting point is very high. Hamilton is 1.98 meters tall and has a wingspan of 2.13 meters, which is still some distance away from Zheng Yang.

With the opponent's explosive power and jumping speed, it is impossible to completely interfere with Zheng Yang, so Zheng Yang can completely throw the ball before the opponent arrives.

After the basketball was flicked out by the fingertips, it kept spinning in the air and finally fell into the basket.

Zheng Yang's mid-range hit rate is quite high. After all, he usually pays great attention to training in this area. At this moment, when he is running quickly and stopping suddenly, as long as the opponent's defense cannot arrive in time, he is quite confident of scoring the ball.

After scoring two points, Zheng Yang shouted at Hamilton.

"Hey Richard, this ball is for you. I'm going to the corner to smoke. Come and help me hold the ashtray!"

The latter was so angry that his face turned blue. He ran to Zheng Yang and continued to speak trash to him. The latter didn't care. He was never afraid of verbal battles.

In the next game, the Mavericks returned to normal. Hamilton's physical strength was indeed good. At least when Zheng Yang was panting, he could still stare at Zheng Yang with wide eyes without changing his expression.

But good physical strength only allows him to continue to follow Zheng Yang. As long as Dampier blocks Hamilton for a while, Zheng Yang can take action immediately.

Although it is impossible for Zheng Yang to hit the target every time, his hit rate in this situation is definitely higher than the Pistons' continuous passing of the ball looking for opportunities.

Therefore, after the third quarter, the Mavericks widened the score again and entered the fourth quarter with 65:69.

"After changing the defensive strategy, Hamilton's close defense on Zheng Yang did limit the Mavericks' offense in a short period of time, and they did not score for nearly three minutes.

But after Zheng Yang changed his playing style, the Pistons failed to contain the Mavericks, who continued to score on the offensive end under Zheng Yang's leadership.

According to current technical statistics, Zheng Yang has scored 12 points in the third quarter, and his total score has reached 27 points, the highest in the game.

There is not even another person on the field who has scored more than 20 points.

We have to sigh again that this young man's scoring ability is really strong. No matter the team he faces or how strong the players' defensive ability is, they cannot limit his scoring.

Considering that this young man is only 19 years old and is still in a stage of rapid growth, what heights can he reach in the future?

This is something that every Chinese fan should look forward to! "

Teacher Yu Jia in the studio was explaining, his tone full of emotion.

In fact, the Pistons now have two options. One is to continue to maintain the current defensive mode, betting that Zheng Yang's hit rate will drop when his physical strength declines, and then take advantage of this time to overtake the score.

The second is to change the defensive strategy in time to limit Zheng Yang's scoring, but that is likely to cause other problems.

So this is also a gamble!
But in the end the Pistons chose the second method.

Head coach Larry Brown did not dare to gamble on Zheng Yang's physical strength and touch. He would rather give the scoring opportunities to other Mavericks players rather than to Zheng Yang.

This guy is too mysterious. He is really worried that if he continues to score like this, the game will be lost!
So he decided to let Prince guard Zheng Yang. Prince is tall and strong with a long wingspan. He can even limit Kobe, so he is afraid that he can't limit Zheng Yang.

Prince does put more defensive pressure on Zheng Yang. After all, this guy's physical talent on the defensive end is indeed better than Prince's.

But now Zheng Yang has changed his playing style. He is no longer obsessed with personal scoring, but uses off-ball running to engage the opponent's double-team defense formation.

Prince's one-on-one defense ability is indeed better than Hamilton's, but in terms of physical strength, he is not as good as Hamilton or Zheng Yang.

If it was the first quarter, this shortcoming might not be so obvious, but now it is the fourth quarter, and it is the fourth quarter in a finals with a very high level of competition. How much energy does Prince have left at this moment?

And can he really spend all his energy defending Zheng Yang and not leave any for attack?
Obviously this is impossible!
Therefore, Zheng Yang seized this point and started running continuously. Whether he could get rid of Prince was secondary. The key point was to tire him out first.

Under Zheng Yang's deliberate consumption, Prince's physical strength was obviously depleted, so in the next offensive round, it was difficult for him to catch up with Zheng Yang.

Often, after Zheng Yang slips from the left corner to the forty-five-degree position on the right, he can leave his opponent almost two body lengths behind. If there is Dampier setting a screen for him in the middle, there is no need to fight back.

In order to cover for Prince, someone from the Pistons had to stand up to defend Zheng Yang, and this was the time for the other Mavericks to attack.

With Zheng Yang's involvement, the other Mavericks players played particularly well in the fourth quarter, especially the outside shooters, who did not waste any opportunities and seized every shot.

Offense has never been the Pistons' strong point, and now they can't even defend their offense. It's impossible to compete with the opponent in offense.

Therefore, the game ended without much suspense, and the Mavericks won the game with a score of 78:85.

They got off to a good start in this series at their home ground!

Seeing the game over, the fans who had been yawning in boredom finally got excited and cheered for their home team.

Who said they would lose?

And they said they would be swept away!

I think the Pistons are the team that will be swept!
But what I'm saying is, can we please not make the next few games so boring? One game of this kind is enough. If every game is played like this, it will really help everyone sleep!

(End of this chapter)