No.1 in basketball scoring-Chapter 848 - 365. Duncan from the fourth peak stage is on the way!_3

Skiles felt that they couldn’t stop the Bobcats, so they chose to weaken their defense and strengthen their offense;

Philip Saunders felt the star matchups weren’t right, overly emphasizing team balance, key shots being thrashed by Zhang Yang and Felton;

Van Gundy... he wanted to make predictive adjustments.

Popovich didn’t attempt that, but instead based on his own defensive strengths, adjusted defense from details and focused on steady play.

For example, in defending Zhang Yang, he certainly noticed the recent popular topic of Zhang Yang’s ’new style threes,’ but he still chose to focus on defending Zhang Yang’s mid and long-range shooting. When Zhang Yang goes for a solo three-pointer, he lets Bowen stick to him; if Zhang Yang runs to find space for a three, he just uses perimeter rotating switches to cover leaks.

Popovich: If you can kill me from outside the three-point line, then you’re truly tough.

Faced with such defense, Zhang Yang’s quick temper... really can’t handle Popovich.

Really asking him to shoot threes to kill the opponent, he’s better off shooting mid-range wildly.

Despite having a shooting ability close to 90, the practical impact of threes is far lower than mid-range shots; threes are just in a limited area, while the mid-range has a broader scope... of course, this is for a star under heavy defense; for role players, catch-and-shoot threes are more useful than catch-and-shoot mid-range shots.

But in this tug of war, the one with a headache isn’t Zhang Yang and Carlisle, but Popovich.

The Bobcats were limited on offense tonight, and the Spurs were similarly limited!

The Bobcats didn’t specifically adjust their defense against the Spurs’ offense, but their season’s defensive approach—single cover, switching mainly, trapping as supplement, avoiding help defense easily to prevent leaving open shots, just perfectly containing the already average Spurs offense!

The Spurs’ offense is relatively simple, with scoring mainly concentrated among 7 key scorers.

Duncan with 19+, Ginobili with 19+, Guy with 15+, Conley with 10+, Finley with 7+, Barry with 6+, Bowen with 6+, the Spurs averaging 98.6 points per game, slightly higher than the constant sub-95 in previous years, but mainly because Ginobili’s scoring has increased, still focusing on star basketball, four core main attacks, the three veteran perimeter players responsible for long shots coordination, as for the three role players inside, combined they average 10 points, not many easy scoring opportunities.

The Spurs’ offensive method just hit the Bobcats’ muzzle, otherwise last time when the Bobcats were in the mid-season fatigue of continuous away games, they would have lost to the Spurs by only 5 points, keeping the Spurs to only 80 points defensively.

By the end of the first quarter, the Bobcats were trailing the Spurs 20 to 21 by 1 point. In the second quarter, the Bobcats scored 22 to 20, leading the Spurs by 1 point at halftime with a score of 42 to 41.

At halftime, Popovich returned to the locker room, went to the bathroom to sit, feeling uneasy throughout the first half, calmed down quickly, and figured out the opponent’s intentions!

Throughout the first half, he was puzzled—why’s the opponent’s bad boys playing so rationally tonight? Other than transition plays, hardly any random shots! ƒгeewёbnovel.com

The media hyped the hot trailing threes so much, Zhang Yang only attempted once during a fast break in the first half, didn’t make it, and didn’t come back for another like previous encounters to ’prove himself’.

Now he understands—Carlisle doesn’t randomly adjust strategies, executes offensive tactics as planned, avoids Zhang Yang shooting wildly, reduces consumption, preserves stamina, just aiming to keep the score tight to play key shots!

Every quarter both teams scored just over 20 points; continuing like this, the advantage will gradually tilt towards the opponent.

On his side, Conley is young, Guy is unstable, the crafty Ginobili is unpredictable, key ball abilities...

While on the opposite side, Felton, Mike Miller, Hill, all are key ball masters, and not to mention Zhang Yang’s extremely strong game-winning ability!

...

After halftime, Popovich saw through the opponent’s intentions, but didn’t make any major adjustments, just emphasized the defensive details that need attention.

This season, their playstyle is even more ’retro’ than last season, basically returned to the style before 2005 when Duncan was troubled by plantar fasciitis, because Conley and Guy came as new core players, the main task in the preseason and midseason was to let Duncan, Ginobili lead the two new talents into the fold.

Moreover, they have too many mid-level veterans; a $67 million payroll, Duncan earns only $19.01 million, Ginobili $9.08 million, Conley and Guy are under rookie contracts, the four core salaries together are under $34 million, a large portion of the salary is occupied by mid-level contracts of those over 35-year-olds, naturally, the more familiar the style, the better.

He avoids rashly adjusting strategy, without needing the magician’s action, equivalent to self-inflicting a stab for courtesy.

With the third quarter beginning, the Bobcats’ strategy as expected by Popovich, continued to fully execute tactics, regardless of success rate, guaranteeing offensive stability.

Popovich could only watch as his team and the opponent slowly grind away, watching the time tick by, yet the score staying tightly locked.

Into the mid-third quarter, Hill receiving high-position pass, breaking through, to the left side, Pietrus directly dives under the basket for a catch-and-shoot floater, also drawing Bonner’s fouling defense, Popovich calls timeout!

Played 6 minutes and 12 seconds into the third quarter, Pietrus hit the floater, post-timeout free throw doesn’t count, both teams locked at 11 to 11, score now 63 to 62, Bobcats lead by 1 point.

Under this situation, Popovich indeed lacks tactical moves but he has personnel!

The resting half-quarter magician is now on!

Ginobili takes off his training jersey and tosses it stylishly behind... Popovich wants to encourage his beloved disciple but the sweat-drenched training jersey made him feel momentarily dizzy...

Ignoring the unfortunate coach, Ginobili eyes the opposite side fiercely at the equally rested half-quarter Zhang Yang.

Last matchup was about clutch plays, the magician won, this time, he aims to win again!

The bad boys are Ginobili’s favorite new generation players, but their generation expresses affection in a way—full-force hammer!

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