NBA: Magic Johnson opens the season, crowned MOP

After the game against the Rockets, all the Spurs came to Salt Lake City on the Utah Plateau. As soon as they got off the plane, the players felt the"full of malice" from the capital of Utah!

Hypoxia, hypoxia, or TMD-hypoxia!

Even the world's top basketball players like them have to adapt for most of the day before they can have a simple team practice in the stadium.

Duncan, the"old man" who has played nearly ten games in a row, had a serious high-reaction phenomenon before the game. The old man made a prompt decision and rested the GDP trio again on the grounds of"muscle cramps".

Even the elderly Dior, Bonner and others were arranged to play as substitutes. The Spurs finally made a 9-man rotation lineup, which was equivalent to giving up the game directly.

As a result, with the outstanding performance of Joey, Leonard and Huang Ama, the Spurs still took the victory from the cold Salt Lake City with a score of 99:95.

That night, they quickly rushed to the airport again, and they will challenge the Portland Trail Blazers away tomorrow.

The intensive schedule and away games in recent days have made the aging Spurs a bit unbearable. The old man's continuous rest has also attracted the attention of the league's top management. Before the game with the Trail Blazers, the league issued a penalty notice for some teams that maliciously rested players, and the Spurs and Popovich were listed.

The Spurs, who were not"rich" to begin with, were fined another 50,000 US dollars.

However, the old man decided to continue resting his beloved players in this game.——"Rookie No. 21".

Leonard replaced Duncan in the starting lineup.

On the Trail Blazers side, Lillard was unwilling to accept the fact that Joey had"snatched" the Western Conference Rookie of the Month. However, he also knew that Joey was much better than him in terms of team performance and personal data, and he really had no advantage in the awards of the same period, so he was still convinced of the ownership of the award.

Although he was convinced, Coach Li was not a"gummy bear" who was willing to admit defeat. The game in which Joey led the team to visit the Rose Garden Arena in Portland (changed to Moda Center in 2013) just became a vent for Coach Li to vent his"depressed" mood.

At the beginning of the game, Coach Li used the screen to go straight to the basket, and dunked the ball into the basket through Split and Aldridge who were blocking the paint area!

Really fierce, he dunked on his own people!

The opening was explosive, instantly igniting the whole audience!

Lillard roared excitedly and shouted to the Portland fans on the sidelines:

"This is my horse!"

The fans responded with more enthusiastic and fierce cheers - after Roy, this torn city welcomed its true master.

The cousin pointed to the sky with one hand and pointed to the Spurs bench with the other, to be precise, to Joey on the bench.

The look in his eyes full of fighting desire fully demonstrated his"anger" at the moment!

The old man Manu and others on the bench naturally saw Lillard's intention and cast funny eyes at Joey.

As if to say: Hey Joey, your little enemy is here...

Joey was as calm as ever, mainly because he was a little tired from the consecutive away games in the past few days, and he was also a little tired recently. Selena kept"harassing" him, and the double torture of mind and body made him a little absent-minded today.

After the first quarter, Lillard scored 12 points and led the Trail Blazers to a seven-point lead at home with 27:34.

Joey played for a few minutes in the first quarter, and his state was a little sluggish. He missed both shots and even made a three-pointer. He relied on organization and defense to get 3 assists and 1 steal, and also gave Lillard a"hot pot".

At the same time, there was a pass error, and the outrageous pass route directly passed the ball to the hands of the audience in the first row of the bench.

Such a performance made the commentator at the Rose Garden Arena tease him:

"It seems that Hollywood's teenage stars have worn our little EJ down a bit, and that's not a good thing.……"

During the rotation, Popovich found Joey and warned him that if he continued to perform like this, he would not be able to play for more than ten minutes in the next few away games!

Joey finally woke up from his"wandering soul" state.

At the beginning of the second quarter, Joey led the"five small" lineup of Green, Leonard, Manu and Dio, using their best defensive counterattacks and speed-up to catch the Trail Blazers off guard.

In the first quarter, most of the Spurs' offensive points came from the tacit cooperation tactics of positional warfare. The Trail Blazers gradually got used to the Spurs' style and gradually found a way to defend. When

Joey's lineup came on the court, it took no more than five seconds from protecting the offensive rebound to scoring a goal. The emphasis was on"speeding up" and"increasing offensive rounds"!

There was no gorgeous goal of"running and gunning" and smooth passing and cutting, but the core of its tactics was exactly the same.

The Trail Blazers were caught off guard. In the first six minutes of the second quarter, they were basically led by the Spurs' lineup.

Joey scored 11 points with 4 of 6 shots and 1 of 2 three-pointers;

Leonard scored 8 points with 4 of 5 shots; Huang Ama scored 12 points with 3 of 4 three-pointers, and scored a"three plus one" over Lillard's head! With two minutes left in the half, the two teams tied the score at 56:56.

Lillard was completely cut off from his teammates by Green and Joey, forcing the former to save the team by singles. In the second quarter, the cousin made 3 of 9 shots, with a very low hit rate, which also extinguished the hot hand in the first quarter.

Fortunately, another All-Star player of the team, Ade, who has a sophisticated style of play, stood up. In this game where Duncan was resting, he was the"21st rookie" of Portland. While steadily outputting 17 points and 9 rebounds, he also contributed 2 blocks.

Split and Leonard committed 4 fouls in the paint, and only the French fat man Dio, who also played in a mature style, could limit Ade who got the ball in the low post.

Bang - the silver strong finisher and bronze finishing master badges lit up, and Joey made a layup in the crowd against the defense of Batum and Ade.

"Whistle!"

Two plus one, free throws scored, the Spurs led by 4 points into the second half

"You are improving very fast, Joey. Unlike other rookies who have just entered the league and need to adapt, the NBA is gradually adapting to you.……"

"I always thought you were an All-Star player!"

After halftime, Trail Blazers head coach Stotts approached Joey.

The two shook hands and exchanged pleasantries before returning to their respective benches.

Fans in the Rose Garden waved banners with the names of Trail Blazers players in their hands, and shouted in unison:

"Fake San Antonio, Fake San……"

"Go to the Spurs, this is the Rose Garden, it belongs to the Rose Knight!"

"Kick these guys' asses, LaMarcus, kill them!"

"……"

The Rose Garden is a notoriously bad stadium for NBA teams. The fans here are extremely dirty. In the 2000 Western Conference Finals, in order to interfere with O'Neal's free throws, the Portlanders even did something like letting several young girls take off their upper bodies and stand in the audience.

Of course, it seems completely unnecessary now...

(Shaq: Are you scolding again?)

After the Spurs players left the court, it was halftime. Popovich was very satisfied with Joey's performance in the second quarter. At the same time, he was very glad for his original decision - Joey brought young power to this aging team!

Before Joey joined the Spurs, they never thought that one day they would be able to play the ultimate"fast break" climax like the Suns who swept the league back then!

After adjusting the personnel and tactical arrangements for the third quarter, he turned around and saw Manu and Dio"teasing" Joey again. The old man scolded with a stern face:

""These two bastards, why would they, with an annual salary of tens of millions, want to think about the little things of a rookie with an annual salary of two or three million?"

The Spurs players laughed at them. Manu and Fat Dio, who had just"extorted" a Chinese meal from Joey, had no shame at all. Instead, they asked Joey if they could bring other teammates with them next time they had dinner...

Popovich and Budenholzer smiled as they watched this inexplicably harmonious scene. At the same time, they also knew that for a team aiming to win the championship, the atmosphere within the team is very important.

In the famous championship culture of the NBA, this is called the"champion phase".

The Spurs now have obviously begun to have this so-called"champion phase".

Everything is moving in a good direction.