The Way of the Center

As soon as the second quarter came up, Jeff was delighted to find that Howard was sitting on the bench. It seemed that the nights of the past few days were not in vain, and he guessed that Stan's employment strategy was right. the s

After Howard left the field, the person who replaced him became a 32-year-old veteran, Tony Betty. When the team has a center with strong scoring ability like An Jie, Jeff will not let go of this opportunity to open the situation inside.

As he planned, after Angie rested at the end of the first quarter, he took Angie up at the beginning of the second quarter. Jeff's purpose is very clear, which is to follow the veteran Betty to fight!

This is really not that Jeff Van Gundy looks down on people. Although Betty was selected with the fifth highest pick in the 1997 draft, his performance did not match the pick.

In order to allow Anjie to get more possessions in the interior, and to evenly distribute the team's scoring points in each time period, Jeff Van Gundy did not use Westbrook at the beginning of the second quarter, but let the traditional No. 1 Bit Earl Watson debuts.

The purpose of doing this is to allow Anjie to hold the ball more. It is not impossible for Stan to see Jeff's obvious arrangement, but the only substitute insider he can get out of his team is Tony Betty. Stan only hopes that the veteran Betty can withstand the onslaught of Anjie during the blank period of Howard's rest, and the team's positioning of him is just like this. Help Howard memorize a few fouls and buy some rest time for Howard. As long as Betty can do these, the task will be successfully completed.

But on the court, the gap between Anjie's offense and Betty's defense far exceeded Stan Van Gundy's imagination.

Although Betty's athletic ability is not outstanding, her torso strength and lower body strength are not small at all. If Anjie directly chooses to attack with hand-to-hand combat, he will definitely waste a lot of physical strength.

So Anjie did not fall to the low post for the first time after he came on the field, but stopped at the free throw line, waiting for Watson's pass.

"I still need to organize?" Betty didn't dare to neglect, and quickly posted it to prevent An Jie from passing the ball easily.

Taking advantage of Betty's footsteps and moving his weight forward, An Jie lowered his shoulders and passed Betty's side with one step! Facing the unguarded basket after breaking through, Anjie dunked with both hands!

Although it can resist the offense at the basket, Betty's shortcomings of slow footsteps and poor defensive prediction will be fully exposed when facing the inside line with a large offensive range and flexible feet. With this ball, An Jie didn't even make a fake move, and directly broke through with ease.

It is impossible for Howard not to hear the huge "groan" from the basket. Seeing that yellow-skinned guy doing evil in the interior of the Magic, he clenched his fists, but he couldn't do anything.

"Wait, Ann, you wait." Howard gritted his teeth and stared at An Jie.

The next game was still under the leadership of Anjie. After a few minutes of playing, Jeff sent Durant on the field again. Not only did Anjie play smoothly, Durant also played extremely easily when facing Betty's inside defense.

As the last line of defense for the Magic on the field, Betty has almost no ability to block shots when facing Durant who breaks through. The only way he can prevent Durant from scoring directly is by fouling.

Unfortunately, Durant's free throw percentage today is very impressive. Since the second quarter, Durant has made 6 of 6 free throws and scored 6 points just by free throws.

From being behind by five points to overtaking by six points, it took the Thunder just three minutes to do this.

If it weren't for the Magic's All-Star guard Jameer Nelson in a brave state, it is estimated that the point difference would have been pulled to double digits.

In the 4th minute of the second quarter, Watson's wonderful pass assisted Anjie to complete the alley-oop. After the goal was scored, Anjie had already scored 6 points in the second quarter with 3 shots from 3. Howard couldn't help it, and Stan Van Gundy could no longer tolerate this Asian doing whatever he wanted in the Magic's interior.

After An Jie scored, the game entered an official timeout.

This timeout Stan didn't arrange too many tactics. He believed that as long as the Magic's starting lineup came on the field, the decline could be curbed. The 100-second timeout was fleeting, and when the two sides played again, the starting five tigers of the two teams all returned.

"The show time is over Ann." Howard's tone was obviously no longer as friendly as it was in the first quarter.

good. At the beginning, Howard thought that the Thunder could not pose a threat to them, because the Magic won the first match between the two sides with ease. For those who are not threatening, Howard certainly treats them with courtesy.

But it is different now. The Thunder team led by Jeff Van Gundy has undergone earth-shaking changes from the previous Thunder team, and the Magic will not be as easy as before if they want to win.

After playing, Howard's offensive desire was very strong. Off the court, he was already too stimulated by An Jie.

The technology is already rough, coupled with the impatience now, this has caused Howard's offense to be less threatening than in the first quarter.

After giving Nelson a pick-and-roll, Howard immediately went down and raised his hand for the ball.

Nelson is also an All-Star point guard at any rate. Although Anjie's defensive position is very good, Nelson still caught the gap and fed the ball to Howard.

This is Howard's favorite offensive rhythm. After catching the ball, Howard didn't even need to dribble, and jumped straight down to prepare for a dunk!

But the current Anjie is not the kind of slow heavy center, he quickly followed Howard's footsteps, followed closely behind and took off to block the block.

"Beep beep beep beep! The Thunder's No. 16 thug fouled!" However, Anjie's bounce speed and jump height are naturally not comparable to Howard's. This ball Anjie has no chance of blocking the ball at all, so he can only apply for one on his own initiative. foul.

But letting Howard stand on the free throw line may be one of the Thunder's defensive strategies. The ghost knows if An Jie made a foul on purpose. It's better to let Howard make free throws than let him dunk comfortably.

Howard is also very face-saving, watching the stiff shot An Jie shook his head helplessly.

Warcraft missed two free throws, and Anjie got the rebound.

On the offensive end, the Thunder have not changed much. Anjie is still entangled with Howard, and Durant and Westbrook are using their personal abilities to seek scoring opportunities.

However, Howard, who was eager to equalize the score, was very restless. An Jie could feel it. Howard was always eager to jump out to help defend. He was no longer so focused on An Jie's defense!

Another breakthrough for Westbrook! This time Anjie simply followed his plan and deliberately relaxed his position. Seeing the opportunity, Howard immediately rushed towards Westbrook, who had already jumped up and shot, like a crazy beast. While Howard stepped out of the defense, Angie also walked up to the high post without anyone noticing to catch the pass from Westbrook.

Although Westbrook's shots are really strong, he still won't force himself to make fools of shots that he knows are impossible to succeed.

Turn casting into legend! Westbrook's throwing gesture suddenly changed, and the basketball flew past Howard's eyes and landed in An Jie's hands.

"Westbrook attracted the defense of two people, and Anjie got an open shot! Good shot, Anjie's shooting is still as stable as ever." Without exception, Anjie seized the opportunity of the open mid-range shot.

It seems that things are not as Stan Van Gundy wished, and the situation has not been eased after all his starting five tigers have returned to the court.

Howard's shortcomings and advantages are equally obvious. Whenever he meets a traditional center with good strength, Howard will be suppressed miserably. Although An Jie's strength is not enough to completely suppress Howard like Yao Ming and O'Neal, but at least An Jie can make Howard play very uncomfortable, preventing him from playing his full strength.

Howard's offensive methods are too single. Relying on the second attack, air cuts and opportunities for offensive and defensive transitions, Howard may be able to score considerable points, but when Jeff Van Gundy's Thunder insisted on dragging the game into a slow-paced positional battle, Howard can't play such a smooth offense.

An Jie just needs to lean on Howard tightly, and he doesn't have to worry about Warcraft suddenly stepping back to make a jump shot, and he doesn't have to worry about any fake moves. As long as you stay close, Howard's offensive threat will plummet!

Every time Howard received the ball, he would crawl around in Anjie's arms, and Anjie didn't jump, just raised his hands between Howard and the basket. Faced with such a defense, Howard can only make a layup under strong interference every time.

Once or twice Howard can rely on

The advantage of strength allowed Anjie to score, but the efficiency was too low, and it was absolutely impossible to use this as the main scoring method.

Howard's inability to play efficiently on the offensive end does not mean that Anjie, who has comprehensive skills, will also accompany him to misfire. Although it was very difficult, Anjie still used his footsteps to score a few goals over Howard's head.

Restricting the core of Howard, what big storms can the Magic's offense cause?

The inside line could not be opened, and the outside line was severely restricted. Until the end of the fourth quarter, the Magic still failed to recover from the decline.

It was also against the Thunder, but the Magic felt that they were not facing the same opponent these two times. The defensive effect that Jeff Van Gundy brought to the Thunder is remarkable, and Anjie's astonishing one-on-one defense ability is also reflected in the face of Howard. He has a lot of height, strength, and basketball IQ. If you want to say that Anjie's biggest shortcoming on the defensive end may be his slightly light weight. But to deal with Howard, the first three are enough.

Howard still scored 20 points, but the cost was that he only hit 7 of 17 shots. For an inside player, such a shooting percentage is obviously unqualified.

Anjie only scored 14 points under Howard's super defensive ability, but his efficiency is amazing. It doesn't matter if you don't shoot, as long as An Jie decides to attack by himself, he is very cautious, so the hit rate is also very high. 6 of 8 shots, less than half of Howard's shots, but only one goal behind Howard.

It's not just Howard, several of the Magic's giants also lost their aim when they met the Thunder's inseparable defense.

Rashard Lewis made only 33 of 5 of 15 shots, and only made one of seven three-pointers.

Although Hido Turkoglu sent out seven assists, his 29 shooting percentage ruined his unremitting efforts.

On the contrary, Durant and Westbrook, who have been criticized by the media for being unstable, both shot more than 50 points today. Durant scored 21 points and Westbrook scored 17 points. A rebound, which is enough for them to beat the foreign strong but capable Magic.

98 to 90, after the Thunder team lost to the Warriors, they used their own performance to break through all doubts. The Magic are the powerhouses in the Eastern Conference? Sorry, but we won the Magic by a full eight points!

Everyone is still taking the Thunder who lost a mess in November seriously, but the Magic and Howard are obviously the first to taste the strong electric shock.

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