NBA: I am the god of basketball

Chapter 177 The Shark Who Feeds Chicken Soup to Warcraft

Whether Howard has learned any practical skills from O'Neal, Wang Chao has reservations.

But the arrival of O'Neill has greatly improved Howard's confidence.

After all, he was a super center who was the leading brother and ruled an era. Even at the age of 38, O’Neal still has the arrogance of being the league’s number one center. With the departure of a center player, he firmly believes that the center is still a team. The main or even direct factor for wanting to win the championship.

Although he didn't say this in front of all the shooters of the Magic team, especially Wang Chao, after feeling a bit similar to Howard, he probably poured chicken soup on him in private.

O'Neill's statement is fully supported by evidence.

In the past two championships of the Magic, Howard himself was the strongest center in the league. Looking back further, the Lakers defeated the Magic to win the championship in the 07-08 season. Although Kobe contributed a lot, but before Pau Gasol joined, Kobe You can only lead the team for a round of tours every year.

Going forward, the 06-07 championship Suns were a special case, because their opponent at the time was the Cleveland Cavaliers, who also did not have a super center, and although Stoudemire's style of play was biased towards front-line players facing the frame, he also made cameo appearances. center forward.

In the 05-06 season, the Heat led by O'Neal and Wade won the championship. In the 04-05 season, it was Duncan's Spurs. David Robinson's Spurs and Olajuwon's Rockets won two consecutive championships.

With the exception of Jordan's two three-peat championships, looking at the league for so many years, there is an inside player behind every season's championship.

Howard has contributed a lot to the team before. In the new season, he will show more luxurious statistics and pursue more personal honors after polishing new technologies.

O'Neill's chicken soup made Howard dizzy and heartbroken.

To be honest, he is also a little tired of being always regarded as a super blue-collar player. He is already the number one center in the league and holds two championships, but some people always regard him as a blue-collar player. Are you kidding me?
On September 9, the preseason began.

As in the past, the main players such as Wang Chao and Howard only played a symbolic game in the preseason, just to let their bodies adapt to the rhythm of the game after the long vacation.

This has little effect on Wang Chao who participated in the World Championships, but it is still very important to Howard and other players who have been stinky for several months in the summer.

In several preseason games, Howard averaged 20 minutes per game, scoring 18 points, 10 rebounds and 3 blocks, as efficient and strong as ever.

But in the process, Howard showed some behaviors that he did not have in previous games, that is, frequently asking for the ball in the low post and posting singles.

Previously, Howard, although a standard center position, has never been the starting point of the team's offense. On the offensive end, Howard will use his outstanding mobility among the inside players to pull to the outside for Wang Chao, Nelson, and Turkog. Lu waits for the ball handler to do a pick-and-roll and then cuts down.

As long as the opportunity is ripe, Howard can take advantage of the opportunity to take off with a powerful alley-oop with two-handed dunks.

But in the preseason stage, Howard's screen times were significantly reduced, and he began to increase the number of post-up singles. It was because the opponents he encountered in the preseason were generally not high-level, and no one was serious about defending in the preseason. Therefore, Howard's offensive efficiency inside is very high, and his post-up skills have also been praised by various media.

"The Magic team signed O'Neal in the summer. Although the old Shark no longer has the combat effectiveness on the field, his rich experience and skills at the basket will help Warcraft grow faster. The 25-year-old Warcraft They should also develop more offensive skills and take solid steps towards the direction of a top center forward!"

"The Magic already has Wang Chao, who is unique in the league in outside offensive ability. If Howard can develop inside offensive ability, then who else in this league can stop the Magic? Can the Miami Heat of the Big Three do it?"

At the end of the ten preseason games, the Magic has achieved a record of 9 wins and 1 loss, which is a very good performance. After the preseason, the Magic ranks first in the league strength list, and has the Miami Heat, the strongest Big Three in history. Second place.

In the championship odds list before the start of the regular season, the Magic also ranked first with a slight advantage, slightly higher than the Heat.

The reason for this situation is mainly due to people's expectations for Wang Chao and Howard's medical combination of internal medicine and surgery.

Wang Chao is good at long-range three-pointers, and Howard can now attack with the ball inside. From the perspective of the rationality of a team's lineup structure, it is still much more scientific than the Heat.

After some excitement and excitement, the fans who gradually calmed down began to think about a question.

Leaving Bosh aside, how will James and Wade solve the problem of handling the ball.

Last season, both James and Wade were the absolute core players of their respective teams. With the ball, Wade's usage rate was 34.9%, and James' 33.5%, ranking the top two in the league. With 8.5 assists, Wang Chao's ball usage rate is only 32.4%, ranking fourth in the league.

It can be seen that both James and Wade are players who need a lot of possessions to show their strength. Of course, this is also nonsense. Last season, all players who averaged more than 25 points per game had a usage rate of 30. % or more, the difference of a few percentage points is not big at all.

There is not much difference between Wang Chao, Kobe, James, Wade and others. They all represent the absolute ball-handling core and main offensive starting point of their respective teams.

But the problem is that now the Heat have James and Wade at the same time, which will inevitably affect their performance. How to deal with the two top superstars holding the ball and attacking will be a serious consideration for the Heat's coaching staff in the new season. solved problem.

This is also the reason why the Heat were slightly underestimated before the start of the regular season and ranked second in the power list and winning odds list.

It is generally believed that the Heat will need a longer period of time to find out a path suitable for the cooperation of the Big Three. After all, compared with the old Big Three of the Celtics, the new Big Three of the Heat, regardless of age, technical characteristics or competition Their experience and other aspects are obviously different, and they may not be like the Celtics, who immediately showed enough tacit understanding and strong combat effectiveness as soon as they successfully formed a team.

This seems to have been confirmed after the start of the regular season.

As if to make the gimmick full, the Heat's first game of the regular season was a confrontation with the Celtics' old Big Three at the Garden Plaza Arena on Boston's North Shore.

The old Big Three of the Green Army educated their juniors at their home court, 88:80, and gave the Heat their first defeat of the new season.

In his debut with the Heat, James made 21 of 10 shots, scored 31 points, 4 rebounds and 3 assists, but he obviously didn't know enough about his new teammates and lacked tacit understanding, so he made 8 turnovers in a single game.

詹姆斯的发挥不俗，但韦德和波什两人一个16投4中得到13分4篮板6助攻6失误，一个11投3中仅有8分8篮板。

For the Celtics, Ray Allen had 20 points, Pierce had 19 points and 9 rebounds, Garnett had 14 points and 10 rebounds, plus Rajon Rondo, who had 4 points, 5 rebounds and 17 assists, the Celtics It seems that this game is used to tell the Heat how to use the Big Three.

If the loss to the mighty Celtics in the Eastern Conference can still be justified, then the Heat lost to the Philadelphia 10ers in an away game on October 27th, and suffered a two-game losing streak at the beginning of the regular season, which made Miami fans feel like a cold water poured down.

In this game, Wade made 20 of 10 shots for the Heat, scored 30 points, 7 rebounds and 4 assists, and then it was James' turn to stretch his hips. He made 12 of 5 shots and scored 16 points, 6 rebounds, 7 assists and 9 assists. mistake.

Obviously, the Heat failed to understand the problem of the two big-core offenses with the ball, and the styles of play of the two are not compatible.

As for Bosh, who scored 12 points and 6 rebounds on 15 of 7 shots, he became the only injured one in the two games.

Bosh: "???"

Cooperating with the two of you, you will have a ghost game, and let me take the blame every time?
The two-game losing streak of the Heat returned home on October 10 to face the Orlando Magic.

This is the Heat's third regular-season game and the Magic's second.

Unlike the bad situation on the Heat's side, the Magic's start was as smooth as ever. In the first game against the Washington Wizards at home, they easily won 112:83 and won by 29 points.

There are a few things worth mentioning about this game.

The first is Howard. He continued his style of play in the preseason. In this game, he frequently played singles with the ball inside. The inside center of the Wizards is JaVale McGee. Like Howard, he can run and jump, and he is extremely explosive. Strong but unstable in the lower body, and McGee does not have Howard's tendons, so he lacks resistance. Even Howard, who is also weak in lower body strength, can easily squeeze him tottering.

因此霍华德全场12投8中，罚球19中12，得到28分10篮板3封盖。

The second point is that this game is another Huaguo Derby. The champion of the Olympic Games and the World Championships did not change the fate of the UAE in the NBA. He was still traded to the Wizards as in the original history.

The time of the Wizards will be the last time of UAE in the NBA. Even if he can join the Mavericks next season, he will still be eliminated because he cannot adapt to the NBA game and choose to return to China to play in the CBA.

Wang Chao played as usual in this game, 27 points, 7 rebounds and 6 assists. Although the data is slightly lower than last season, this is the first game, and the suspense was lost early in the game, which caused Wang Chao to check in before the third quarter. Off work, so there is no reference value.

It's just that during the game, Wang Chao's concerns still surfaced.

Howard, who increased the number of ball-holding singles at the basket, naturally reduced the number of outside pick-and-roll screens. This is a matter of course. There was an obvious conflict between the two styles of play.

Although in the first game, Howard had an excellent effect on creating damage at the basket and made 19 free throws, but only Wang Chao knew that this was not normal. If Howard continued to play in this way, it would be bad for the team's entire tactical system. On the contrary, it is not a good thing.

But now is not the time to talk.

Howard is on the rise, and the team has won the game. More importantly, the team management and coaching staff also support Howard's play.

Wang Chao can understand Howard's thoughts, and he might do the same if he were replaced. After all, this is related to Howard's own status in the team and even in the history of the league.

But with the encouragement from the management and coaching staff of the Magic, Wang Chao can probably guess the reason. They want to use Howard to further weaken their influence on the team.

If it were the same as before, Wang Chao would definitely try to fight back immediately, but since he doesn't plan to stay with the Magic after this season, he doesn't bother to pay attention to it. In order to win the championship this season, it is not appropriate now. It’s enough to tear up the face with the management of the Magic team, just turn a blind eye and close one eye to watch the other party mess around like a clown. Anyway, with Howard’s offensive ability at the basket, it won’t take long for them to be slapped in the face. .

……

Obviously no one in the Heat can sanction Howard.

Neither Big Z nor Joel Anthony can stop Howard at all. This is another shortcoming of the Heat's Big Three. There are no qualified inside players.

Although Bosh averaged 20+10 double-doubles per game in the Raptors, his nickname is not in vain. After staying for a long time, he always roars like a dinosaur, but his style of play is really soft, so don't expect him to be able to protect the frame.

In this game against the Heat, Howard scored 31 points, 21 rebounds and 5 blocks, blowing up the Heat's inside line.

Bosh had only 7 points and 4 rebounds in the game, and James and Wade continued the principle of a super god and a super ghost in this game. James scored 13 points, 6 rebounds and 15 assists on 6 of 7 shots. It's super ghost, but for this regular season MVP-level superstar, this kind of data is super ghost.

韦德20投9中砍下26分6篮板3助攻，三巨头合砍48分16篮板，三人加起来比王超与霍华德两人合砍的57分27篮板还要少9分11篮板，比赛自然而然输掉了。

At 104:96, the Magic won two consecutive victories by defeating the Heat, while the Heat suffered a three-game losing streak at the beginning, which surprised many people.

"The Heat must find a style of play in which James and Wade coexist as soon as possible. At the same time, Bosh, one of the Big Three, must also recover as soon as possible. The three of them are not combined to lose a game. If they can't Succeed and the Heat's Big Three will be the biggest joke in the league."

Putting the situation of the Heat aside for the time being, there are two top superstars, James and Wade. Even if they can't run in a short period of time, relying on the personal ability of the stars alone, it is impossible to keep losing.

After the Magic defeated the Heat, they began to replicate the start of last season and ushered in a winning streak.

(End of this chapter)