NBA: I am the god of basketball

Chapter 345 Durant: Let PJ Tucker defend me?Who do you look down on?

2018年5月31日，NBA2017-18赛季总决赛在万众瞩目之下正式开始首场比赛。

This final matchup is also quite eye-catching. Wang Chao and his old club, the Nets, have completed their meeting in the finals, and the battle between Durant and Wang Chao is the focus of hype in this finals.

Judging from the performance of the regular season and even the playoffs all the way, the Nuggets are more dominant. They have not encountered any opponents that can interfere with them. 4:2.

It is unimaginable that a team with only one All-Star and the best team can be so strong.

But that's not really surprising.

The future championship of the 2022-23 season will also be the Denver Nuggets, and among the teams that also showed dominance in the playoffs, there is only one star, Nikola Jokic, and the other main players, including Jamal Murray, Aaron Gordon and others have never been selected to the All-Star and the best team.

On the contrary, Jordan used to be a team player and an All-Star substitute, but that was a long time ago. During the Nuggets period, Jordan was a player who didn't even have a chance to play, and he couldn't be counted in the ranks of combat power at all.

This is enough to prove that as long as the team has a reasonable structure, proper tactics and a superstar leader with outstanding personal abilities, it is not impossible to win the championship with a single core.

Of course, the so-called single-core championship is also a false proposition. For example, Jokic's Nuggets team, although Murray has no honor, but his performance is strong enough. During the regular season, he contributed 20+ points steadily. In the game, he can average 26+5+7 per game, and his shooting percentage can reach 47%, and there was a round of playoffs in the previous playoffs that scored 50+ twice. More than half of the NBA championship teams can be regarded as single-core championships.

Including the current Wang Chao, leading the Nuggets to such a brilliant record cannot do without the assistance of Gobert, Mitchell and Murray. Gobert himself is a super defensive player who should be elected as the best defensive player this season. Mitchell and Murray are also very explosive in scoring in a short period of time, as well as PJ Tucker, Rose and Kuzma, plus a Wang Chao who is more powerful than the peak Jordan, the Nuggets The true combat effectiveness of the fighters is not weak at all.

On the other hand, there are quite a few fans supporting the Nets in the finals. After all, the Nets have a much more luxurious lineup than the Nuggets. There are three current season All-Stars in the team, and there is also a promising Jokic , and more importantly, Durant + Paul's two historical superstar partners, no matter how you look at it, it is a dream combination, which is slightly inferior to the combination of Wang Chao + Durant last year.

Even though the Nets have always performed poorly on the defensive end this season, many fans still believe that the performance of stars at critical moments can make up for this shortcoming.

Although the Nuggets have the strongest star in the league, Wang Chao, there is only one player after all. Although the quality is high, they are at an obvious disadvantage in terms of quantity.

Of course, this is basically the opinion of some fans who don't know much about football, or who don't have time to understand the game in depth, and simply watch star fame and play highlights.

For professionals, the majority are optimistic about the Nuggets, which can be seen from the winning odds of the two teams before the game. The rate is still lower than that of the Nets, which means that the bookmaker is also more optimistic about the Nuggets.
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Denver home stadium Pepsi Center, all Denver fans put on T-shirts representing home colors, waved atmosphere sticks in their hands, and cheered for their teams.

Denver's Devil's home court is not just an objective factor of the plateau climate, the enthusiasm of the fans is also quite high.

The on-site DJ began to introduce the participating players one after another. When Wang Chao, who was the last to appear on the stage, came on stage, the atmosphere of the stadium reached its climax.

The spotlight shone on Wang Chao's body, making it extremely dazzling.

On the other side of the Nets team, as Wang Chao appeared on the stage, Durant's eyes always stayed on him, his eyes flickering.

"The day has finally come, Wang Chao! Come on, I will beat you head-on in the arena!"

After a short warm-up, the game is about to start. The substitute players from both sides leave the field, leaving only the starters ready to kick off.

The starting five for the Nuggets are Mitchell, Murray, Tucker, Wang Chao and Gobert.

The Nets are Paul, Booker, Bojan Bogdanovic, Durant and Jokic.

Both Wang Chao and Durant appeared at the power forward position, and they seemed to be facing each other, which instantly filled the expectations of many fans.

When Gobert won the jump ball and the Nuggets took possession of the ball, and soon handed over the basketball to Wang Chao, everyone saw Durant seriously blocking Wang Chao.

"Sure enough, Durant has to personally defend Wang Chao in this game. This is also a helpless move. After all, the Nets currently have no other players suitable for defending Wang Chao. Compared with Wang Chao in terms of height and weight, there is a slight gap, and his defense is not very good, there is no way to pose a threat to Wang Chao."

There is one thing to say, although Durant has never been selected to the best defensive team in his career, but when he really gets serious, his defensive ability is not bad. After all, his exaggerated height and wingspan naturally have excellent defensive advantages .

The reason why Durant has never been selected for the defensive lineup is mainly because his performance on the offensive end is more prominent, and his lack of physical fitness makes it impossible for him to be in charge of offense while taking care of the defensive burden.

But in the key rounds of many games, the defensive pressure of Durant, who went all out, will not be inferior to those giants who have been selected for the defensive team all the year round.

At this moment, Durant, who was staring at Wang Chao, wanted to defend against Wang Chao's attack and give the game a good start.

But not to mention Durant, even Leonard can't defend against Wang Chao. Now Wang Chao is already a big player who is almost at the full level on the offensive end, and there are too many means and methods of attack.

Facing Durant's defense, Wang Chao took his time and waited until his teammates were all in position before slowly dribbling the ball on the spot, using the slight swing of his body to force Durant to adjust his footing and position.

"He wants to break through? From the left or the right..."

Durant, who was well aware of Wang Chao's explosive power, felt the tremendous pressure, and subconsciously took a half step back, because he knew very well that with his own lateral speed, as long as Wang Chao broke through at full speed, he could easily pass him in one step.

But when he saw Durant retreating for a moment, Wang Chao also retreated a small half step and took off quickly.

Wang Chao's speed was still too fast. When Durant reacted and wanted to step forward to defend, the basketball had already left his hand and flew towards the basket.

This ultra-long step-back jumper that was one step away from the three-point line was hit steadily without any suspense!

3: 0.

With the first goal in the game, Wang Chao took the lead with a bukkake.

Durant waved his hand a little annoyed, as long as he was a little faster just now, he would have had a chance to cover Wang Chao. He has the advantages of height and wingspan, and it is easier to defend against shots than breakthroughs.

The Nets had the ball, and Durant ran halfway through the court, but before he could stand still, his expression was slightly taken aback.

In this game, he was already mentally prepared to face off against Wang Chao. While man-marking Wang Chao on the defensive end, he also had to face Wang Chao's defensive offensive scoring on the offensive end.

Only in this way, it will be more meaningful to defeat Wang Chao in the finals.

But Durant, who was thinking this way, saw that standing in front of him was the unattractive black and fat PJ Tucker.

During the regular season, Durant and Tucker played against each other.

To be honest, he doesn't have a deep impression of this player. After all, this guy who is only 1 meters tall can't cause too much interference to him on the defensive end. The strength of the power bothered him a little, that's all.

At this moment, Durant only felt extremely disappointed, followed by Taotao's anger.

"Wang Chao, do you think you can defend me with such a guy? Are you kidding me?"

Durant, who was furious and felt that his dignity had been desecrated, reached out for the ball eagerly before the other Nets players could take their positions.

Paul, who had just dribbled the ball halfway through, frowned slightly when he saw this scene.

Originally, in his plan, he planned to use the tactical running position on the first attack to score the ball safely. After all, this is the home court of the Nuggets. In the defensive rhythm, it is difficult to win.

But the Nets are Durant's team after all. He just arrived this season. Even if he is a coach on the court as a point guard, he cannot directly ignore Durant on the court.

Besides, although Durant was a little eager for the ball, he was standing in front of PJ Tucker after all. Even Paul thought that Durant's singles against Tucker would be sure.

In fact it is.

After receiving the ball, Durant singled Tucker and made a steady mid-range shot. The score came to 3:2.

In the next few rounds, Durant continued to stare at Tucker's point and stormed, scoring consecutively with good efficiency.

"Taker's height is too low. Although he performed extremely well on the defensive end during the regular season and is the mainstay of the Nuggets' defensive system, the difference in height makes him unable to defend against Durant's mid-range shots. Why did he arrange him? To defend Durant? It is dangerous to underestimate Durant’s scoring with Wang Chao, a player with stronger forward defensive ability!”

Nuggets home fans were a little worried when they saw this. After all, Durant is a recognized super scorer in the league. His scoring ability is second only to Wang Chao among active players. It is not wise to let him score casually.

But the Nuggets seem to have accepted the dead truth. Even if Durant kept eating Tucker alone, he did not switch defenses. At most, Gobert would come to help defend when he was close to the basket.

This made the scores of the two teams rise alternately in the first quarter, and the fight was inextricably linked.

After the first quarter, the score between the two teams was 30:29, and the Nuggets at home only led by 1 point.

而王超与杜兰特的飙分大战，则以王超7投5中得到12分，杜兰特6投4中得到11分暂时告一段落。

From the perspective of efficiency, the two are evenly matched. It seems that they are rushing to score 30+ or ​​even 40+ points in the whole game. There is a tendency to score points against each other.

But during the break after the first quarter, the atmosphere on the bench of the Nets was quite dignified.

Because just after the first quarter of the game, Durant was already sweating profusely and wasting a lot of energy.

Just like what Wang Chao thought, Tucker really couldn't guard Durant, but he was enough to pester people. Durant played for 9 minutes and 42 seconds in the entire first quarter. As long as he is on the offensive end, it is inevitable to Having close physical contact with Tucker, Tucker fully explained what is called a candy-style defense, almost sticking to Durant all the way, using his body to push against Durant, constantly consuming the opponent's physical energy.

Of course, Tucker also paid the price for his defense, that is, after the first quarter, he had committed 3 fouls.

The problem is that even if Tucker leaves the game with 6 fouls in the middle of the game, it will be no pain to the Nuggets. After all, he is just an ordinary role player. The Nuggets can find replacement players at any time, such as Kuzma.

The Nets are different here. If Durant's physical fitness is exhausted ahead of time, it will be a fatal problem for the Nets.

The Nets, who discovered this problem, had to put Durant on the bench for a longer period of rest in the second quarter.

But the problem is, Durant is off the court to rest, but Wang Chao on the opposite side has no idea of ​​rest.

He continued to play in the second quarter, and, like the first quarter, he had a strong desire to attack.

At this time, the Nets were responsible for defending Wang Chao, but it was a substitute striker, and his defensive ability could not be compared with Durant.

As a result, when the second quarter was halfway through, the Nets had to replace Durant on the court again, because at this time there was already a gap between the two teams, and the point difference went straight to double digits.

But as soon as Durant came up, the Nuggets immediately replaced Kuzma and let "Nughide" reappear.

Durant, who had just rested for less than 6 minutes and recovered a little bit of physical fitness, could only continue to entangle with Tucker.

As a result, when halftime ended, the score between the Nuggets and the Nets had become 58:50, and the Nuggets' lead had expanded to 8 points.

Wang Chao and Durant scored 14 points and 6 points respectively in the second quarter, and the gap began to show.

Some people may wonder, obviously the Nets have so many stars, even if Durant is not on the court, relying on Paul, Booker and Jokic, they will not be too passive, right?

But the actual situation is not calculated like this.

Durant is off the court for the Nets, but the problem is that Wang Chao is still playing on the court for the Nuggets, and he is still the main attacker of the Nuggets.

Even when Durant is on the court, the full lineup of the Nets is no match for the Nuggets. Now that there is one less Durant, Paul, who has limited offensive ability, and a player who has not yet fully grown into a full-body model How could Booker and Jokic withstand Wang Chao's onslaught?

For the Nets, the situation in the first half was not the worst, because even if there was an intermission to help Durant recover his physical strength, his physical exertion was still too great. Rant can only use his strength on the court. In that case, Durant is bound to be physically exhausted.

For a while, the coaching staff of the Nets were a little at a loss and didn't know how to deal with it.

What the hell is this?How could a mere PJ Tucker put them in such an embarrassing situation?

(End of this chapter)