Soul of the Golden State

Chapter 833
After the opening, the Rockets' offense was extremely sharp, and Barkley, the vanguard of the Rockets' offense, pierced the Warriors' heart like a sharp knife.

Horry's defensive ability is actually quite good. He is mainly good at entanglement and steals. At the same time, he has a lot of experience in dealing with players with strong athletic ability and wide shooting range. However, his defensive ability is not at the Dpoy level. You change in all kinds of ways, and I can fix the offensive skills with one hammer, which made Horry try all kinds of methods, but he couldn't achieve good results.

Of course, there is no need to criticize Horry too much. After all, there are not many in the entire league who can defend against Barkley's offense. If it is so easy to defend, Barkley, who is 198cm tall (official height) playing inside, cannot win the MVP.

But the Rockets are as good as Barkley, and there are two more. After the opening, Barkley played brilliantly here, which naturally drove the performance of the other two points.

For Drexler, because Richmond was there, there was no progress for a while, but for Olajuwon, Divac was completely unable to defend. Soon, led by Barkley, Olajuwon also Then became active.

With the Rockets' two superstars playing at the same time, the Warriors suffered a disaster. The entire inside line was slammed by the Rockets, and there was absolutely no way out.

In fact, the Big Three of the Rockets have just cooperated, and they don’t have a tacit understanding with each other, especially the addition of Barkley, which makes the three of them account for too much of the total shots. As a result, many reasonable shots are inadvertently turned into singles. .

But tonight Barkley and Olajuwon are so efficient in singles!

The two jointly contributed 16 points in the first quarter. At the same time, they also turned the Rockets' restricted area into a no-fly zone, making it difficult for the Warriors' inside offense.

And when the Warriors couldn't open the inside, the Rockets had enough strength to support the outside, which caused the Warriors' outside offense to be affected.

Therefore, by the end of the first quarter, the Warriors trailed the Rockets by as much as 16 points at 25:9.

Such a start was indeed beyond the Warriors' expectations. Although they had thought that the Rockets would be strong, more importantly, they did not expect that their team would have so many problems.

Generally speaking, the season to win the third championship is a hurdle, because with the need to maintain the peak level of competition for a long time, more games are consumed in each season, and various factors will lead to aging of the team lineup, injuries, etc. The increase in illness, the slackness of players' mentality, the changes in the locker room and so on.

And this is why many very powerful teams often fall on the way to the third championship, such as: Kobe's Lakers, James' Heat, five-star Warriors and so on.

Including the Warriors led by Li Weisi, when they tried to win three consecutive championships for the first time, they also encountered a significant weakening of the rotation lineup and player injuries, which eventually led to the loss.

Therefore, when the Warriors once again take the goal of competing for the Warriors' three consecutive championships this year, they will face no less difficulties.

Before the start of the season, Nelson was already mentally prepared for the team's decline, but what he didn't expect was that the team's decline would be so fast.

In addition to Rodman's absence, Mullin's decline in strength is too huge.

In the Warriors, Mullin is a very important point. He is not only an important offensive firepower point for the Warriors, but also plays a certain role in organizing, cutting, and pulling offensive space. It can be said that Li Weisi was targeted by the opponent. Sometimes, Mullin can often punish the opponent by scoring, so that the opponent can reduce the defensive pressure on Li Weisi.

At his peak, Mullin's high offensive efficiency made him and Li Weisi a nightmare for opponents.

However, since the year before last, injuries have gradually found Mullin, constantly torturing his body. Although he recovered at the end of last season, his state has not improved very well.

When this season starts, Mullin, who is one year older, still has not recovered, but has a downward trend.

Under such circumstances, tonight Mullin is clearly the point where the Warriors have the greatest advantage against the Rockets, but they didn't make the gap they should have to make up for the disadvantages in other points.

And that's an important reason why the Warriors are so far behind.

Fortunately, at the beginning of the second quarter, the Warriors finally improved under the leadership of the substitute.

In order to trade for Barkley, the Rockets, in addition to contributing a large number of draft picks, also traded a number of important starters or rotation players such as Maxwell and Jeff Malone, which caused the Rockets' rotation lineup to be stretched.

Of course, this is also the situation faced by the Big Three teams. The three stars occupy too much salary space, resulting in a relative lack of players in other positions.

Although the Rockets, in order to deal with this situation, also let the three major stars lead the substitute players to come on the field respectively to make up for the lack of firepower of the Rockets during the transition period, but they still cannot change their passive situation.

Therefore, the Warriors took the opportunity to play a wave of offensive highs and quickly shortened the score.

Among them, it was the Warriors' new aid, Michael Finley, who made great achievements for the Warriors.

To be honest, rookies generally don’t perform very well in their first game after entering the league. After all, there is a huge gap between college basketball and professional basketball, and they need a process of adaptation.

However, as an older rookie, Finley is obviously more adaptable to the rhythm of the NBA game. After a brief adaptation in the first quarter, as soon as the second quarter came up, he first scored a breakthrough dunk.

Finley's jumping and strength are excellent, allowing him to easily break through defenders. When he jumps in the penalty area with the strength of his calf muscles, his bounce speed is extremely fast. He is not afraid of confrontation in the air.

Shortly after completing the dunk, he hit another three-pointer on the offensive end. Although he failed to hit two three-pointers after that, with his activeness, the Rockets' defense was still stretched. For a while, the Warriors also found The hope of chasing points.

In just over 3 minutes of the second quarter, the point difference between the two teams quickly narrowed to only 2 points. Seeing that the lead in the first quarter was about to be lost, Drexler began to show off. .

In the first quarter of the game, Drexler's performance could only be regarded as quite satisfactory, with 4 points and 2 rebounds. His brilliance was overshadowed by Barkley and Olajuwon.

However, in the second quarter, he started to lead the bench, causing him to become the only offensive core in the team. No one in the team can cover his light. The target of public criticism, only by taking the initiative to take over the burden of the team can we wash away the doubts we have suffered.

(End of this chapter)