Soul of the Golden State

Chapter 834 Sharp turn down
It was Finley who was facing Drexler. Although Finley was tall and strong and had outstanding physical fitness, his defensive ability was not as good as Sprewell.

In general, Finley's defense is not top-notch, but he seldom tries to take risks and steals. His defense is average, but when Drexler starts to exert force, the young Finley suddenly changes. You have to advance and retreat.

Sure enough, in terms of experience, facing an old cannon like Drexler, Finley is still not good enough!
On offense, Drexler made a reverse cut, received a pass from Mario Elie, forced a jump against Finley, and pulled the bar in the air for a layup. Despite Finley's best efforts, he still let Drake Schler put the ball in the basket and even drew a foul at the same time.

With this goal scored, the Rockets have reopened the point difference to 5 points without implementing another penalty.

Taking advantage of this timeout, the Warriors hurriedly changed the starting lineup back.

Back on the court, the Warriors adjusted their offensive strategy, and the team's offensive focus still fell on Li Weisi and Divac's pick-and-roll.

In fact, Li Di's pick-and-roll was not very effective tonight, but compared with other tactics, at least they could mobilize the Rockets' defense and get some points.

Of course, in this game, the most efficient way for the Warriors to attack is actually Li Weisi singles. It is difficult for Kenny Smith to defend Li Weisi alone.

But this is only the second quarter, Li Weisi's precious physical strength, Nelson dare not use him as Jordan of the production team.

Sure enough, after the pick-and-roll, Olajuwon's huge defensive area prevented Li Weisi from creating favorable space for others.

Fortunately, Li Weisi's ability is extraordinary. In the case of tactical failure, he used classic small to play big, military training Olajuwon, and finally stepped back and hit a three-pointer, which made the Rockets' successful defense this time without success. return.

In the following games, it happened several times. It was obvious that the Rockets had completely contained the Warriors' offense. However, in the end, because of Li Weisi's performance, the Warriors hit the ball and the Rockets returned without success.

Once or twice, it can still be said that Li Weisi was lucky, but three or four times, what about every time?That is not luck, but strength.

And under Li Weisi's consecutive scoring, the Rockets also had to change their defense to limit Li Weisi, but this time it was good, not only did not limit Li Weisi, but opened up other points.

Barkley missed a mid-range shot, Divac struggled to protect the backcourt rebound, and then made a long pass, which accurately found Richmond who was on the fast break.

Richmond dribbled the ball into the frontcourt, faced the defense and gave the ball to Li Weisi who was outside the three-point line on the right.

Seeing Li Weisi taking the ball, Drexler and Kenny Smith, the only defenders in the Rockets' backcourt, swarmed up and rushed towards Li Weisi.

So, immediately after, Li Weisi made another pass and passed the ball back to Richmond who cut to the inside. Richmond easily took the ball and dunked the basket with both hands.

I would rather defend myself against layups than Li Weisi's three-pointers. Such a weird scene just happened. Although it is difficult for Richmond to figure out the psychology of defenders, such things are not uncommon when playing next to Li Weisi. , has long been familiar.

With this goal scored, the first half of the game finally ended. The Warriors scored 34 points in the second quarter and narrowed the point difference to 50 points with 52:2 in one fell swoop.

Relying on Li Weisi's personal ability, the Warriors almost evened the gap between the two teams at halftime. On the one hand, this shows that Li Weisi's strength is still strong, but on the other hand, it can still be seen that the team relies too much on Li Weisi's The situation still cast a shadow over the Warriors.

Sure enough, after the start of the second half, the Rockets re-adjusted their defensive focus. While cutting off Li Weisi's contact with his teammates, they used Kenny Smith's main defense, Chucky Brown and Olajuwon's defensive strategy of layer-by-layer defense. Try to restrain Li Weisi.

As a result, although Li Weisi was still able to score, the difficulty was greatly increased, and the offensive efficiency also declined, but the most important thing was that the performance of other players was restricted by the eyes, and they gradually sank after some improvements in the second quarter.

Except that occasionally Richmond can score two points relying on singles, it is almost difficult for others to effectively help Li Weisi.

This led to the reason that although the Rockets' offensive efficiency was not very good in this quarter, they were still able to suppress the Warriors and further expand the point difference.

In the fourth quarter, the Rockets actually left Olajuwon on the court to lead the bench. Under his leadership, the Rockets played a wave of 10:0 offensive climax, directly killing the game.

Although the Warriors were unwilling to admit defeat, they once sent the Warriors starters into a desperate struggle. Unfortunately, they only played for more than 2 minutes.

In this way, at the end of the game, the Rockets beat the Warriors 110:92, avenging their revenge for the Western Conference Finals last season.

For the Rockets, Olajuwon and Drexler scored the team-high 21 points in the end. Although Barkley played well at the beginning of the first quarter, his efficiency dropped later and his performance was not so outstanding, but that's it. Also scored 17 points.

In addition to the Big Three, Kenny Smith, Chucky Brown, and Mario Ellie all scored in double figures. It can be said that it is completely a victory for the team.

In comparison, for the Warriors, Li Weisi scored a game-high 27 points and sent 9 assists, but only Richmond, Mullin and Michael Finley scored in double figures. Among them, Richmond Germany scored 18 points, while Mullin had only 11 points.

As the second head of the team, Mullin's performance is completely unqualified.

Of course, as a former star, people don't believe that Mullin's state has declined so quickly.Unless it is taken away.

In short, with the loss of this opening game, the enthusiasm of the Warriors' various pre-match ceremonies has also been reduced a lot. After all, after a loss, such a big publicity after the game is always a little bit unconvincing.

However, the media and fans did not let go of the Warriors who wanted to keep a low profile. After the loss in this game, everyone's eyes were on these two teams.

Everyone discussed, can this year's Warriors still win the championship?And can the Rockets break through the joint blockade of the Warriors and Bulls and become the third new championship team besides the Bulls and Warriors in the 90s?

(End of this chapter)