Basketball Dragon

Chapter 69
After playing against the Kings, they played back-to-back against the Suns. They played consecutive games against fast-paced teams. Even Li Hai felt a lot of fatigue, and flying by plane was a kind of torture.

The Suns with a neat lineup once again ravaged the Knicks. Victory cannot be achieved by being unwilling.

Utah on February 2th is the last stop of this Knicks road trip.

Due to injuries and running-in reasons, the Jazz's starting lineup has been changing this season.

The act of putting Matt Halperin, Raja Bell and Mehmet Okur on the bench makes the Jazz's main lineup and the bench lineup's offensive power not much different.

With Crawford injured again, the Knicks' roster has also changed.

Just when Tim Thomas came back, Li Hai went to the position of shooting guard again.

He is a screw, where there is a need for a screw.

In the current Jazz team, although Carlos Boozer has good offensive power, but the real thigh is Andrei Kirilenko, a man who can do everything in scoring, rebounding, assists, blocks, and steals. This season's blocks and steals It is also at the forefront of the league.

Kirilenko also has excellent athletic ability because of his height and long arms. He is very good in single defense and auxiliary defense. He blocks more shots than inside players. This alone can tell what he is good at, but his ability to attack with the ball is not strong. He can't lead the team to win more victories.

Tim Thomas, who had just returned from injury, was directly blocked by Kirilenko, and he couldn't defend against others in the offense. As a result, he and the barrier behind him, Mohammed, fouled too much quickly, and both of them were off the field in less than half a quarter.

Acting head coach Herb Williams only felt that the heating in the arena was too good, and sweat continued to ooze from his face.

He was forced to make adjustments in advance, replacing the backup guard and the inside line, and let Li Hai go to match Kirilenko.

Kirilenko is 6 cm taller than Li Hai, and his arms are 10 cm longer. This is also his willingness to be strong defensively. With such long arms, he has no problem defending inside.

When he defends, he uses his long arms to interfere, and he must be careful even when passing the ball. He will always follow the offensive player and rarely take fake moves. When the opponent shoots, the long arm interference will come as expected.

When Li Hai faced Kirilenko's offense for the first time, his shot was almost blocked. In order to avoid those long arms, his shot became very unreliable.

Similar to Christie's judgment ability, the difference is that Kirilenko's physical fitness is much better.

At the end of the first quarter, the Knicks trailed by 24 points at 29:5.

When the fight continued in the second quarter, Li Hai was not in a hurry to break through Kirilenko's defense. Marbury's offense was good, and the task of scoring could be handed over to Marbury for the time being.

Li Hai also started a high-intensity defense. Boozer didn't feel good in this game. The Jazz is not only defending, but also relying on Kirilenko for offense.

Kirilenko's two biggest weaknesses are not strong enough and not strong enough to hold the ball. Li Hai can make good use of it in defense. He doesn't have any special skills. He just increases his physical confrontation closely and doesn't give the opponent a good catch at all. Chance.

Under Li Hai's full defense, the Jazz's offense stagnated.

While defending, Kirilenko was very depressed, and Li Hai also found an opportunity to attack.

He strengthened his breakthrough and used pure speed to get rid of the opponent. Both Boozer and Okur inside the Jazz had no ability to block shots. Li Hai directly let Boozer get off the court for too many fouls.

After Boozer went down, the Jazz lacked the offensive power inside, and the Knicks easily caught up with the score.

In the second half, before Boozer played for a minute, Li Hai broke through and made another foul, which made Boozer get his fourth foul.

Under the impact of Li Hai and Marbury, the Knicks quickly led to double digits.

Coach Williams carried out the rotation with confidence, and when the opponent asked Kirilenko to rest, he also asked Li Hai to recover his strength.

But what I didn't expect was that after Li Hai went down, the Knicks failed to withstand the attack of the opponent's substitute. Matt Harprin and Raja Bell scored consecutively to catch up the score.

Coach Williams had no choice but to replace all the main players.

In the fourth quarter, the scores of the two sides reached the same starting line again, and it was obviously the decisive moment.

Li Hai's stalking skills in defense are very good, and Kirilenko's off-ball running is also top-notch. After both sides came to the court after the timeout, their duel began again.

Kirilenko kept shuttling through the crowd, and his teammates kept covering for him. When he passed by Okur, Li Hai was blocked once, and he was a little slower. Kirilenko caught the ball and made a three-pointer.

He also tried a three-pointer before, but he missed it, but he made a hit at a critical moment in the fourth quarter.

Li Hai was also actively asking for the ball from his teammates, but he didn't blindly compete for three-pointers with the opponent. If the Jazz had a strong inside defense, he might try three-pointers, but their insides are now two guys who don't know how to block shots.

He kept making tentative steps near the three-point line, and Kirilenko was half a step away from him, covering his body with his long arms. Because of the advantage of his height and arms, Kirilenko could also block his breakthrough while preventing Seeing his shooting, it is very annoying.

Seeing that the other party didn't make any extra moves because of his tentative steps, Li Hai immediately turned his back on his back, took a step inside against Kirilenko, turned around and wiped it in with great flexibility. Boozer started off.

The referee's whistle sounded, and Boozer looked innocent with his arms up, but it was clear that he had fouled.

This coy foul didn't have any effect on Li Hai, 2+1.

And Boozer has been fouled for the sixth time and was sent off.

After Li Hai hit the free throw, he immediately came to Kirilenko's side, marking the whole court. With his speed, he was not afraid that Kirilenko would throw him off.

Kirilenko used the screens of his teammates to look for shooting opportunities. He also found some tricks in defending Li Hai throughout the game. He was able to quickly squeeze past the screens most of the time.

Obviously, the Jazz still lacks a passing master who can pass the ball to Kirilenko the moment an opportunity arises. When the opportunity fully arises, Li Hai will not let him appear.

So even if Kirilenko is very active in a normal game, there are very few cases where people get the ball.

Matt Halprin missed a shot, and Marbury dribbled the ball to the frontcourt and missed a shot, but Kirilenko was entangled with Lehi and did not have time to protect the rebound. Kurt Thomas grabbed the offensive rebound and hit two points.

At the most critical moment, the initiative was once again in the hands of the Knicks.

With Jazz guard Raul Lopez missing a [-]-pointer, the game was sealed.

(End of this chapter)