Basketball boy, starting to shine from the slam dunk

In a blink of an eye, the third quarter ended.

At this time, the Lakers were still leading by as many as 17 points.

In the last minute of the fourth quarter, both sides replaced their rotation lineups, but the Raptors did not replace Leonard and Lowry. The purpose was naturally to maintain their competitiveness on the court and seize the time to narrow the gap.

They did narrow the gap a little, but not by much.

Entering the fourth quarter with a 17-point lead, the Lakers played more calmly.

At this time, the team had a rotation lineup on the court. Neither Zhuang Yu nor Holiday played, but they still fought the Raptors to a draw.

This made Coach Nurse a little depressed. He quickly requested a substitution and substituted players such as Leonard, Lowry, and Siakam early on.

Despite being behind by more than ten points, the Raptors did not give up. They still wanted to catch up with the score in the last quarter and try to make a comeback.

"Ah......"

Coach Scott chuckled and quickly replaced the players, bringing on Zhuang Yu, Holiday, and Anderson.

In fact, the Lakers have more rotation players than the Raptors.

The Raptors' rotation players are only VanVleet, Ibaka, and Powell, basically eight or nine people rotating.

The Lakers usually have a ten-man rotation. In addition to the five starters, Rose, Clarkson, Cunningham, Kuzma, and Nance Jr. are also stable in the rotation.

With more rotating personnel, everyone's physical energy consumption will naturally be less.

Moreover, the Lakers have been in the upper hand today, and the players didn't feel too tired and still have enough physical strength.

In this situation, Coach Scott would naturally not give the Raptors a chance to catch up and replace the starting lineup in advance, right?

So can we.

The game continues...

In the next few minutes, the Raptors kept trying to catch up.

Leonard, Gasol Jr., Lowry and others all played well on the offensive end, but while they were scoring, the Lakers were also scoring.

"Shh!"

With a slight sound, Lowry made a three-pointer.

Turning around, the Lakers attacked.

After reaching the frontcourt, Zhuang Yu ran back to get the ball, attracted the Raptors' defense, passed the ball to Anderson, and then cut to the inside.

Seeing Zhuang Yu cutting in, the Raptors immediately shrank their defense, cutting off the connection between Anderson and Zhuang Yu and preventing Zhuang Yu from receiving the ball. However, Zhuang Yu then made a counter-run and quickly came to the left corner three-point line. Anderson passed the ball to Holiday, who immediately passed it to Zhuang Yu.

At this time, Zhuang Yu received the ball and immediately took a three-point shot.

Swish!

Also entered and returned an answerball.

"Hey, how do you defend against it?"

"How can we catch up with the score if Zhuang Yu scores a three-pointer at this time?"

"Yeah, we can't let the Lakers make three-pointers at a time like this..."

On the court, Raptors fans murmured in frustration.

In fact, the Raptors players cannot be blamed for not defending well against this kind of ball. In fact, they have done a good job in defending Zhuang Yu's three-pointer today. So far, including the three-pointer just now, Zhuang Yu has only made three three-pointers.

Although they did a good job defending Zhuang Yu's three-pointer today, they were not able to limit Zhuang Yu's scoring.

When this three-pointer was made, Zhuang Yu's personal score had reached 33 points.

Most of these came from mid-range shots, and his fadeaway jump shot almost made the Raptors collapse, leaving them helpless.

Coach Nurse sighed frustratedly. At this time, the Raptors were still trailing by 15 points, and there were only two minutes left in the game.

It is almost impossible to make up for the 15-point gap in two minutes.

......

In a blink of an eye, the game has come to an end.

In the past minute or so, the Raptors began to shoot three-pointers frantically, because only by shooting three-pointers did they have a glimmer of hope.

But the effect was not good. They missed three-point shots one after another, and not only did they fail to narrow the score gap, but it widened it a little bit.

There were only a few dozen seconds left in the game, and the Raptors were still trailing by 17 points.

The game has lost its suspense...

"drop......"

Soon, the whistle to end the game sounded, and the score on the field was fixed at 126:112. The Lakers defeated the Raptors with a 14-point advantage.

In this game, Zhuang Yu only made three three-pointers, but scored 33 points, plus 9 rebounds and 7 assists.

In addition to Zhuang Yu, the performances of others were also very good. Holiday scored 25 points, Clarkson scored 20 points, and Rose scored 16 points...

As for the Raptors, the highest scorer was Gasol, who scored 26 points, 10 rebounds and two assists. In addition, Leonard scored 24 points, Lowry scored 14 points and 8 assists, and Siakam scored 18 points...

At the end of the game, the score was changed to 2:1 and the Lakers regained the lead.

......

After the game, the Lakers were naturally jubilant.

The Raptors players were in low spirits. After returning to the hotel, Coach Nurse called a meeting with several assistant coaches overnight.

First, let’s analyze the game that just ended.

The conclusion is that although they did a good job in limiting Zhuang Yu's three-point shots in this game, they did not do a good job in defending other Lakers players.

It was actually acceptable for Zhuang Yu to score 30+, after all, Zhuang Yu's scoring ability is there, but Holiday scored 25 points and Clarkson also scored 20 points. One Lakers player scored 30+ and two others scored 20+.

This is somewhat unreasonable.

"In the next game, we have to defend the other players of the Lakers. After all, Holiday of the Lakers has been an All-Star, Clarkson has won the Best Sixth Man, and Rose is the youngest regular season MVP. They should not be underestimated."

"What about Zhuang Yu?"

"What else can we do? We should limit his three-point shooting as much as possible. Of course, in addition to three-point shooting, his breakthrough is also very powerful, especially his fadeaway jump shot, which is too difficult to defend. We must be mentally prepared to be unable to defend against such a player. I think that instead of trying every possible way to limit Zhuang Yu's scoring, we should think of ways to defend other Lakers players."

"This may be a solution. Basketball is a team sport. Even if Zhuang Yu is very good, it is not easy to win as long as the other players do not play well. Just like in the second game, although Zhuang Yu's three-pointer was very bad, he still scored a lot of points. The reason why we were able to win the game is that the other players of the Lakers did not play well either."

"Everyone, this is gambling, do you know?"

"Of course we know that, but what can we do? We are already 1:2 behind, and we have tried everything we should have tried. Don't forget, the opponent's Lopez is likely to return in the next game, or the game after that, and we don't have much time."

After some discussion, they unanimously decided to take a gamble.