Basketball boy, starting to shine from the slam dunk

All the players have arrived in the training hall.

Zhuang Yu, Holiday, Anderson, Lopez, Rose, Clarkson, Cunningham, Bembry, Nance Jr., Howard Sumner... There are only 11 people in total. The Lakers did not have any draft picks this year, so they got nothing in the draft.

This is also the reason why the Lakers chose to execute Sumner's last year of contract and keep him. The number of people really cannot be any less.

A group of players are training and will have their first pre-season game tomorrow.

They will play 6 games in this preseason, and their opponents are the Hornets, Thunder, Mavericks, and Bucks. They will play two games each against the Hornets and Bucks, and the two games against the Bucks are scheduled to be held in China, which is the NBA China Games.

This has become the standard for every preseason.

It’s just that the Lakers appear in the Chinese competition almost every year now.

"Here, the ball..."

"Pick and roll, play the 3."

"Go, Go, go to the other side, to the corner, the ball will be given to you..."

"Brother, you should come up and help me defend."

"Sorry, I was slow. I will pay more attention next time..."

The players were running on the field, conducting an intra-team training match.

Since the lineup has not changed much overall, the team's tactical system has not changed much and is still the same as last season.

However, there have been some adjustments to the team's starting lineup. Due to Kuzma's departure, Cunningham became the starting No. 3 position.

Cunningham started for a while last season, so there is no problem.

As for the bench lineup, the inside line can only rely on Nance Jr. and Howard.

During this period, Coach Scott has been observing the performance of Howard and Bembry, but unfortunately, the performance of both of them was not satisfactory.

Today's Howard no longer has the same strength as he did in the past. He can only play a role on the defensive end against those stationary centers, but it is difficult for him to perform on the offensive end.

Of course, with players who can pass the ball such as Zhuang Yu, Holiday, Rose, and Anderson on the team, he can still get some rebounds.

It's just limited to catching cakes, don't expect to take the initiative to attack.

At this time, Zhuang Yu was in a group with Holiday, Cunningham, Anderson, and Lopez, and the other group was Rose, Clarkson, Bembry, Nance Jr., and Howard.

The ball was in Zhuang Yu's possession. Holiday advanced with the ball and passed it to Zhuang Yu in the frontcourt. Lopez screened and Zhuang Yu moved to the left. Howard came up to delay, but when he saw Zhuang Yu pause for a moment and his center of gravity was raised, he subconsciously jumped up. As a result, Zhuang Yu accelerated and passed him cleanly, and then made a layup with his left hand.

In the next round, it was still a pick-and-roll switch. Howard didn't dare to jump too far forward this time, but Zhuang Yu shot directly from outside the three-point line.

Swish!

There was a soft sound and the ball was scored.

Howard looked depressed. Coach Scott on the sidelines shouted at them, "Wait a minute, Nance will go up to delay the game. Howard will stay inside."

"it is good."

"clear."

The two agreed.

When Zhuang Yu's team attacks next time, they will still use pick-and-roll and switch defense.

This time it was Nance Jr. who rushed over. He knew Zhuang Yu well enough and was faster than Howard. He rushed over in time and maintained just the right distance, preventing Zhuang Yu from making an easy shot.

Of course, there is still a big speed gap between the two sides, and although Nance Jr. is very active in defense, the quality of his defense is not particularly good.

Zhuang Yu accelerated and passed him.

"Back up the defense," Nance Jr. shouted.

Howard quickly took a defensive stance.

Having just arrived at the Lakers, he is eager to show himself and he doesn't want to be unemployed again.

However, as soon as he stepped forward, Zhuang Yu raised the ball and pretended to shoot it, but in fact it was a pass. With one hand, the basketball passed Howard and fell to the right side of the basket.

A figure rushed over, it was Anderson.

Bang!

Anderson made an alley-oop dunk.

Howard smiled bitterly.

......

On the sidelines.

Coach Scott and Assistant Coach Madsen looked at each other, smiled and shook their heads. Assistant Coach Madsen said, "Zhuang Yu is still too strong."

"They are just not on the same level, the gap is too big." Coach Scott also said, shouting towards the court, signaling everyone to stop and adjust the lineup.

The grouping just now was for tactical practice.

However, the gap between the two sides was too big, and it seemed that it did not play the role it should have. Zhuang Yu's team played very well in tactics, but the substitute team did not provide good enough defense, so it does not have much reference value.

This time, Zhuang Yu was replaced by the bench team, partnering with Howard, Nance Jr., Rose and Bembry.

"Okay, let's continue."

Coach Scott waved his hand, signaling the players to continue training. He said to assistant coach Madsen, "Without Kuzma and Zubac, our rotation lineup may suffer. My idea is to let Zhuang Yu, Lopez and Holiday take turns to lead the substitute lineup. What do you think?"

Assistant Coach Madsen pondered for a moment and said, "Although our current lineup has shrunk compared to last season, there will definitely be no problem in the regular season, even if Zhuang Yu does not lead the substitute lineup in the regular season. It's just that we may encounter some troubles in the playoffs, so I still agree with your idea, coach."

After a pause, he continued, "In addition, I think we can keep two core players on the court together during some rotations. For example, Zhuang Yu and Holiday, or Zhuang Yu and Lopez, or Lopez and Holiday."

Coach Scott nodded: "I have the same idea. In the case of insufficient bench depth, to ensure sufficient competitiveness, we need to have a more flexible lineup."

As they were talking, they couldn't help but turn their heads to look at the field.

At this moment on the court, Zhuang Yu was attacking.

After Zhuang Yu came to the frontcourt, he first called for a pick-and-roll. After a switch of defense, he passed the ball to Howard. Howard cut into the inside, received the pass from Zhuang Yu, jumped up and wanted to slam dunk, but missed.

The basketball bounced out of the frame.

Coach Scott and assistant coach Madsen looked at each other, feeling a little helpless. After all, Howard was not the super center who could average 20+14 per game.

If it were him back then, this ball would definitely be a wonderful and explosive two-handed dunk, and there would be no way he would miss.

"Howard is still a little nervous." Assistant coach Madsen said.

It can be seen that Howard is a little anxious to show himself.

But this had the opposite effect, the movement was not stretched enough and the body was too tense, so the ball was missed.

In the next round, Zhuang Yu fed the ball to Howard again, directly to his mouth. However, after getting the ball, Howard did not choose to dunk like last time, but instead used a rebound shot, and the basketball still bounced out of the frame.

This made him stamp his feet in frustration.

It really shouldn't have happened. Both goals were sure wins, but they were both missed.

"It's okay, relax, it's just training." Zhuang Yu said to Howard with a smile, "I'll pass you another one later, just dunk, don't think too much."

Howard nodded in agreement, thinking to himself, I also want to dunk, but I may not have the chance.

He obviously didn't know Zhuang Yu well enough. Since Zhuang Yu said he would pass him a pass for him to dunk, he would definitely do it.

A moment later, Howard grabbed the rebound and passed it to Zhuang Yu.

Zhuang Yu pushed for a counterattack, and after reaching the front court, he first signaled his teammates to slow down and implement a tactic.

When Howard came up for a screen, Zhuang Yu took the opportunity to break away and formed a switch defense.

Then Zhuang Yu suddenly stepped back and pretended to take a jump shot. Anderson, who was delaying him, rushed over and jumped to block the shot.

Just like before the adjustment, no big center was used to delay Zhuang Yu.

Because Zhuang Yu's three-point shot is so accurate.

Moreover, he was very fast, and the big center could not keep up with him at all. Before they could come up to delay him, Zhuang Yu had already opened fire from outside the three-point line.

A few minutes ago, the substitute team used Nance Jr. to delay the game, but now Zhuang Yu switched to the substitute team, and the opponent used Anderson to delay the game.

However, what was unexpected was that when Anderson jumped up, Zhuang Yu did not shoot, but took a step forward and threw the ball out.

Yes, this was not a shot, because it didn't look like a shot at all. It was just throwing the ball towards the backboard, and everyone watching was stunned.

The next moment, Zhuang Yu started, and the basketball hit the backboard and bounced back, right into his hands.

"Oh..."

"Do you want to throw it and catch it yourself?"

There was a cry of surprise in the stadium.

Big Lopez subconsciously pounced on Zhuang Yu.

But they guessed wrong again.

Zhuang Yu didn't want to do it himself. Seeing Lopez rushing over, Zhuang Yu immediately threw the ball into the basket and shouted to Howard: "Dunk."

what?

Howard was still a little dazed until he heard Zhuang Yu's shout and then he reacted and jumped up quickly.

Zhuang Yu passed the ball very smoothly, right next to the basket.

Howard doesn't need to do any extra movements, and even the requirement for jumping is not that high. He just needs to grab the basketball in the air and put the ball into the basket.

This time Howard did not make any mistakes. With a clang, he slammed the basketball into the basket and completed the tip-in.

After landing, Howard looked at his hands with a dazed expression. It took him two seconds to react. He ran towards Zhuang Yu with a grin and excitedly high-fived him.

He actually didn't expect to have another chance to dunk, and he didn't expect that Zhuang Yu would make such an unexpected pass, which was basically feeding it to his mouth.

so comfy.

Zhuang Yu smiled and said, "Look, isn't this very simple?"

Howard laughed and said humorously: "If there are more balls like this, I believe I can still average 20+10 per game, haha..."

After this ball, Howard's performance was obviously much better than before. He was not so nervous and was more daring to make moves.

Even in the last few minutes, he scored a few more points.

Of course, the main reason was because Zhuang Yu was feeding him, and it was so comfortable.

"All right."

"take a break."

Coach Scott called a halt to practice.

After several players came off the court, Coach Scott called Zhuang Yu and repeated what he had just discussed with Assistant Coach Madsen.

He just had this idea before, but now he has made a decision - just as assistant coach Madsen said, in addition to letting Zhuang Yu, Holiday and Lopez rotate to lead the bench lineup, the time for two of the three core players to be on the court at the same time should also be increased.

A very important point is that he found that Zhuang Yu was now performing more and more easily in the competition.

Just like last season's finals.

He is able to maintain extremely high efficiency and outstanding performance, while playing relatively easily and keeping his physical energy consumption within a controllable range.

This gave the coaching staff more confidence, allowing them to make more attempts in lineup deployment.

Of course, there is another reason.

That is the departure of Kuzma and Zubac. The team's lineup has shrunk, and some adjustments and changes must be made in the lineup.

After all, their roster has shrunk, but their opponents have not. Instead, the roster of several teams has been strengthened.

The bad news is that the enemy has become stronger.

The good news is that Zhuang Yu has become stronger again!