Basketball boy, starting to shine from the slam dunk

In the blink of an eye, it is already December.

In the past month, the Lakers have achieved a record of 14 wins and 5 losses. Rose's injury did have an impact on them. In addition to the two games they lost due to Zhuang Yu's suspension, they lost three more games afterwards.

However, the Lakers' current record is still ranked second in the Western Conference.

Yes, it is not first in the Western Conference, because the Clippers have played extremely well this season. Their current record is 16 wins and 4 losses, and they have only lost four games. They are ranked first in the Western Conference and also first in the league, with two more wins than the Lakers.

The Warriors are ranked third in the Western Conference.

The Warriors have played very well this season and seem to have completely recovered from Curry's injury dilemma last season, with a record of 15 wins and 6 losses.

The fourth is the Nuggets.

This somewhat disappointed the fans. The Rockets couldn't even make it into the top four. You know, the Rockets' record was better last season than it is now.

The Rockets' lineup has not changed much this season. They have retained the core three of Westbrook + Harden + Love. In addition, they have made certain improvements to the bench lineup to increase the team's lineup depth, which still makes fans look forward to it.

However, when the regular season started, the Rockets still struggled in some games, and some problems that existed last season were not well resolved.

For example, the ball possession conflicts between Westbrook and Harden, the incompatibility between their playing styles, and the fact that Love's condition this season has also declined compared to last season.

Even though the Rockets supplemented their bench lineup, they were not able to perform to the fans' expectations.

On the other hand, the Nuggets, although their lineup did not look that gorgeous, still played very well, and one of the big reasons for this was the performance of the team's star player Nikola Jokic.

Last season, Nikola Jokic averaged 19.9 points, 9.7 rebounds, and 7.0 assists per game, and was selected to the All-Star team.

And this season he seems to have evolved again.

In the past nearly 20 games, he averaged 27.0 points, 11.0 rebounds and 8.4 assists per game, crushing all the centers in the league.

Averaged 27+11+8 per game.

It's incredible for a center, and his shooting percentage is as high as 56.6%, which is very efficient.

Led by Jokic's outstanding performance, the Nuggets still ranked third even though there are many strong teams in the Western Conference.

As for the Eastern Conference, it is still dominated by strong teams such as the Bucks, Celtics, and Raptors.

A quarter of the regular season has passed, and the Eastern and Western Conference situation seems to be becoming clearer.

Some strong teams gradually widened the gap with the teams behind them, and some stars also showed outstanding performances in the game.

For example, Jokic, Curry, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Bradley Beal, Jayson Tatum, Zach Lavine, Damian Lillard, Luka Doncic, Joel En-Bede, etc.

So far this season, there are only three players whose average points per game are still above 30 points, namely Zhuang Yu, Curry, and Bradley Beal.

Zhuang Yu ranked first with an average of 34.8 points per game, Curry ranked second with an average of 32.4 points per game, and Bill ranked third with 30.6 points.

Although Joel Embiid, Damian Lillard, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Luka Doncic and others behind him also had good personal data, none of them could score more than 30 points.

It is worth mentioning that Zach LaVine and Pelicans second-year player Zion Williamson made it into the top ten of the league's scoring list for the first time.

What surprised the fans was that in the top 10 scoring list, there were neither LeBron James, Anthony Davis, James Harden, nor Kevin Durant.

James is not so bad. He has been relatively restrained in scoring in the past two seasons, especially in the regular season.

Some people also say that he is just old.

Play with a health-preserving style, slack off in the regular season, and then explode in the playoffs.

Anthony Davis and Kevin Durant have been playing intermittently due to injuries, which has affected their average statistics to a certain extent.

Durant missed the entire last season due to injury. Although he made a comeback this season, he obviously has not fully recovered and has been playing on and off.

Fortunately, his scoring ability in some games is still surprising, and it seems that the serious tendon injury has not had much impact on him.

As for Harden's failure to enter the top ten in the scoring list, it was mainly due to the Rockets' tactical adjustments. Harden reduced his personal offense, including a decrease in playing time.

The Rockets obviously want to change their previous system.

The Rockets have had some outstanding results in the past few years, and even ranked first in the Western Conference. But no matter how well they played in the regular season or how explosive Harden's statistics were, they would soon fall apart once the playoffs arrived.

Kobe Bryant had commented on it at the time, saying directly that Harden's style of play with the ball in his hands would never win a championship.

Last season, the Rockets formed a "three-core" lineup, but the tactical system did not change, and they still failed to win the championship.

This made the Rockets reflect deeply and decide to make changes and not go back to the way things were before.

It’s just that the process of change is painful, and some of the problems themselves have not been resolved. As a result, Harden’s data has declined, Westbrook’s data has declined, Love’s data has declined, and the team’s record has not yet improved.

In short, a quarter of the regular season has passed, and the Lakers are still one of the top teams in the league, and Zhuang Yu is still leading the scoring and MVP lists.

......

Los Angeles.

A game is about to begin.

The Lakers played at home and faced the challenge of the Celtics.

The two sides met once in the regular season opener, and that time the Lakers suppressed the Celtics throughout the game and eventually won the game.

A group of Celtics players have arrived on the court, all with solemn expressions, and are warming up silently, which is quite different from the regular season opener.

After all, a quarter of the regular season has passed.

The Lakers' strength has been proven once again. Although they are terribly powerful, the Celtics' record is only ranked sixth in the Eastern Conference.

The Celtics players are a little depressed about the team's current record. It is not quite the same as what they expected before the game, and the gap is quite big.

But it's not entirely a bad thing.

At least it calmed down the restless hearts of several young Celtics players and made them much more stable than at the beginning of the season.

After a warm-up, the Celtics players returned to the sidelines.

The head coach made some arrangements.

Several players gathered together and whispered, "Although we lost last time, the opponent is missing Ross this time, so the situation is in our favor."

"We have to win this time."

“Go all out and win this game.”

Compared to the beginning of the season, they have become calmer and know how strong the Lakers are, but they still want to win the game.

Here, Zhuang Yu and others also came to the field.

The Lakers' starting lineup did not change.

There is no change in the Celtics' starting lineup, which is still Walker, Smart, Brown, Tatum, and Theis.

A group of young people wanted to gain the upper hand from the beginning and played very aggressively on the offensive end, especially Walker.

The last time the two sides met, Walker did not perform well, scoring only a dozen points, and his shooting percentage was only 30%, which made him very frustrated.

So this time Walker secretly told himself that he must perform better and show his own strength.

From the first quarter, Walker was very active on the offensive end, playing decisively and crisply.

It was precisely because of this decisiveness that his performance was much better than the last time the two sides met.

Even though he was still facing Holiday's defense, he had already scored 5 points in just three minutes.

However, Jaylen Brown, one of the two second picks, did not score a single point in three minutes. Facing Zhuang Yu's defense, he seemed to be unable to fully display his abilities.

Of course, this was not his fault. Any other player would not be much better than him when facing Zhuang Yu.

"Pick and roll."

on the field.

Walker gestured to his teammates, and a teammate came up to screen and roll. He then took the opportunity to get rid of Holiday and immediately accelerated to break through.

The Lakers quickly made up for the defense, and Walker passed the ball to Tatum outside the three-point line in the right corner. Tatum raised the ball and made a fake shot, then moved to the side and jumped up for a three-point shot.

With a slight sound, the ball hit the target.

The score on the field became 12:6, and the Celtics led by 6 points.

Turning around, the Lakers attacked.

After coming to the frontcourt, Holiday called a tactic.

But several passes did not create any good opportunities. Seeing that time was running out for the attack, Zhuang Yu ran back to ask for the ball from his teammates.

When his teammate passed the ball to him, he jumped up without any delay and took a three-point shot facing the defender who was flying over to him.

Swish!

No surprises, a sure hit.

"Hey......"

There was a sigh from the Celtics bench.

Although they were mentally prepared and knew it would be difficult to defend against Zhuang Yu.

But every time they saw Zhuang Yu scoring in this almost unreasonable way, they felt a sense of frustration in their hearts.

It’s so incomprehensible.

In the next few minutes, whenever the Celtics tried to widen the gap, the Lakers were always able to stand up and fight back.

Especially this point of Zhuang Yu left the Celtics helpless. They tried to use different players to defend Zhuang Yu, but just like the last time the two sides met, there was no effect.

No matter who is defending, Zhuang Yu can always score the ball.

After a few minutes, Zhuang Yu had scored 11 points, making 7 of 5 shots, including a three-pointer, with amazing efficiency.

"Requesting a timeout."

Halfway through the first quarter, the Celtics called a timeout.

You know, at this time the Celtics were still leading.

But their head coach couldn't help but call a timeout. He had to make new arrangements and not let Zhuang Yu score so easily again.

Because he knew very well that even though they were leading now, if Zhuang Yu continued to play in this state, the Lakers would most likely win in the end.

After several players came off the court, the Celtics coach sighed helplessly and ordered, "Double-team them later."

He didn't have any good solution. The entire league had no good solution when it came to defending Zhuang Yu. The only solution was double-teaming.

When the timeout ended and both teams returned to the court, the Celtics began to double-team Zhuang Yu.

Seeing the opponent start to double-team, Zhuang Yu smiled calmly. After reaching the frontcourt, he first took the ball to attract the defense, and then passed the ball to Anderson. He ran quickly, made a circle and returned to the three-point line.

But the goal was not to catch the ball and shoot, but to further tear apart the Celtics' defense and create opportunities for his teammates. Eventually Lopez got the space for a single play in the interior and forced Theis to score the ball.

In the next few rounds, Zhuang Yu only took one shot, a three-pointer against Brown's defense, but failed to hit it.

However, the teammates played well, the score gap between the two sides did not widen, and the game was always in a tense state.

When most of the first quarter had passed, the Celtics were leading by only one point.

The reason why they were leading was because Walker performed very well today. He scored 9 points in this quarter alone.

At this time, both sides began to replace players.

However, what made the Celtics depressed was that Coach Scott actually left Zhuang Yu on the court and asked him to play with several substitute players.

In fact, after Rose was injured, Coach Scott has increased the playing time of Zhuang Yu and Holiday, mainly to lead the rotation lineup.

Even when Zhuang Yu and Holiday are not on the court, Coach Scott will send Anderson and Lopez together.

This is because without Rose, the Lakers' bench lineup lacks an important offensive organizer.

Therefore, Zhuang Yu, Holiday and Anderson are needed to act as the team's offensive organizers during rotation time.

This season, Coach Scott's use of players seems a bit "capricious" and there is no obvious pattern.

But in fact, there are some traces to be found.

For example, when the Lakers take the lead in the first quarter, Coach Scott usually does not let Zhuang Yu play the entire quarter.

But if the Lakers fall into a disadvantage in the first quarter, then he will most likely let Zhuang Yu play the entire first quarter, or even the fourth quarter.

At this time, Zhuang Yu stayed on the court and played with Clarkson, Bembry, Nance Jr., and Howard.

The Celtics were still double-teaming Zhuang Yu, but Zhuang Yu continued to create opportunities for his teammates, assisting Howard to dunk and Clarkson to hit a three-pointer...

After a few minutes, under the leadership of Zhuang Yu, the Lakers successfully reversed the score and ended the first quarter with 33:30.

In this quarter alone, Zhuang Yu scored 11 points, 3 rebounds and 5 assists.