"How about a player who can get the ball to Yao!" Van Gundy's head is getting big!

After the official timeout in the first quarter, the Rockets took Yao Ming off to rest. When Yao Ming was there, he was still able to contain the Eagles' pressing defense from the inside.

After Yao Ming came off the court, the Rockets became even more unable to defend themselves.

Totally not in the pre-game plan!

Van Gundy and Thibodeau wanted to rely on Yao Ming's positional and rim protection ability and low post play to deal with the Hawks. They were ready to play around Yao Ming, but it was completely useless!

Who would have thought that the Hawks, who were struggling with the Heat in the last game, would suddenly become as unrestrained as the Suns in this game?

The key is that this is still a fast-paced offensive and defensive transition with defense. It is not just for the sake of being fast and doing your best to defend. It is what Coach Kruger and Mike Woodson want. Play like the Suns, don't say that the coach doesn't accept it.

, even if Liu Mang said something about it, McGrady would not pay attention to it.

Maybe it's because the Rockets, except for the dual-core team, are really poor, allowing the Hawks to take advantage of their strongest advantage - physical fitness - for the first time since the start of the season.

In the past, the steady single defense, zone defense, positional battles, pick-and-rolls, and offensive rebounds could not fully bring out the athletic ability of the Eagles. After changing to a different style of play, the biggest "reward" was,

It's not the advantage in score, but the advantage of athletic ability!

The Hawks' 15-man roster, except for Korver, Calderon, Varejao, and Kevin Willis, are all players who can run, jump, and defend!

Coach Kruger originally thought that Liu Mang was just making things happen on a whim and wanted to change to a more relaxed style of play in the regular season. Unexpectedly, he really brought out the enthusiasm of the players and released the sports that he had never thought of.

The ability is used!

And this is not to say that Calderon and Korver are useless, but it is because the advantages of other people's athletic ability are brought into play, Korver's three-pointer after receiving the ball, Calderon's three-pointer after receiving the ball and the third pass.

Or the second pass plays better!

McGrady is not like a certain No. 1 player who only wants to assist when he passes out. He took Calderon, Jason Terry, Josh Smith, and Rasheed Huale with him after Liu Mang was replaced.

When playing together, I saw that Calderon's second or third pass was selfless and very accurate. He could take advantage of his teammates' opportunities to tear apart the opponent's defense and decisively create more opportunities for Calderon.

After the first quarter, the score was 33-14 by the Eagles, leading by 19 points in a single quarter!

After Yao Ming came on the court in the second quarter, the Hawks' defense became even tighter against Yao Ming. The Rockets did not have a good pick-and-roll player. Whether it was Yao Ming, Jim Jackson, or Richard Jefferson, they were all the pick-and-roll players.

Instead of someone who uses the pick-and-roll, Bob Sura doesn't have that ability. Their backup point guard is Charlie Ward... 34 years old, about to retire. Joan Barry is a catcher and shooter...

When Yao Ming takes a break, there is no good backup center. When Yao Ming is on the court, no one can pass the ball to him, not the point guard, nor the power forward passing inside.

Both of these points were taken advantage of by the Eagles.

And Van Gundy Jr. had been planning a strategy to deal with the Eagles for almost a month, but the Eagles changed their style of play and it was all in vain!

No matter the strategy to defend against the Eagles or the offensive strategy to deal with the Eagles, none of them came in handy!

At the end of halftime, the Eagles scored 71-45.

It wasn't that the Rockets' scoring became better in the second quarter. They scored 31 points in a single quarter because the pace was too fast! The number of shots increased significantly. They could suppress the pace in the first quarter, but in the second quarter McGrady became more and more familiar with the game.

In France, he sent out 7 assists in a single quarter, completely knocking off the rhythm of the unprepared Rockets, and entering the rhythm that the Eagles wanted!

Four assists in the first quarter, seven assists in the second quarter, and 11 assists in the half! McGrady hit the ground running and got into the zone!

Seeing that the situation in front of him was completely unexpected and he couldn't even think of a response strategy, Van Gundy swore that if he was given half a month, he would definitely be able to think of a way to deal with the Eagles. At least a tie would be possible. After all, here

It's an away game, and the Rockets have an advantage. The more they encounter the devil on the road, the more advantage they have.

But now he couldn't think of it for a while! He really wanted to call his brother and ask if he had prepared a small piece of paper that could just deal with the Eagles...

However, Van Gundy is not the only one who wants to cry, there is also someone on the Eagles team who wants to cry.

After halftime, Liu Mang still scored the most points for the Hawks. It wasn't that he didn't want to pass the ball anymore, but that McGrady was addicted to passing the ball. He finally encountered a clueless team like the Rockets and beat the defensive counterattack.

Flying up, McGrady became obsessed with passing the ball and did not let Liu Mang dribble. Liu Mang only had to rely on his temporary "engine" characteristics to drive the rhythm of his teammates. McGrady took the ball away to organize the offense. Liu Mang reached the third

When he comes on the court in the second quarter, he is responsible for shooting...

The Eagles scored 38 points in the second quarter, and Liu Mang scored 20 points on 7 of 13 shots...

However, the number of assists Liu Mang was fully expecting were two in the first quarter and one in the second quarter...

…

Trailing by 26 points at halftime, the Rockets struggled a bit in the third quarter, but the point difference widened to 33 points. After three quarters, the Hawks led 101 to 68 by 33 points, and the Rockets players no longer wanted to struggle.

What a fart!

Because as long as Yao Ming comes up, he will be targeted, and the Rockets do not have good on-the-spot command, and they have not thought of a solution during the halftime break. They have been preparing for a month. Who would have thought that the Hawks would change at the drop of a hat? They even thought of it.

How should the Eagles cope with various changes during the position battle, but they never imagined that the Eagles would play like this!

Yao Ming played a miserable three quarters and only took 7 shots for 25 minutes. He scored 10 points, 6 rebounds and 2 blocks on 4 of 7 shots...

This chapter is not over yet, please click on the next page to continue reading! When Liu Mang received the ball in the third quarter, he refused to pass it. While secretly cursing the four shooting guards that they were bad guys, he threw the ball after receiving it and quickly devoted himself to tactics.

In the plan, he was the first scoring option, aggressively running and throwing wildly.

If you don’t get assists, just score points!

He scored 6 points in the first quarter, 20 points in the second quarter, and 18 points in the third quarter. Taking advantage of the fact that the Rockets were confused on offense and defense and didn’t know how to play, Liu Mang made 15 of 27 shots in the third quarter, 7 of 11 three-pointers, and 8 free throws.

Hit 7 and score 44 points!

Tracy McGrady sent out 3 assists in the third quarter, mainly because a certain player was too independent and just took the ball without hesitation. His idea of ​​trying to hit 15 assists or even 20 assists in a single game was shattered.

However, 14 assists in a single quarter still broke McGrady's personal record of 13 assists in a single game! With 14 points, 14 assists and 3 rebounds, McGrady became more and more obsessed with organizing offense.

If he didn't get 15 assists, what else could McGrady do? He could only choose to forgive that unlucky kid.

In the fourth quarter, both Liu Mang and Tracy McGrady were replaced, and the Rockets stopped struggling. Jason Terry led Iguodala, Korver, Josh Smith, and Varejao to make wild shots.

In the end, the Hawks slaughtered the Rockets with a score difference of 129 to 93, a 36-point difference!

Liu Mang looked at his own statistics, 44 points, 7 rebounds and 4 assists. He felt that the world was so strange: I was ready to get assists, but why did I just get points?

It’s unscientific!

Yu Jia and Director Zhang, who were broadcasting the game live, were speechless for a long time. Did they agree on a big showdown between the top picks?

The promised battle for the three major stars of the 2001 class?

The two leading scorers Liu Mang and Tracy McGrady were promised to play against the MJ team?

Today Yao Ming had 10 points and 6 rebounds, and Richard Jefferson had 16 points. The Rockets were completely out of order and without tactics. It felt like they were not prepared for this game.

"Not prepared" is what Director Zhang mentioned most often in his commentary in order to protect the Rockets' face.

If little Van Gundy knew what Coach Zhang said, he would definitely run to the toilet and cry: "It's not that I was unprepared! It's just that I was too prepared, and I couldn't even adjust my strategy to deal with the Suns!"

…

…

129 points in a single game!

The Hawks broke the single-game scoring record for a single team this season, which was set by the Suns when they played the Nuggets in the second game of the season with 127 points!

The Rockets team scored 93 points, which is actually not too unexpected. After the Rockets' average points per game this season have almost stabilized, they are only 96 points. 93 points is considered normal.

But the process by which they scored so many points was abnormal. Their shooting percentage was too low. They only hit 33 goals in 97 shots, with a shooting percentage of almost 35%!

Their average number of shots per game so far this season is 80, which means that the pace has been accelerated by nearly 25%!

This is unacceptable for a Rockets team built on the defense of Yao Ming and Richard Jefferson.

Because the Hawks shot 51 of 101 from the field, the team's shooting percentage was over 50%, while the Rockets have limited their opponents' shooting percentage to 42% so far this season, ranking sixth in the league, but let the Hawks

With such a high number of shots, the team shot more than 50% from the field and scored 15 three-pointers in a single game. The key is that the Eagles only got 17 free throws, which means there was almost no pressure on the defensive end.

sex.

In other words, the Rockets were beaten by the Hawks and were unable to fight back!

This is Houston's famous 5-5 start team! Especially the away Rockets!

However, what surprises people the most is that even the Eagles started to play run and gun?

The defending champion is going to go against the odds with a run-and-gun attack!

Liu Mang tried to set off a small ball storm, but other teams did not agree. From the beginning, there were more doubts, unlike the Warriors who set off a small ball storm from the beginning.

The main thing is that in the current environment, there are so many teams with powerful insiders, who will go to play small ball with the Eagles...

…

On the American side, there were mostly doubts and surprised reactions.

Domestically, since the Suns have not received even one live broadcast from China, who knew the Suns would play so well before the season, and now the impression of them is just that they score high.

The gorgeous offense played by the Eagles in this game made domestic fans excited.

The reason why so many people miss the Suns is because they don't just love offense, but regard it as a kind of belief. This is D'Antoni's belief, and it is also the belief of the Suns players, and they even fall in love with it.

Their fans also take it as their faith.

But the Suns gave Liu Mang the idea of ​​​​starting the small ball era. Although he was questioned at the beginning, as the first team to cause a small ball storm in the country, the Eagles had won the championship before and won 70 games.

It didn't cause such a big response, but this time the competition attracted a lot more supporters.

Sometimes, attracting fans is that simple. Maybe you fall in love with Jordan after watching Jordan's graceful fadeaway jumper as if he was leaning against a wall in the air. Maybe you fall in love with McGrady because he despises all players who claim to be talented and hit freehand jumpers.
To be continued...