Byron Scott's head-to-head with me this time can be said to be full force, whether it is inside or outside shooting, he has applied his experience in the NBA for more than ten years, but unfortunately he is an old man after all, and today is a back-to-back state, so even if his brain can keep up, his body may not be able to listen to his command so much.

My defense against him is actually quite targeted, because I know that his shooting touch can't be particularly good at the beginning, so I try to let go of his long-range shooting, and at first I will guard his three-point shooting a little, but then even if I don't defend him, he can't shoot, and the three-point shots he throws are basically in the front line.

On the other hand, I feel a lot better than him on the offensive end, even if I can't break through to the inside to attack, but whether it's staring at Scott's defensive strong shot from the middle distance, or a back-to-back jumper, or even a step-back jumper, a small throw, I know a little bit of all kinds of offensive skills, so Scott is very difficult to defend me, and I can clearly see a trace of desperation in his eyes when he hits the back.

"Forget it, Scott, the old rules surrender and lose half, and I don't want others to say that I bullied the old man."

"Damn, forget it this time I lost, but this time it can't be counted, I fought too hard yesterday, and my physical strength is a little overdrawn, wait until the next time I recover my physical strength and then come to you to fight, you kid remember!"

I smiled and didn't say anything more, you must know that this guy played less than 10 minutes in total yesterday, and he shot three three-pointers on the court, and I don't know where the fight in his mouth came from, but I had to not only work on the offensive end yesterday, but also play against the opponent's most ruthless outside shooter.

Of course, I didn't say these words, as the so-called forgiving and forgiving, I didn't want to make the relationship with Scott too stiff, just told him to let the old man have a good rest, and then come to me to play after his physical strength recovered, the rules next time are still the same as this time, I can't get into the inside shooting.

Scott, the old boy, scolded for a long time, and saw that I didn't react, maybe I didn't feel bored, so I took the ball and went to find a field to practice shooting.

I see that his shooting today is basically a lot shorter, and I don't know where this guy went crazy last night, obviously he didn't contribute much in yesterday's game at all, even if he is older, his physical fitness is not so bad, presumably Shaq guy went out with his teammates on the Lakers last night and went crazy.

I shook my head, knowing that the opponent we were going to face today was not an ordinary team, and the coach and the team's top management didn't come forward to take care of Shaq, so I really didn't know how we were going to play today's game against the Utah Jazz.

I shook my head, walked over to Jessica, and hugged her tightly.

"It's a little strange, Byron Scott obviously doesn't have any physical strength, but he came to the arena so early to practice, I can't understand it."

"Don't think too much about it, he's just a role player anyway, the future of the Lakers still needs you and Shaq to support it, you just need to train hard and try to play your strength in the game."

Wei nodded slightly, and couldn't help but feel a trace of warmth in his heart, feeling that Jessica was becoming more and more like a virtuous wife.

I took the ball back on the court and started to continue the shooting drills that I didn't finish just now, this time I asked Jessica to continue to pass the ball for me, and I had to do a period of intensive catch-and-shoot drills.

Although I prefer to play with the ball a lot of the time, working hard to improve my off-ball ability can also better integrate me into the Lakers' tactical system, after all, when Shaq is on the court, most of the team's tactical initiation still prioritizes Shaq.

Shaq does have a very strong ability to attract the bag, and if Shaq can pass the ball to the outside in time, I can play a huge role even without the ball.

Of course, in the actual game, the opponent will not give me the opportunity to play without the ball easily, just like in the last game against the Warriors, the opponent would rather let go of a few Lakers players and not defend at all, and will not relax the defense against me and Shaq in the slightest.

I feel quite comfortable with the passing from Jessica, her passing seems to be more in place than many professional players, and it seems that Jessica's basketball talent is really not bad.

However, training is training, and the real influencing factors in the game are actually much more complex, many people are training players, and a small number of people are competition players.

And many times the key factor that determines whether you become a training player or a competition player is psychological quality, of course, psychological quality, which is something that cannot be seen or touched, is the same as the basketball IQ on the basketball court, many times there is no way to explain it in a few simple words, and then it will really have a huge impact on the court.

I don't know if my mental quality is strong, but when I have Kobe's physical talent, his personality characteristics seem to affect me all the time, when I get the ball on the court, I feel that my will and Kobe's will are one, and that kind of resolute and killer nature seems to naturally appear in my body without my intentional cultivation.

My training is not as long as the previous ones, maybe it is also to retain more physical energy for the subsequent games, to be honest, my physical consumption in the past two days is not small, even if Kobe's physical recovery ability is extremely strong, but as long as it is a physical mortal, there will be a limit, and I can't do too many things close to the limit, which will only make me overdraft Kobe's physical talent early, which is obviously not a wise choice.

I left an hour or so to chat with Jessica, tell jokes and even jokes to play time, when I talked to Jessica, my whole body would be completely relaxed, and the soreness from my body and muscles would disappear without me even noticing.

The Lakers vs. Jazz game will start in a little more than an hour, and when I warmed up before the game, I noticed that the entire Lakers starters looked listless, even if they played back-to-back games yesterday, but in terms of their physical fitness, they shouldn't be so tired.

It seems that my previous guess may be true, Shaq actually took a few players from the Lakers team to a party last night, this behavior is simply irresponsible to the extreme, but then I shook my head, anyway, this is not the first time, if the coach and the team management do not plan to intervene, I am afraid there is nothing I can do, at this time my position in the team is just a potential rookie, and I am not qualified to point fingers at the behavior of the team boss.

Sooner or later, they will be punished, not necessarily by whom, but by their bodies and their state of play, the NBA is an extremely cruel arena, and any abuse of talent will eventually be punished.

I didn't do too much warm-up exercises, the previous training has allowed me to find a good shooting rhythm, and now I have a little bit of energy, and I should be able to play when I get on the court later, after all, I spend most of my playing time with a group of teammates in the second team, and I don't have to worry about not having the ball and attacking opportunities.

As the referee threw the basketball into the sky, the game officially kicked off.

Shaq once again jumped the ball with great ease, and guard Van Exel received the ball and left to attack, but the Lakers' first offense quickly ended with a passing error.

Van Axel wanted to pass the ball directly to Eddie Jones at a 45-degree angle, but he didn't want the Jazz's Jeff Hornacek to be quick-eyed, so he judged Van Exel's passing route in advance, and cut the ball off directly, only to see the sturdy Karl Malone rushing towards the front court at a very fast speed at this time.

The players on the Lakers' side did not defend at all, and everyone watched as Karl Malone easily dunked the ball into the basket with one hand, and then Shaq slowly returned to the baseline to serve.

With this lesson, Van Exel's control after the movement is much more cautious, in fact, the Jazz's defensive strategy is quite similar to the Spurs under the coaching of Popovich, their seemingly small defense is actually based on a strict defensive system, and the players on the court are very clear about the relationship between the players on the entire playing field, so many fills and steals are very timely.

On the surface, the Jazz's defense may seem unaggressive, but if you are careless, you can be cut off from dribbling or passing, and what appears to be a loose defense is actually like a thick bucket that makes it difficult to find a breakthrough.

The simple thing is that the Lakers still have an offensive strong point, Shaq, when the mutual passing and cutting routes between the outside lines are completely cut off by the Jazz, Shaq has become the most important offensive fulcrum of the Lakers.

Although Carl Malone, who defends Shak, looks extremely muscular, and his strength is not inferior to Shak, but after all, Shak's height, arm span and weight have an absolute advantage, and Karl Malone is not the kind of strong defensive player, so Shaq can still score under Karl Malone's defense, but compared to usual, he is very easy to wreak havoc under the opponent's basket, and it still requires a lot of physical consumption to play Karl Malone.

And today's Shaq is obviously not full of physical reserves, so after being strong a few times after Kalmarone, Shaq seems to be unable to beat, but the endurance of this guy is obviously better than Shak, he is trying his best to use his strength to fight and consume Shak, and when Shak's physical strength declines, the overall hit rate will also decrease.

What's more important is that when Shaq consumes too much on the offensive end, Karl Malone and Stockton's high-post blocking tactics can be played more easily.

Shaq is not a guy who likes to shoot from the outside, many times he will give the opponent plenty of shooting space on the defensive end, and today's Shaq is also standing under the basket as always, completely unwilling to defend even one step.

Karl Malone, on the other hand, has a very stable catch-and-shoot percentage, and his range actually can't reach beyond the three-point line, but in the area from the free throw line to the three-point line, as long as he receives a pass from Stockton, his mid-range shooting is basically more than eight out of ten.

And once the rest of the Lakers' teammates step up to defend Karl Malone, another elite outside shooter on the Jazz, Jeff Hornacek, will be freed up.

And even if the Lakers players make up for the defense in time in front of Jeff Hornacek, Stockton, who holds the ball, can choose to shoot when he has an open opportunity, and although Stockton's three-point shooting is relatively small, the shooting percentage is even higher than Hornacek.

In short, when Shaq is on the court, the Lakers' defense is really taking care of one or the other, once Shaq is frustrated on the offensive end, and the Lakers are completely unable to prevent the Jazz's outside onslaught on the defensive end, the score between the two sides will soon be pulled away, which is a bit like our last game against the Warriors.

However, we did our best to beat the Warriors in the last game, and today's fitness reserves of the entire Lakers players have long since allowed us to play like we did yesterday.

Soon in less than half a quarter, the Jazz team has opened the Lakers with an advantage of more than ten points, and in this half quarter, head coach Silver Fox Harris called two timeouts in a row, and everything explained during the first timeout has basically become the wind in the ears of the Lakers players.

At the time of the second timeout, Silver Fox Harris didn't know what to say, the entire Lakers team was terrifyingly quiet, even Shaq lowered his head and was silent, I feel that Shaq today is completely a younger brother on the court, almost about to be beaten to tears by Karl Malone, with Shak's strong self-esteem, it is the first time I have seen someone who can beat him directly to bow his head and be speechless.

Shaq stayed on the pitch after the timeout and I was brought on early to replace Eddie Jones, and the duo of me and Shaq was called on early.

I went straight to the opposing team's elite outside shooter, Jeff Hornacek, and just like the last time I played against God's left-hander, Chris Mullin, I put more effort into the defensive end first, and the fact that Hornacek is not as good as Mullin's ability to run off the ball is not that hard, so it stands to reason that I need to lock him down completely.

And then it backfired, and while Hornacek may not be as good as Chris Mullin, the Jazz's point guard Stockton is much more terrifying than the Warriors' guard, especially in the use of pick-and-roll tactics, and the Jazz are clearly more than a notch above the Warriors.

The Warriors' high pick-and-roll I can always rely on excellent physical fitness and fast pace to force up with the blocked players, and the Jazz's pick-and-roll Carl Malone is extremely high-quality, his strong power and some small movements make it extremely difficult for me to force the pick-and-roll, even if I am lucky enough to squeeze through the first pick-and-roll, the Jazz can build a second block-and-roll wall in a very short time, blocking me behind them in an instant.

Defensively, I've done my best, but there's nothing I can do about the Jazz's offense, and their offense is still flowing like mercury, directly knocking our entire Lakers out of armor.

If it's just that the defensive end can't defend the opponent, we can respond on the offensive end, and we won't have no resistance at all, in fact, our entire Lakers team is also in huge trouble on the offensive end.

As I mentioned before, the Jazz's defense is a powerful and complete system, and it is very difficult for any individual player to break away from the Jazz's defense simply by relying on their own strong individual ability.

Not to mention whether Shaq and I are strong enough individually, in fact, even a basketball god like Jordan is not so easy when facing the Jazz's defense, you must know that there are several games in the Finals between the Bulls and the Jazz, and Jordan's Bulls team has been completely prevented.

Even though Shaq and I are both very strong single-point offensive players, we didn't prepare enough for today's game, not only because of our lack of physical preparation, but also because we didn't know enough about the Jazz's tactics.

So my solo offense with Shaq can often only play less than 70% of the power of usual, and the offensive efficiency is far lower than the overall offensive efficiency of the Jazz, so the overall point difference between the Lakers and the Jazz is getting bigger and bigger.

From trailing by 10 points at the halftime to trailing by 17 points in the final two minutes of the first quarter, we were about to trail by as many as 20 points in the first quarter.

In fact, we were able to score 20 points before the end of the first quarter, which wasn't particularly bad on the offensive end, but on the defensive end, we conceded 37 points in 10 minutes.

You must know that this era is not the situation where the three-point shooting was full of three-pointers in the later small-ball era, and the Jazz only made two three-pointers in the first quarter, and most of the other points came from two points.

It can also be seen how terrible the Jazz's shooting percentage in the first quarter is, and what is even more terrifying is that these Jazz players have become almost expressionless terrible fighters under the militarized management of their head coach Jerry Sloan, when you meet them face to face, you will involuntarily have a fear in your heart, even if they just stare at you with their eyes, it is enough to make your scalp tingle.

In the last two minutes, the Jazz's shooting percentage finally dropped, and I took advantage of this rare opportunity to fight back, hitting two counter-attacks in the last two minutes to bring the gap back to within 15 points.

At the end of the first quarter, the Jazz led the Lakers by 14 points, 39-25, Stockton had eight assists in the first quarter, and Karl Malone had 15 points and five rebounds on 6-of-8 shooting.

The prestige of Utah's twin evils is really not in vain!