I woke up early that day and went out for some morning jogging with Jessica, and to be honest, it was quite nice to be able to breathe in the fresh air of the fields in the morning.

When we came to the Utah Plateau before, Jessica and I also enjoyed the beautiful night sky on the Utah Plateau at night, the night sky here is so beautiful and so moving, there are no words to describe it.

It was winter, so the sky was still dark, and Jessica and I woke up quite early because we wanted to get a feel for the feeling that is unique to this early morning.

Jessica and I didn't have any special opportunities to experience this kind of morning together on the previous road trips, in fact, people are really simple sometimes, and the things you need are really not so complicated, when you really enter this special state, you will understand a truth, it turns out that it is really a wonderful thing for us to be alive.

I remember the last time Jessica and I came to Salt Lake City, we went to a special town where everything seemed exactly like in a cowboy movie in the West, but now we can't remember what happened in that town.

I don't know if it's because we're both too forgetful, or if it's because there's some other reason.

We weren't really going to visit that town again today, because I wanted to practice on the court earlier, and even though it was back-to-back games, I was still full of energy, and it seemed like even if I could still have enough strength to play against the Utah Jazz even after a full day of training.

Actually, on the other hand, I was thinking that the possibility of winning today's game without Shaq is very small anyway, and this kind of one-sided game is not particularly valuable, so maybe it is not a better choice to use more physical energy in training, anyway, I will do my best in today's game.

And Jessica is also quite understanding, she agreed to accompany me to the arena early for basketball training, and it is really a happy thing for me to meet a girl like her in this life!

I won't go into any more depictions of the day's workout, and soon the evening will come, and our Lakers and Utah Jazz game will begin.

After today's game, for the first time in a long time, we didn't get the ball on our first offense because Shaq didn't play with the team, and the Utah Jazz quickly launched an attack on us after jumping to the ball.

Their defender Stockton is very cunning on the field, always able to spot his teammates' offensive opportunities at the first time, and his passes are often the kind of passes that can take his teammates forward, just before you reach the position, his passes have already arrived early, which can guide teammates to attack, but also make the defenders of their players very headaches.

The player I'm playing against is Jeff Hornacek, a very good spot shooter, and I'm impressed with his ability to run off the ball, even though he may not have a lot of points in a game, averaging less than 15 points per game, but he always hits some very crucial points in the most critical moments, and those points are often very lethal.

For example, when you are about to get up and he gives you a three-pointer, or when you are about to catch up, he gives you a three-pointer, that is, he may be invisible on the court for a long time, but when it comes to the critical moment to score, he can always step up and play the role of a key player.

Of course, his excellent play also has a lot to do with Stockton's very strange passing, without Stockton's strong passing to guide, he would not have been able to get those shooting opportunities, and on the other hand, Karl Malone's blocking ability has also strengthened the power of this group of players.

Just like the tacit blocking and dismantling cooperation with the trio of the Rockets, the blocking and dismantling tactics of the Utah Jazz are even more incredible, the most important thing is that they have a guard with excellent passing ability, which is not available to the Rockets, and some of the functions of the Rockets' Big Three may still be superimposed, but in the Utah Jazz, the three of them have their own duties, and they have a very clear team division of labor between them, which makes them an extremely terrifying team. And this horror is often something you may not see on the surface.

For example, you may think that Stockton looks short and thin, but if you go head-to-head with him, you know how terrifying his strength, his stamina, his explosiveness, his little movements are, and he is the kind of player who looks humble on the surface, but is actually a villain.

But to be honest, the players who came from the 80s have more or less this kind of ruffianism in them, which is the influence of this era, and of course you can also understand it as toughness.

And Jeff Hornacek also seems to be the kind of player who doesn't stand out, so much so that you can underestimate his power a lot of the time, and as I've said before, he's always going to step up and give you a heavy blow when you're almost forgetting about him, and that kind of blow can be very fatal.

And finally when it comes to Karl Malone, this guy has a wisdom that does not match his size, in fact, although Karl Malone's body is very strong, but after all, his height and arm span are not excellent, and his body explosiveness is not as explosive as Shaq or Sean Kemp.

So although he is muscular and full of power, he actually really has to be a player who relies on technique to eat, but his excellent physical fitness can ensure that he can continue to carry out stable output, and his scoring methods are also very comprehensive, from inside back singles to dunks under the basket, to mid-range jump shots, and even some off-ball cuts, he is very proficient in all scoring methods, and many times he is not the kind of player who completely relies on physical advantages to eat hard.

The tacit cooperation between Karl Malone and Stockton makes their Utah twin powers very terrifying, but in fact, they should be regarded as a trio, and only by joining Jeff Hornacek can this combination be complete and be able to exert their maximum power against each other.

After the opening, Stockton found Karl Malone who cut into the interior as soon as he came up, because Shaq did not play in this game, so our Lakers' interior line is relatively weak, and the opponent also saw this at this time, and the first ball that came up was to impact our interior.

Karl Malone is very fast, and the advance of Stockton's pass is well grasped, so that our Lakers' interior line has no time to react, and Karl Malone directly gives a dunk two plus one, this ball immediately mobilized the emotions of their home fans, the name of the Utah Jazz Devil's home court is not called in vain, in addition to because this is a plateau court, but also because the fans here are also very difficult to deal with, they always have a lot of terrible ways to interfere with your game state.

Great, the first ball that came up gave the Utah fans a chance to get on the ground, and once they seized such an opportunity, it would make the noise extremely terrifying, and any visiting team here would feel a little overwhelmed when faced with such a noise.

After I received the serve, I dribbled the ball steadily across the half, and the player who came to defend me turned out to be Stockton, which was probably arranged for me by their head coach Jerry Sloan, and I also played against Stockton in the last game against the Utah Jazz, and I knew that he was very tough defensively, and he made a lot of small moves.

Unlike the defensive master Glove Payton I played against in the last game, Stockton's personality is more gloomy, and he will use some small tricks or less glamorous small moves to deal with you, while relatively speaking, Glove Payton is much more enthusiastic, and Payton will use trash talk and aggressive defense to toughen you head-on.

Stockton is not, his defensive actions look small on the surface, but in fact they are full of all kinds of small actions that the referee can't see, and many of his forces are very hidden, only those who have been with him will understand that if you are not careful, you will suffer a big loss on him, so you must not be too impatient when facing Stockton, and you must not enter the trap he designed for you.

Only by maintaining a calm mind can you have a chance to not fall behind in the confrontation with him.

But it's so hard to do that, and a lot of times I can't do it myself.

Sure enough, when I thought I had protected my dribble well, Stockton took advantage of my inattention and directly snatched the ball away from my hand, which is difficult for even Stockton or Allen Iverson to do, but this guy did it so easily, I really don't know how to describe how I feel now, as if this guy in front of me is really not a normal person, because how can a normal person do this kind of thing?

I was a little annoyed and wanted to go back and get it back, but Stockton's dribbling speed is so fast, you will find that his dribbling is completely different from Iverson's flashy dribbling, you look at first glance this guy's dribbling seems to be very unpretentious, there is nothing special about it, but you just can't take his ball down, and even when you appear in his offensive line, you can't do anything to hinder his progress, He can dribble the ball past your defence with great ease without slowing down, while you can only look at him with a blank look on your face.

He is so powerful, low-key and powerful, unlike many of those top star players who pursue gorgeous dribbling and passing actions, all of this guy's actions are unpretentious, and they are all deeply skillful, just like the Shaolin sweeping monk in Jin Yong's martial arts Tianlong Babu, it doesn't seem to have anything special, but he is the kind of real master outside the world, and ordinary people are not his opponents at all.

In the face of such an opponent, you can't panic, because he doesn't know how many small plans against you are hidden under his completely expressionless face, and you can't get into the rhythm of his game, in short, you will find that it is very painful to face such an opponent, because it seems that you have infinite strength but you can't exert anything, you can only be led by the nose by him.

After the start of the game, our Lakers team quickly fell into a very big disadvantage, and it was only then that we found that after losing Shaq's involvement in the interior, we were quite weak both offensively and defensively.

And my personal singles are not good at all against the old fox Stockton, although I am taller than him, faster than him, stronger than him, faster than him, but there is no way to easily succeed in singles Stockton, I attacked four times at the beginning, two of which were wrongs, one was iron, and the only goal I scored was when I had to shoot when it was almost 24 seconds away, and I can say that Stockton was very impressed with my defense.

Fast forward five minutes, our Lakers are already down by a full ten goals 5-15, and this is only the beginning of the game, if we continue in this state, we are afraid that we will not even be able to support half of the court and will be beaten into garbage time.

This can't help but remind me of the last time we were here, we were also beaten by the Utah Jazz at halftime, and in the second half, we relied on the desperate counterattack of our whole team to make the final score difference not too big, so that it would not be too ugly to lose, but today I think it is difficult for our team to catch up in the case of falling behind, because the spirit has been scattered.

Perhaps before the start of this game, everyone was ready to accept the result of this game, so even after falling behind, everyone's mood did not seem to change, and everything seemed to be quite normal.

And although there is a nameless fire burning in my heart, what is the use of such a nameless fire, all my strength is really impossible to exert in the face of Stockton, it is like a weakness on cotton, and that feeling is impossible to feel if you don't experience it yourself!

Head coach Silver Fox Harris could only call a timeout at this time, and he obviously saw that the situation on the field was a little out of control, especially after I started the game so much, which must have been beyond his expectations.

Originally, I should have stepped up and scored in Shak's absence, but Stockton really seemed to restrain me a little, at least for now, I can't find a way to break through Stockton's defense.

What the hell is there to do to make Stockton less of an impact on me?

However, the head coach Silver Fox Harris didn't say much about me, maybe he also saw that I was depressed enough at this time, and he said more about me in fact, it was useless, so maybe he didn't add to my troubles.

The timeout ended quickly, and after this timeout, there was a brief recovery in the state of our entire Lakers team, at least in the mental state of the game, but despite this, it was only barely able to stabilize the situation, and did not let the point difference further widen, but we want to recover the point difference, to be honest, it is not an easy thing to do.

Mainly because although we played a lot better on the offensive end after coming back, the real problem was still on the defensive end, and in the face of his extremely skilled blocking and pick-and-roll tactics of the Jazz, we really seemed to suffer a little too much when defending them.

And the reason why our Lakers are difficult to prevent them from blocking and stealing offense is definitely not simply because Shaq can't defend to the outside, the real biggest problem is actually that our overall defensive tacit understanding is not enough, and some of our players do not put in enough effort on the defensive end.

Of course, it also has something to do with the lack of individual defensive ability of some players, and it is difficult to fundamentally change this by just one or two people, and in the end I think it needs to be changed in the defensive strategy of the whole team.

However, our hard work did not last long, and soon under Stockton's leadership, the Utah Jazz's defense seemed to have improved to a new level.

Oh my God, is the other side trying to kill them all today? However, I didn't give up so easily, probably because I really used up too much energy in training during the day today, so my energy is not particularly abundant now.

In the usual games, Shaq usually exerts his strength in the first half, and I will only exert my strength after entering the second half, but without Shaq in today's state, the offensive rhythm of our entire Lakers team in the first half has changed a lot, and I have obviously not grown enough to fight the entire Utah Jazz team on my own.

You must know that even Michael Jordan cannot win on his own when facing the Utah Jazz, and it will take the joint efforts of Pippen, Rodman, Kerr and other players to win against the Jazz.

I don't think the strength of this Jazz team is really below the Chicago Bulls, and the Bulls really have an absolute advantage in the position that Jordan has only one point.