Gan Guoyang has never missed Drexler like this, leaving aside the reimbursement season, the number of games in the past when the two were not on the court at the same time was no more than 10 games, and this time, Drexler has been absent for more than half a month.

Since February 20 before the game against the Bulls, Drexler has not appeared in the team's squad for 10 games, in fact, after three games of rest, Drexler's injury report shows that he can return to the court to play, but in the prudent consideration, the team still decided to observe for a while, because Drexler is an old injury recurrence, the Trail Blazers do not want his injury to affect the playoffs, plus the Trail Blazers have a stable record, so they have taken a more conservative attitude.

However, without Drexler, the Trail Blazers' game did play more difficult, mainly because there was no player on the bench who could slightly replace Draxler's function, although Jim Paxson played very well in the few games after returning from injury, his style of play is completely different from Drexler, and the help he brings to the team is of course different.

Without Drexler, the Trail Blazers' powerful fast-break ability to sweep the league before was directly lost in half, and there was no Drexler; Other teams are even more unscrupulous with Gan Guoyang's bag; Without Drexler, the Trail Blazers have one less important offensive initiator and offensive playmaker on the perimeter; Without Drexler, the Trail Blazers have a big piece of backcourt rebounding protection between the three-point line and the three-second zone.

What's more, without Drexler, the Trail Blazers would have played a different kind of basketball.

Drexler has sometimes been derided as a "first-quarter superstar, fourth-quarter role player" in these seasons because he was always able to rely on a strong fast break to score points in the first quarter when both sides were relatively lax, but in the fourth quarter, as the defensive intensity increased to the maximum, Drexler's lack of projection ability would put him in a difficult situation.

However, Drexler's ability to score points quickly in the first half of the game is a weapon that the Trail Blazers rely on very much, in Adelman's tactical system, it is necessary to first rely on the fast break led by Drexler to open the situation and establish an advantage, and then in the second half of the game, with Gan Guoyang's strong offensive ability and defensive ability, to lock up the victory.

This set of ideas has a clear division of labor and makes the best use of things, which is a big guarantee for the pioneers to achieve the first results in the alliance.

After Drexler's absence, Cauchy did not have Drexler's fast break, and the vanguard power that went hand in hand was much weaker, Porter did not have Drexler, and the pressure on the backcourt organization increased dramatically, and Gan Guoyang became the only offensive core, and he had to take on the team's scoring responsibility from the beginning, so Gan Guoyang's average points per game after Drexler's absence also further increased, and he played 40 plus, 50 plus and even 60 plus games many times, but the process of the game was indeed getting more and more difficult.

Therefore, when Drexler appeared at the team's training center in early March, everyone was very excited, and Gan Guoyang also stepped forward to give Drexler a big hug, almost saying "I miss you".

Adelman was expressionless on the side, and he was greatly relieved in his heart, the pressure on Adelman's shoulders has also been great recently, and Gan Guoyang's decision to change his style of play and redesign tactics has been questioned by many people, and the management has also put pressure on him, and although Gan Guoyang supports Adelman's decision, if the results are unstable, Gan Guoyang will definitely return to his original style of play.

In fact, throughout the season, Adelman and Bellman have been trying their best to find the most suitable offensive system for Gan Guoyang, which can not only give full play to Gan Guoyang's power, but also protect him to a certain extent, so as not to always be exposed to the opponent's targeting, after all, the pressure on Gan Guoyang on the defensive end is already very great.

Judging from Gan Guoyang's technical characteristics, no matter how comprehensive he is and how wide the range of attacks is, he can't change the fact that he is an inside line, he can score 60 points against Jordan, but he is not a scoring guard after all, there is no way to hold the ball at the first time, and the need for teammates to cooperate with feeding the ball is the biggest weakness of interior players. You can't give them the freedom to play like they do with outside stars.

Gan Guoyang is already an outlier among them, and his transformation has been very successful this season, but this is also the reason why it is based on the arrival of Sabonis to liberate Gan Guoyang's attack, and now, Gan Guoyang needs more support.

"Come here, Clyde, Gan!" Thinking of this, Adelman called Gan Guoyang and Drexler over, and at the same time Bellman stepped forward, holding a large tactical board in his hand.

"Gan, Clyde, tomorrow's game, we need to make some changes, these changes are on you, we have to teach the Cavaliers some lessons, let them know that we are good." Adelman said to Gan Guoyang and Drexler.

……………………

On the evening of March 12th, the Trail Blazers faced the Cavaliers at home, which was the second game between the two teams in the last month, the last game of the Cavaliers defeated the Trail Blazers at home with orthodox tactics, this game made the Cavaliers' reputation in the United States soar, and for a time many media and ball critics began to be optimistic about this season dark horse.

After all, the team that was able to beat the Trail Blazers before either broke out with players, or caught the Trail Blazers off guard with some strange tricks, or the Pistons were really able to compete with the Trail Blazers in terms of team strength.

And the Cavaliers, quoting the Cleveland Honest Guy, said, "The Cleveland Cavaliers stabbed the Trail Blazers head-on in a 'Cavaliers' way", not only that, but some people began to discuss the strength comparison between Doherty and Gan Guoyang, some people think that although Gan Guoyang is stronger in offense and defense, Doherty is a better team player and leader, and his strategy and passing are better than Gan Guoyang.

The Oregon media is certainly not to be outdone, and Wu Zhiwen, who is Gan Guoyang's mouthpiece, wrote an article claiming that the Trail Blazers will be even better than before the start of the season with Drexler's comeback and the return of personnel, because "the Trail Blazers have designed a new weapon for Gan and Drexler." ”

Soon, this game will be a testing ground, and the Cavaliers will undoubtedly want to beat the Trail Blazers once again and prove that they are not just dark horses, but serious contenders for the title; The Trail Blazers, on the other hand, will have to seize the only opportunity at home to teach the Cavaliers a lesson.

The bout was also an opportunity for Adelman to prove himself and prove that he was right.

Before the game, the fans gave Drexler the biggest applause to the returning Drexler at the entrance ceremony, and in his absence, the fans missed the glider flying over the Memorial Stadium.

As soon as the game began, Portland fans immediately felt that the Trail Blazers were back to the way they were at the beginning of the season, with Drexler in the background, their offensive speed was raised a notch, and the advance and passing were faster, and the counterattack was sharper.

At this time, the Cavaliers were barely able to keep up with the pace of the Trail Blazers, but their players also clearly felt that this Trail Blazer team was different from the previous game, their speed and fluency were quite amazing, Gan Guoyang's backcourt rebounds, Porter's advancement, Drexler and Cothy's accelerated counterattacks were all in one go, and as long as there were some flaws in the Cavaliers' offense, they would be chased and beaten by the Trail Blazers.

After a quarter of the game, the Cavaliers finally felt that this Trail Blazer and the team they had beaten before were not the same team at all, Lenny Wilkens called a timeout to stabilize the situation, and tonight Mark Price and Ron Harper's offense on the outside was still quite stable, so the Cavaliers barely followed the Trail Blazers' offensive footsteps and waited for an opportunity to launch a counterattack in the back.

However, in the second quarter, the Trail Blazers began to slowly slow down the pace of their offense and began to focus on positional offense, and it was the Trail Blazers' positional offense that destroyed the Cavaliers' proud defense.

The Trailblazers' routine in this game is very clear, two ideas, one is Gan Guoyang in the low position to ask for the ball, the outside line has the opportunity to feed the ball, there is no chance to re-transmit the ball, Gan Guoyang changes positions to ask for the ball again, as long as Gan Guoyang gets the ball in the low position, teach Doherty to be a man every minute, Wilkens stubbornly does not wrap Gan Guoyang, resulting in Gan Guoyang being asked for in a low position.

The second way of thinking is that Gan Guoyang is in the horn position, either hand over the ball to Gan Guoyang, and then Gan Guoyang will cooperate with Sabonis in the high position and the inside Sabonis, this trick does not appear many times, but once it is used, it will work wonders, because Sabonis's pass is really elusive; Either Drexler or Porter takes the ball and does a block and dismantle with Gan Guoyang in a high position, not a block and dismantle, but repeated blocking, covering, and small-scale cooperation, and finally basically handing over the ball to Gan Guoyang, and he uses a jump shot to end the offense.

This set of blocking and dismantling ideas seems simple, and it has also appeared in Gan Guoyang's rookie season, but at that time Gan Guoyang did not have the ability to shoot outside, but now he has taken Gan Guoyang's ability to shoot outside to the extreme, and Gan Guoyang scored 46 points in this game, of which 26 points came from outside jumpers, including three three-point shots, and many long-range shots were hit on the opponent's small head.

Moreover, Porter and Drexler, who cooperate with Gan Guoyang, have strong attack power in this game, and they are skillful in cooperating with each other, and the repeated blocking, returning, cutting, and covering of the three are dazzling, but everything is the same, which is to create a good opportunity for Gan Guoyang to make a strong investment.

This game is the coolest game for Gan Guoyang to shoot on the outside this season, he not only catches the ball after blocking and dismantling, but when the knight changes his defense, he uses his physical advantage to squeeze away from the defender, and then turns around and shoots a jumper, which was evaluated by the post-game media as "an undefensible turn-over jumper".

At 141:97, the Portland Trail Blazers hit the Cleveland Cavaliers at home, and Drexler Gan Guoyang blocked the "old bottle" in the Trail Blazers and will play a huge role.