Chapter 162: Leading the Counterattack
At 17:9, halfway through the first quarter, the Trail Blazers still trailed the Lakers by 8 points, and Gan Guoyang's two-plus-one dunk scored a breath for the slightly weakened Trail Blazers.
But the Lakers were unmoved, and the Magic still firmly controlled the Lakers' offense, and he still pouted and dribbled through the half, leaning sideways while dribbling outside the three-point line while observing the situation on the court.
Clearly, the Trail Blazers are starting to tighten up their defense, and instead of putting pressure on the ball carrier, they keep delaying the movement of the off-ball.
The Lakers' tactics are not complicated, because according to the individual abilities of their players, too complex tactics are not conducive to the players' performance.
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Worthy are the two best low-post singles spots, and Byron Scott, although he is a rookie, is a well-rounded attacker, can shoot well, runs and jumps well, and is a very good No. 2 attacker.
As the weakest link in his personal ability, Rambis can always use the space opened up by other players to fish in troubled waters, which can be said to be a model of "fox and fake tiger power".
It's really not good, the Lakers and the Magic, a versatile player, and the team that underestimates the Magic's individual offensive ability too much, will have to pay a heavy price.
All most teams can do against the Lakers is force them to play more singles and don't give them too many opportunities to run easily, and even then, the Lakers can score easily.
The Trail Blazers are working hard now, and they can't let minions like Rambis get an easy layup, and before Abdul-Jabbar and Worthy have made a force, you will be killed by a Rambis, which is equivalent to you falling before you can make a lot of effort.
“Here! Here! At this point, James Worthy began to shout, and he slipped from the left side to the right, and stuck Van Dewicki, who was following him, behind him.
A simple low-post ball, but the Trail Blazers can't do anything about it, and the pinch is likely to pay a greater price, so Vanderwig can only be left alone.
Johnson decisively hoisted the ball to Worthy, who took the ball without making any adjustments, turned around Vanderwich and slipped to the basket with a single step on the edge of the baseline.
It was so fast that Worthy was facing the basket for a layup, and Vanderwich had just turned his head.
But Vandercic wasn't going to let Worthy score easily, as he reached out and grabbed Worthy before he made a layup and stopped him.
"Van Dewig fouled, Worthy was so fast, like a cobra, I think KiKi must be wondering if I was hallucinating, why Worthy was gone in the blink of an eye."
Since Worthy's shooting action was not made, and the Trail Blazers did not commit fouls as a team, the Lakers continued to serve baseline shots.
"Well done! Well done! Ramsey can only applaud the players for this kind of ball, he knows that no one can withstand Worthy, and can only hope that Van der Veric can play more efficiently in attack and recover the points lost from defence.
"The Trail Blazers made substitutions, they replaced Paxson and Valentin, replaced Drexler and Colter, it seems that they want to increase the vitality of the backcourt, Drexler and Colter are both young people, and the most important thing is physical strength."
Indeed, Ramsey's replacement of Drexler and Colter is to continue to enhance the pressure of the backcourt, and he hopes to curb the Lakers' offensive success rate to a certain extent, at least not to let the Lakers score easily.
The Lakers re-served, and the Magic again organized the offense outside the three-point line on the right side.
This time he shifted the ball to the left side of Byron Scott's hands, everyone pulled away, and he singled Colt with the ball on the left side.
Colt looks a size smaller than Scott and feels thinner, but he moves faster than Scott.
Scott held the ball in both hands and lowered his center of gravity to break through from the front, but the exposed basketball was stabbed off by Colt, and the two fell to the ground on the sideline and scrambled.
Both fell to the ground, but Colter still grabbed the ball, and Drexler stepped forward to meet it and pushed forward quickly...... Missed layup...... Gan's deduction! Gan's Deduction...... Gan's quick follow-up! Draksler's unmotivated shot in the air with both hands! Oh my god, Rambis was still too slow for him to keep up with Gan. ”
The whole stadium exclaimed for Gan's supplementary deduction, because Gan Guoyang's timing was really good.
The Lakers players were like hounds chasing Drexler, the fox, running, Worthy and Johnson both jumped up and down in the air to interfere with Drexler, at this time Drexler's layup was not so good, it was too hard, the ball was obviously big, smashed on the rebound and then smashed on the basket and collapsed.
And at the moment when the ball collapsed, Gan Guoyang was already flying in the air, which means that Gan Guoyang, who followed up at the moment of Drexler's layup, had already jumped.
It doesn't matter if he has strong consciousness or that he is lucky, anyway, only Gan Guoyang jumped up high, caught the ball with both hands and smashed it into the basket.
"Count you as an assist to Clyde." After getting off the basket, Gan Guoyang pointed at Drexler and said with a smile.
Indeed, the ball looked more like an aerial relay than a dunk.
“Gift-for-you! (A gift for you!) Then, Gan Guoyang had to run to the edge of his seat next to the Lakers' bench and yell at Jack Nicholson.
At this time, Nicholson could only sit on the bench and shake his head angrily, he was already thinking about what kind of trash talk he was going to use to mock Gan Guoyang later.
At 17:11, the Lakers still held the lead, but this lead was really small, and they wanted to continue to expand the score.
Johnson immediately handed the ball to Worthy on the right side of the baseline after half-time, and did not stop to just attack, and then went inside himself.
The Magic also sensed that the Trail Blazers were consciously letting him go and putting defensive pressure on others, so Johnson wanted to divert the Trail Blazers' defensive attention.
However, the Trail Blazers' players were not fooled, and instead of paying attention to Johnson who cut inside, they continued to put pressure on other players.
Johnson went around the Trail Blazers' interior from left to right, and as a result, nothing was found, and the Trail Blazers' defense was unmoved.
And the basketball also turned from left to right and returned to Johnson.
At this point, Abdul-Jabbar went around the baseline to the right side, trying to continue to get the ball in a deeper position.
Gan Guoyang eats a trench and grows wise, but he doesn't give Abdul-Jabbar such a chance, Abdul-Jabbar hasn't bypassed it yet, Gan Guoyang has already taken a stride in front of Abdul-Jabbar and doesn't give him a chance to catch the ball.
The Magician couldn't give Abdul-Jabbar a lob and wanted to go directly to Rambis, who saw Rambis moving under the basket on the right side, so he passed a high lob ball.
The ball that Lambis scored before, passed through Abdul-Jabbar's hand, attracted the Trail Blazers' defense, and got such a good open opportunity.
And this time Johnson passed the ball directly, it was not so easy to get it, and Mitchell Sampson was not wooden, jumping high and fighting with Rambis in the air for this pass.
Sampson is also a champion anyway, and his personal ability is better than Rambis, and he easily cut off the ball, causing a mistake for the Lakers.
“Go-Go-Go!” Gan Guoyang shouted.
Without him shouting, the whole Trail Blazers team has rushed out like wild dogs, and it is obvious that several consecutive counterattacks have brought out the momentum of the Trail Blazers.
The ball was in the hands of Drexler again, and only with him participating in the counterattack, the counterattack level of the entire Trail Blazers would be raised by a whole notch.
However, this time Drexler did not hold the ball and go straight to the basket, but slowed down on the way and passed the ball to Gan Guoyang, who was quickly inserted.
Since Gan Guoyang came to the Trailblazers, his running posture has also changed, the speed is faster, the posture is more standard and flexible, and he doesn't look like a center at all when he is fast.
Drexler advanced from the right, Gan Guoyang inserted from the left, Drexler made a diagonal back pass, and the ball went to Gan Guoyang.
But Gan Guoyang rushed too violently all of a sudden, and before he had time to adjust after receiving the ball, he found that he had gone straight to the audience.
"Oops, can't stop!" The thought in Gan Guoyang's mind flashed, and at the same time, he hurriedly dribbled and braked.
At this time, the Lakers players had already surrounded them with their arms raised, and they were not here to surrender, but to block Gan Guoyang's space.
At the same time, an old fritter like Rambis, while surrounding him, also used his body to push Gan Guoyang up, completely trying to push Gan Guoyang out of the bottom line and cause mistakes.
But Gan Guoyang was not impatient, he did not hold the ball and get up with a few people as he did before, but quickly glanced at the outside line and found that Vanderwig was standing one step inside the three-point line, in the horn position.
Before the Lakers' wall closed, Gan Guoyang picked the ball out with one hand, and the ball grazed the floor and flew towards Vanderwicki.
With the Lakers players all gathered under the basket, Vandewig had plenty of time to bend down and pick up the ball, then shoot from 18 feet and hit it!
17:13! The Trail Blazers relied on continuous offense to narrow the gap to 4 points!
"A clever pass, at the moment when he was about to lose his balance, Gan Guoyang passed the ball out and let Vanderwig shoot." Zike Hearn couldn't help but praise Gan Guoyangdao, although Gan Guoyang's fast attack follow-up rushed too fiercely, but his ability to handle the ball at a critical moment was indeed much stronger than in the past, as a senior commentator Zike Hearn still has this eyesight.
"Beep!" It was the referee's whistle and Pat Riley called a timeout, and there were obviously some problems with their offense, and the back-to-back counterattacks by the Trail Blazers made the Lakers a little uncomfortable.
And what Riley fears most is that the morale of the Trail Blazers is rising, which is very bad for the Lakers.
"Thanks-for-you-encouragement, man~ (thank you for your encouragement~)" Gan Guoyang still didn't let go of Jack Nicholson, and said to the actor with a smile when he left the scene.
Jack Nicholson has been a die-hard Lakers fan since the '70s, and since then he's been in his fixed spot to watch the Lakers whenever he has time.
Even after becoming Oscar winner in 1976 with "Crazy Asylum Flight", he continued his life as the number one Lakers fan.
It's 1985 and his hobby will obviously continue until he can't walk and can't play.
As a Lakers fan, he is naturally unceremonious to the away team, not only often spewing trash talk to the away team's players, but also sometimes making disrespectful remarks to the referee, anyway, he is a fan, and the referee can't send him off the court.
Originally, he didn't have any opinion on Gan Guoyang, not because he liked Gan Guoyang, but because he didn't spray the ** for nobodies.
Now, Gan Guoyang has become famous in the league with his own play, and this game between the Trailblazers and the Lakers is even more eye-catching.
Unexpectedly, it backfired, angered Gan Guoyang, and led the Trail Blazers to stop the Lakers with a series of counterattacks.
If Nicholson had known this truth, he wondered if the tears would have fallen.
"Well done, keep it up. Everybody, keep your attention, I know it's hard to play against the Lakers, it's like a person who hasn't slept for seven days and seven nights, and now he has to climb over Rocky Mountain in slippers, everyone is like lying down and sleeping comfortably, but when you lie down, you can't stand up again. So, persevere, we made it to the mountainside! Ramsey continued to encourage the players, knowing that there really wasn't much to say about tactically, that the difference in quality between the two sides was there, and that the Trail Blazers needed more form.
As for Gan Guoyang's performance, Ramsey is now more and more satisfied, Gan Guoyang can no longer rely on laborious singles to help the team as in the past, but can integrate into the team's attack, add a force in key links, and contribute to the team.
Soon after the timeout, the Lakers made personnel changes, the Magic was replaced, and Riley replaced Michael Cooper as point guard.
Cooper isn't an orthodox point guard, in fact he's more of a swingman at the front, often dealing with opposing backcourt arrows on the defensive end, and a good spot shooter and fast-break finisher on the offensive end.
He was also Johnson's best friend.
Without a point guard, it doesn't mean that the Lakers' offense can't be deployed, on the contrary, they can still effectively organize the offense, because they have the "Sky Hook" Abdul-Jabbar.
Abdul-Jabbar was in the low post on the right, Cooper passed the ball to Scott, Scott dropped the ball to Abdul-Jabbar, Abdul-Jabbar dribbled and turned, hooked his left hand! Ball in! Zike Hearn lost count of the number of times he said "Hook-shoot, he-got-it!" Such a commentary, and this is undoubtedly a phrase that he will never get tired of.
"You'll never be able to stop the hook! Forever! "Jack Nicholson shouted at Gan Guoyang from the sidelines again, he will never learn his lesson.
〖