Chapter 31: Carl Malone
When these two people appeared, the momentum of the Knicks was completely suppressed, in figurative terms, a group of nouveau riche general magisters from the countryside came to the palace to shout, as a result, the door opened, and two demigods came out, directly shocking the group of dirt buns from the countryside. Pen? Interesting? Pavilion wWw. biquge。 infoActually, just on paper, the Knicks in the 90s, like the Utah Jazz, both reached the Finals twice, but they failed to win the championship, but if you compare the two, the Knicks themselves may be a little weak-minded.
Although the Jazz's record is not great right now, no one dares to underestimate him, especially here in Salt Lake City.
Mo Xi didn't know how he completed the warm-up, but he didn't even hear Van Gundy's arrangement clearly, and he walked to the halfway point of the jump ball in the push of his teammates.
The Jazz's center is Haitian, but he spent his student years in New York State, and he can be regarded as a homegrown center produced by the United States, Alden Polinis. His 35th birthday is just a few days away, and he feels very good about himself as a starter here in the Jazz near his twilight years, and he feels like he can still eat ten bowls of rice.
Mo Xi and Alden looked at each other, in the Energy Planning Arena, all words were useless, and the only way to communicate between people was to use their eyes, except for gestures.
Alden looked at Mo Xi's gaze with a scrutiny, in fact, no matter how much the New York media touted it, Mo Xi is still a 16+6 offensive center this season, and there is not much outstanding in terms of data, players in New York are like this, and their fame is often more than three times their strength. Despite saying that, Alden still didn't dare to be careless, and was preoccupied with preparing and moking the ball.
Maybe it was really affected by the warm home environment of Salt Lake City, Mo Xi was a little nervous, the jump ball was wrong, Mo Xi jumped too early, Mo Xi had slowly fallen from the highest point, the ball had not risen to the highest point, and the Jazz unexpectedly jumped to the ball easily.
The Jazz's offense may be the easiest in the entire league, one block and one demolition, or shooting or bursting, it is always like these two shots, but these two hits have caused headaches for countless tacticians.
The Jazz attacked, and as soon as Stockton came up, he directly started to block with Karl Malone. Malone came to the horn position, Stockton dribbled and moved laterally, accelerated behind Malone, and shook off Ward, at this time the tacit understanding between the two partners for many years was revealed, Stockton and Malone advanced to the inside line at the same time, Ward was blocked by Malone and could not follow up in time, Johnson needed to face the advancement of two people alone, but Johnson still overestimated his ability to fight, Malone handed out a hidden elbow, Johnson and Malone hard steel, instantly fell into the disadvantage, Johnson was also pushed behind him.
In front of the Utah twins, only Mo Xi is left as the last barrier.
With a flick of his wrist, Stockton hit the ground and passed the ball to Karl Malone, who received the ball without pause, took off directly, and slammed it with one hand.
Although Mo Xi said how worried about Ma Long's power, when he really faced it, Mo Xi greeted him without fear, jumped up straight at Ma Long, and seemed to throw his whole body towards Ma Long.
Ma Long's face was hideous, as if Mo Xi's seven-foot, 230-pound body did not exist in front of him.
Duang's moment, Mo Xi was directly knocked away, but Malone also dunked away, and Mo Xi used his body to defend the Knicks' basket, although it was still inevitable to send Malone to the free throw line.
Without help, Mo Xi struggled to get up from the ground, he felt as if he had been hit by a high-speed car, this is still Ma Long who has gradually entered the end of his career, you can imagine how strong Ma Long was back then.
Malone hit both free throws to replace the Knicks for offense.
Like the Jazz's pick-and-roll offense, the Jazz's defense is actually a must-have for Jerry Sloan.
In this wave of offense, Ward chose to pass the ball to Mo Xi on the inside first, but Mo Xi just caught the ball and passed it out again, giving it to Houston's hands.
Houston received the ball, adjusted it, and used Johnson's cover to get rid of the defender, but compared to the Jazz, the Knicks' blocking was too simple, and Malone decisively gave up Johnson and pounced directly on Houston.
Houston didn't have a chance to pass the ball directly to Johnson, so he had to hand it over to Sprewell for a transition first, but when the ball passed from Sprewell to Johnson, Malone had already gone back, and the Knicks' offense faced the Jazz's strongest point again, and there was not much time left.
Johnson dribbled behind his back, took a sideways step and then added a small step back and threw it directly.
The arc of the ball was good, but it was a little too big, and it bounced off the back edge, and Mo Xi was entangled by Alden, and the rebound was collected by the Jazz's forward, and the Jazz quickly hit a counterattack.
The Knicks and Jazz are similar in this regard, often playing sharp defensive counter-attacks.
After Stockton's precise guidance, the Jazz quickly tore through the Knicks' fast-return defense and made a layup.
The Knicks had no choice but to organize another offense and attack the Jazz's position.
This time, Mo Xi felt much better, and he received a pass from Ward on the baseline and began to chisel towards the Jazz inside.
Alden has a typical Haitian interior physical fitness, excellent jumping ability, slender and powerful limbs, but lacks core strength, coupled with the fact that he is lighter than Mo Xi in weight, Alden was actually pressed directly to the position of the three-second zone.
On the other side, Malone frowned, the Jazz's center has actually been a hidden danger, after Mark Eaton left, Jerry Sloan has been looking for someone to fill this position, but unfortunately, until Sloan retired, he did not find a center like Mark Eaton in the past.
Despite the apparent victory, the pressure was only clear to him, and without hearing the cues of his teammates, he had to spend a lot of energy constantly looking left and right to prevent someone from coming forward to cover the clamp, and the closer he got to the basket, the more he felt that he seemed to have been targeted by Malone.
Can't wait any longer, Mo Xi told himself in his heart, suddenly, Mo Xi turned around directly, picked up Alden, and turned over to the side to shoot again.
Just when he turned around again, a black shadow was overwhelming, Malone fell to the ground or came, in a hurry, Mo Xi quickly shot, but he also missed his head, the ball hit the rebound, and it fell without even hitting the frame.
But also because of Malone's defense, Johnson was empty, it seemed to be a buff brought by playing with his old opponent again, Johnson was extremely excited, he took the Jazz's small forward down and hit the rebound directly under the basket.
When the goal was scored, Johnson screamed in the direction of Malone intentionally or unintentionally, and I don't know if Malone heard it in such a noisy environment.
But judging from the next goal, Malone obviously heard it.
The Jazz attacked, and Stockton, who looked thin and small, was actually the big boss of the belly, found that his old friend had stood at the free throw line through the halfcourt, stuck in position, and wanted to single Johnson.
There are only two people on Jerry Sloan's team who have the right to decide whether to play singles or not, one is Karl Malone now, and the other is Deron Williams in the future.
Malone receives the ball, he is very different from other insiders, his action after receiving the ball is that he will send an elbow directly back, and if you eat this elbow, you will basically lose 30% of your combat effectiveness.
But fortunately, Johnson has not dealt with Malone once or twice, almost the moment Malone received the ball, he instantly received himself to the other side, avoiding Malone's elbow.
But because of this, there was a blank space in Johnson's defense, Malone felt that there was a hole in the defense behind him, and he didn't want to just turn around and break through, he was not afraid that this was a defensive trap, because the delicate trap was like a small puddle under the power of Ma Long.
Malone and Johnson had a direct physical confrontation, Malone blocked Johnson with his shoulders and elbows, and Johnson also responded to Malone with similar means.
Malone fell into the Knicks' defensive trap, but Moxi's bag seemed to have no effect, Malone just glanced at Moxi, then raised his elbow to grab the ball and flew in the direction of the basket, Johnson and Moxi also jumped together.
The three giants collided in the air, and the collision of muscles did not make the sound of flesh colliding, but made a metallic sound, and Malone pressed the two in the air, relying on a pair of long arms to forcibly throw the ball into the basket.
The goal is valid, 2+1.
After landing on the ground, Ma Long turned his back to the audience, the jazz robe on his body was so dazzling, and Mo Xi, who was once again buttoned up, looked at this back, so envious.
This background shines brightly under countless flashing lights, as if the ancient titan giants have come to this world again after walking down from the mortal world, this is Carl Malone, and he is the master of the world at this moment.