Chapter 314: Against the Timberwolves
After the regular break, the Los Angeles Lakers immediately returned to regular season training and games. Although a wave of road wins established their position as the leaders in the West, the Golden State Warriors and San Antonio Spurs were still strong and quickly caught up......
And with one game less, the Lakers are only one win ahead of these two teams, which means that as long as they lose, their first place in the league will have to be caught.
Zhang Yi and others are of course hoping to bring the winning streak to a match against the Golden State Warriors or the San Antonio Spurs. But the match against both teams is at the end of December, with a Christmas match, and a Lunar New Year.
Who knows how the schedule for this season will be formulated, it seems that it was immediately guessed that the West will be the pinnacle of these three teams in the new season.
So the goal of the Los Angeles Lakers is not to accept an upset, and then go for the biggest winning streak. Since he was reduced to a fish belly, the last time he won more than ten consecutive games even dates back to the peak era of James Jr.
Los Angeles fans have been waiting for a miracle for too long, and the legend of a 33-game winning streak is still written on this stadium. It's just that things are not people, and now leading the Lakers has gone from being black? Whites? Replaced by a yellow-skinned boy from the East!
Zhang Yi's performance in the new season is definitely in line with everyone's expectations for him, because he led the team to a wave of consecutive wins, and averaged 28 points, 9 rebounds, 7 assists, 3 caps and 5 steals per game.
This is already the highest recognition that a rookie can get. Of course, this year's rookie is also regarded as a monster, because in addition to Zhang Yi, the best of the week in the east was also taken once by this year's top star show Valanda and Tanhua Lang Sean.
Although Thomas of the Month is still being stolen, everyone knows that the players of the golden generation don't seem to have a rookie wall. They are rising rapidly, as if they are vowing to change the alliance to a new era!
The Los Angeles Lakers' next game is to fly to Minnesota to face last year's seventh-largest Timberwolves in the West. Although this team is one of the few teams in the league with thin championship genes, it has always stuck with the NBA, which can show the love of basketball among Minnesotans.
Their luck has really not been good, and they paid a first-round pick this year in order to get their current star Barnes.
Because this was a trade three years ago, who would have thought that the quality of this year's rookies would be so good. The Timberwolves' manager can only admit bad luck.
And what makes them even more uncomfortable is that although they made the playoffs last season, they were still ruthlessly swept by the San Antonio Spurs. Star striker Barnes is completely lost on the offensive end, which also gives the team a big hidden danger.
In the preseason, the Timberwolves coach also intends to bring Barnes on the court to regain his form. But he was headstrong, ignoring the instructions and even declaring that he didn't need to regain his feelings through the competition. After all, he is the star of the house, and even the coach can only change face.
But after the start of the new season, Barnes still averaged more than 25 shots per game, and the player utilization rate was among the highest in the league. His shooting percentage is still around 40 percent. And that's not even his three-point shooting percentage. The regular offensive frame even contains less than 50% of the layups, which is completely unworthy of the name of the core.
So in order to continue to make the playoffs, instead of listening to the boss, the coach can only start looking for a trade around. The big problem now is that Barnes has to be able to play with the bargaining chips that he has to trade.
In this game against the Lakers, Barnes played against the super rookie Zhang Yi, so it was a good opportunity for everyone to know that he did not change water.
In order to allow him to play well, the team also changed the tactics in this one. In the past, it was a single game after handing the ball to Barnes, and the success or failure depends entirely on his performance in this game. But now, the coach has made the team's tactics more detailed.
Barnes increased his off-ball runs, and by the way, he also brought up the team's center forward, allowing the two to start playing off-ball cover. The whole goal is to hope that he can hit higher in the game.
In this era of solidified small forward strength, there is still a market for players like Barnes who can shoot and have some defense. It's just that the recent performance has been too watery.
The Timberwolves coach was still naïve enough to think that this guy would be as hot as he was when the trade came in a few years ago. Of course, if you can prevent Zhang Yi and score efficiently by the way, it is really not impossible to get good chips.
Flying to Minnesota, Zhang Yi and others also visited the memorial here after training. Although the Timberwolves' team history is much darker than that of the Lakers and Spurs, after all, they only had Garnett lead to the Finals in their best days.
Although this team has also stolen a championship in the last decade, there is really not much to say about that civilian team.
Whatever is interesting is that there is also a sculpture of a ** man in a very conspicuous position in the memorial hall, and the introduction is a die-hard fan of Garnett back then, although he was expelled from the field for the first time. But when KG went home at the end of his career, he was specially invited back.
It's legendary enough for a fan to be able to get himself into a memorial full of famous people. The Timberwolves are an interesting NBA team.
Before the start of the game, when Zhang Yi warmed up in their half. I found that the opponent's gaze was not very good, and it was not the usual feeling of winning.
"They're probably looking for trouble." Robert, who has more experience on the field, whispered to Zhang Yi. Because that look is definitely not the kind of person who wants to come over and say hello.
"I don't know, I don't remember where I provoked them." Zhang Yi couldn't find anything to do with the Timberwolves after thinking about it.
In fact, this is just Barnes's order in advance as the boss of the team, and if you want to overpower the opponent, you must first show momentum. In his opinion, the yellow race should be timid and afraid......
Of course, the Timberwolves coach didn't know about this, otherwise he would definitely reprimand these idiots. Provoking the opponent's core for no reason is like wading directly across a river without knowing the water level, which is no different from looking for death.
Before the start of the game, when someone else passed the ball to Zhang Yi but flew directly to the Timberwolves halfcourt, he was going to go over to pick up the ball, but Barnes obviously kicked it away on purpose, and then laughed at the other teammates.
Although neither of them spoke, Zhang Yi's eyes when he looked at him also changed. "Bullying people on his head?" Zhang Yi sneered, he knew that Barnes also played small forward, so it was good, and the game for a while was the time to settle accounts!
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