Chapter 191: Transformation
One of the big things that happened in the league recently was that Pat Riley brought two cousins, Maddie and Carter, together in Miami to the south.
Miami is different from cold Toronto, it's a resort, sunny, beach yachts, and both cousins will love it.
At the time of the trade, the Heat had a 26-34 record, ninth in the East, and a 29-30 record from the last place, the Celtics, which was more than three games away.
With more than 20 games left in the season, it can be expected that the cousin may lead the Heat to a lead. If you make it to the playoffs, not to mention the strong teams, at least this eighth place in the East is not easy to bite.
With a few veterans around his cousins in the offseason and a good coach like Pat Riley, the Heat can be expected to dominate next season.
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For the Bobcats, there is no need to worry about this for the time being, because Hu Qingniu has other things to worry about.
Sabonis, the "Roof of the World", is finally making a comeback, and this long-forgotten prehistoric monster is once again driven by Hu Qingniu.
In the past half month, Sabonis has been tested, and Hu Qingniu has used this to judge the true condition of Sabonis's body. Judging whether Sabonis has met the criteria for a full comeback.
In the past few days, Sabonis's indicators have returned to normal, and Hu Qingniu has repeatedly confirmed that they are correct. Sabonis is the player who has spent the longest time in treatment and is also the least concerned player, because his injuries are all old injuries on top of old injuries, and his condition is complicated. But fortunately, the emperor lived up to his wishes, and after more than 4 months, the complete Sabonis, which Hu Qingniu wanted, came back.
Sabonis, who used to be only able to move slowly in the NBA, is now back to being able to run at will. The bounce has also improved, and in the training confrontation with Ewing, Ewing has already lost more and won less. You know, Ewing has always been in good shape, not much weaker than when he won the championship.
Although the Bobcats' record is excellent in the eyes of others, Hu Qingniu has always been dissatisfied with the team's performance on the court. Because of the biggest shortcoming of the Bobcats, the defense is too inferior, and without an inside gate, the overall defensive system can never be built.
And now with Sabonis, Dazhi can play power forward, which is just the right time to better play his projection and defense capabilities, hiding his relatively weaker rim protection and single defense.
Hu Qingniu wants to build the Bobcats into a strong defensive team, and has been struggling with only outside defense, Wade and Wallace, and missing the most important link on the inside.
A strong defensive team must have a defensive pillar on the inside, look at the top three teams in the league this season, the Timberwolves have Garnett, the Pistons have Big Ben, and the Spurs have Duncan. A top-notch interior defender can take a lot of defensive pressure off an outside player. The outside players will think, I have someone on the inside, what if you pass me, just feel free to defend closely.
Now the Bobcat team has three defensive strengths, and Dazhi's defense is also good now, and it can form a super defensive system.
The most important thing in the construction of a defensive system is not the stars, not the individual defensive ability, but the communication and cooperation ability of the players on the defensive end.
Of course, the formation of this ability does not happen overnight, and it requires a lot of games between the players to run in.
With 20 games left in the season, Hu Qingniu chose to sacrifice his record, and the remaining 20 games were all used to run in. For Hu Qingniu, it doesn't matter how many people rank first. In the east, he only cares about the two strongest teams. The Pistons still have the Pacers, but unless the Bobcats are in first place, these two teams, they will definitely meet.
Then it is better to spend the rest of the season grinding in the team, and any success requires preparation time. But not every team's head coach has the confidence to use a quarter of a season to train like Hu Qingniu.
Since it is a military training, of course, the matter of Sabonis's physical recovery must be concealed. Hu Qingniu plans to make this big move in the playoffs, so that the Pacers and Pistons will not have time to deal with it.
Having made up his mind, Sabonis appeared on the scene of the Bobcats as a substitute in a low-key manner. A veteran returns, or a veteran who has been injured for more than half a season, and almost no one pays attention to it.
In addition, Sabonis only got 8 points and 9 rebounds in the first game, and everyone didn't take him seriously. But at the end of the game, the scoreboard of the opponent Hornets showed 71 points.
The Bobcats only scored 77 points in this game, setting a new season low in points, because Hu Qingniu emphasized defending and defending again throughout the game, forgetting about offense.
Except for Wade, no one has scored 10 points, and everyone's numbers are dismal. After the game, the media also described it as a battle of iron. Fans just thought that the two sides had a bad hand. Thinking of this game, the Bobcats didn't want to attack at all, and the whole team was desperately defending.
For the first three months, the Bobcats were probably 15-20 in defensive efficiency in the league. The opponent's score and opponent's shooting percentage per 100 rounds were 101.5 and 45%, respectively.
After Sabonis' comeback, until the end of March, those two stats became 8th in the league with 99.1 points and 43 percent. If you count the defensive efficiency of the Bobcats in March, they are second in the league after the Spurs, and the opponent's shooting rate is only 40%, and the opponent's score is as low as 95 points per 100 possessions.
However, the Bobcats' own offense was also affected, dropping from fifth in the league in offensive efficiency to 15th in the league, and scoring per 100 possessions dropped from 105.8 to 100.2.
Because of the practice of defensive tactics and the run-in of the defensive system, the offense was affected, and even Jordan asked about it. But Hu Qingniu doesn't give face, he still goes his own way, he is sometimes more stubborn than Jordan, and he can't pull back ten cows if he decides to do it. Since it has been decided that it is time to improve the defense, Hu Qingniu will never give up.
And in the last month, Hu Qingniu also intensified, except for Wade, no one has the unlimited right to fire. Even Wade can't change the team's rhythm, and now Hu Qingniu has the team to delay each round to 24 seconds as much as possible, which is also to prepare for the playoffs.
In the playoffs, Hu Qingniu has four major opponents in his eyes, and three of them are executing the kind of game rhythm that is so slow that the audience finds ugly.
The Spurs, Pacers, and Pistons are all defensive teams, and they are all among the top five defensive teams in the league, and if you want to play against them, you must first learn how to play in this very slow pace.
The Bobcats don't have a metronome, and if they want to break that slow-paced game, they can only rely on Wade to force up the speed, which undoubtedly puts too much burden on Wade. And pressing the treasure on one person is not Hu Qingniu's style.
Investment should not put all your eggs in one basket, this is called risk diversification.
Even Sabonis, who has both legs crippled, can be at the forefront of the rim center for many years, and Hu Qingniu believes that the healthy Sabonis is undoubtedly terrifying on the defensive end. With such Sabonis, this gave teams like Hu Qingniu, Spurs and Pistons the confidence to fight defense.
Eventually, the Bobcats ended the regular season with an extremely ugly April, and their games were often kept asleep by spectators.
But the Bobcats' defensive efficiency has improved dramatically, completing the transition from an offensive team with Wade at the core to a defensive team with Wade and Sabonis as the core.