Chapter 438: First Round (6)
San Antonio in late April is the city's most beautiful time of year.
Falling flowers floating on the water of the San Antonio River, sitting in a riverside tavern for a drink or two, and enjoying a Mexican set menu with friends, it can be said that San Antonio is full of poetry in the spring light.
But for Spurs fans, this late spring season is a bit cold.
Away from home by the opponent two games in a row, with a 0-2 deficit back to San Antonio, these did not make the Spurs fans feel a little disappointed, Texas Cowboys have always been atmospheric, they are eighth in the West, and the opponent is the first in the league, so the subsequent loss of two consecutive away games is nothing, as long as the team can play their morale after returning to San Antonio, most of the Spurs fans still believe that their team can create a "black eight miracle".
But when the Runners actually arrived in San Antonio and started the game against the Spurs, Spurs fans felt the chill brought by the game.
The two losses on the road did hit the Spurs' confidence to some extent, they lost without temper, and there was no suspense about anyone, except for the first quarter of the first game, which brought a little trouble to the Runners, the rest of the time the Runners were basically beating the aging Spurs.
However, after returning to San Antonio, the Spurs' form quickly adjusted, and the whole team rekindled their confidence, and they decided to launch a Jedi counterattack in their own arena, completely annihilating their opponents with iron-blooded defense and tidal attacks.
Spurs head coach Alexander Pope has done everything he can to rekindle the fighting spirit of these veterans and bring the team together.
The Spurs players, who were full of fighting spirit and desire to play, quickly ushered in a basin of cold water after the start of the home game.
The Spurs team, which intends to slow down the Runners' offense with defense and experience, welcomed a three-point rain from the Runners at the beginning of the game.
As soon as the game began, before the Spurs players could even react, Turgun made a three-point shot from two meters from the three-point line to give the Runners the lead.
After that, Spurs point guard Fernando Torris made a mistake in passing, and Salich formed a fast break after breaking the ball, and Salish, who had already cut into the basket, decisively distributed the ball to the outside of Turgon, who received the ball and hit three points again.
If these two three-pointers were just the Runners saying hello to the Spurs, then the next three-pointers each hit by Salich and Blair were completely sober up to the Spurs players and fans.
The Runners didn't actually plan a three-point strategy before the start of this game, and the style of play they discussed in the team's closed-door memories was still the same as at home, using the impact to kill the Spurs, and then waiting for the third or fourth quarter to take the opponent away in a direct wave.
This is the original style of play designed by the Runners, but when the Runners came to the Spurs' arena for a pre-game warm-up, Wang Lei and the players found that they felt very good today.
Needless to say, Turgun is now arguably the recognized super pitcher in the entire league and even in the world basketball world.
Salish has been obsessed with breakthroughs lately, and his shooting percentage has dropped a lot after he neglected to practice three-point shooting, but today he seems to be feeling very good, although there is no one to defend during the warm-up, but he himself feels the hot feeling in his hands today.
There is also Blair, whose physical fitness has declined somewhat since the last injury, and Blair now attaches great importance to the training of medium and long-range shooting, and now with Wang Lei's intimate guidance, Blair's three-point shooting strength has grown rapidly.
Seeing that the players felt very good, Wang Lei suddenly decided to change the team's established style of play, he let the players decisively shoot on the outside at the beginning of the game, and it is naturally best to throw, and if they can't shoot, they will re-play the previous tactics.
Now less than four minutes into the game, the Runners have played an excellent 12-5 start, which has to be said to be a kind of luck, but it is also a reflection of the strength of the Runners.
The Spurs were really frightened by the Runners' three-point rain, and they made four shots in the opening game, which made people play, and only the second of these four three-pointers was thrown by Turgun, who was open in the fast break, and the other three were forced shots against defenders.
The veterans of the Spurs feel that they are all about to defend as if they were going to die, but the opponent can score, so how should they play next?
For the next game, Alexander Pope arranged for the Spurs players to use all kinds of means to limit the outside shots of the Runners players.
But the Runners who came to the away road today seemed to be blessed by the gods, no matter how tight the opponent was sticking to, as long as they shot, they could shoot, and it wasn't just Turgun, role players like Toby Sevig all had three points on their accounts.
By the end of the first quarter, there was almost dead silence in the SBC Center, and the enthusiastic Texas Cowboys didn't even have the confidence to give their opponents a middle finger up because they felt like God was watching the Runners play today.
Throughout the first quarter, the Runners hit 12 of them from outside the three-point line 16 times, and the Runners scored 43-pointers in a single quarter.
The super high three-point shooting rate has to make people wonder if the Runners are really hanging up, and the Spurs players themselves are beginning to wonder if the defense just now is not doing well.
With a fourteen-point lead by the opponent in a single quarter, you can imagine the mood of the Spurs players and fans.
However, when the rotation players of the two teams came on the court in the second quarter, the Spurs fans were even more upset, because the opponent's bench players also maintained a high three-point shooting percentage.
Stephen Chambers has always been open and never shot, but in today's game, he also had a performance of hitting a three-point shot against an opposing defender and getting a free throw.
The Spurs are losing confidence as the game progresses, and they feel like they're not dealing with a normal team, because a normal team can't shoot high three-point shots.
The score between the two sides gradually opened up, and the mood of the Spurs players even fluctuated greatly, which is definitely rare for a team that is all veterans.
And the feel of the runners seems to have always existed in them, which is the feeling that the runners have collectively accumulated throughout the season today.