Chapter 8: Responding to Knight's Provocation and Shaking Continuously (4k 2-in-1 chapter)
On Thursday, December 29, 2011, the Cavaliers will travel to their second game of the season to challenge the Detroit Pistons and Indiana Pacers, and the NBA regular season has been cut from 82 to 66 games due to labor disputes, and many teams will face back-to-back games in three consecutive games, which is a tough test for most teams. Pen % fun % Pavilion www.biquge.info
Today's evening, the team will first challenge the Pistons at Auburn Hills Palace Stadium, and this game will be of great significance to the team's Kyrie Irving, because the Pistons have a guard player who has been called by the media as a "lifelong enemy" to Irving in this rookie.
Although Irving is more disgusted with the media using the term "lifelong enemy" at every turn, Brandon Knight is a player, and Irving really can't ignore it.
This can be seen from Owen's performance on the plane, Owen, who usually looks like a small speaker everywhere, is uncharacteristically wearing big headphones today, closing his eyes and pretending to sleep.
Brandon Knight, the defender who has been dubbed by the media as the second best defender in this rookie season, will face Irving on the court in less than six hours!
This 1.91-meter-tall player, who plays for the NCAA prestigious University of Kentucky, is indeed extraordinary, as can be seen from this year's draft pick, among the top 7 players in this draft, except for the champion show Irving, all are big players, and from the 8th pick to the 12th pick in a row 5 picks, are selected are guards, among them, Brandon Knight beats Kemba Walker of the University of Connecticut, Jimmer Fredette of Brigham Young University, Clay Thompson of Washington State and Alec Burks of the University of Colora, were selected with the 8th pick.
Being able to become the second selected guard player shows that Knight is indeed a good player on the guard line, and even many media think that Knight's position is a little behind, if it weren't for the fact that the team in front of him is not short of players on the guard line, Knight may even be ranked in the top three, and more extreme media think that even if the Cavaliers use the top pick to select Knight, there is no big problem.
Owen's resume is already very impressive, why can Knight still almost compete with Owen in terms of momentum? That's because Knight's resume is also amazing. In 2009 and 2010, he was named Gatorade's All-American Men's Basketball Player of the Year, the third player to win the award two years in a row, after LeBron James and Greg Oden.
In 2010, Knight competed in the McDonald's All-American High School All-Star Game, scoring a 3-pointer to help the West beat the East 107-104, and that year, he received an invitation from the University of Kentucky, an NCAA powerhouse.
In his debut at the University of Kentucky, the small guard had 31 points, seven rebounds and four assists, and he didn't have a single turnover. In 14 games of the new season in Kentucky, Knight ranked first on the scoring list among all freshmen in the United States! Averaging 33 minutes per game, contributing 18.3 points while shooting 47 percent from the field, 40 percent from three-point range, along with three rebounds and four assists, Knight was one of the 20 nominees for the 2011 Bob Cousey Award.
Such a wonderful high school and college resume is enough to compete with the champion show Kyrie Irving, which is why Irving's performance today is a little abnormal, it can be said that the Cavaliers' seemingly ordinary game against the Pistons was paid attention to by many media early because of the alignment between Irving and Knight in this game.
Knight, the No. 8 pick, even challenged Owen via Twitter before the game: Let's play a game of chess, I will win, and don't go back to my mother to cry if you lose. (Fighting chess: When you capture the opponent's chess pieces, you can get the status of the opponent's chess pieces, Knight is implying that he can beat Owen, and he also has the strength of the champion show, and even thinks that he is stronger than Owen.) )
Knight's metaphorical Twitter message even got fans on both sides engaged in a verbal battle before the game.
When the plane arrived at the Detroit airport, Yuan Shu saw that Owen, who had been closing his eyes and pretending to sleep, suddenly opened his eyes, and then carefully took out a nameplate that he had been carrying with him from his chest, and after opening the shell of the nameplate and looking at the photos inside, Owen closed the nameplate and kissed it gently.
When he found that Yuan Shu was looking at him, Owen smiled at Yuan Shu friendly.
"It's your girlfriend inside." Yuan Shu asked with a smile.
Owen smiled and shook his head, not answering.
After the team arrived at the hotel by bus and adjusted slightly, they set off for Auburn Hills Arena, where the evening game was fast approaching.
Before the start of the game, Yuan Shu had just come to the court to prepare for the warm-up, and found that Owen, who was already on the court, had a lot of sweat marks on his vest.
"This kid, what's going on today..."Yuan Shu looked at Owen, who was warming up seriously before the game, and wondered if the other party's psychological pressure was too much.
"Carey is a little strange today, isn't there too much pressure?" Leonard stood beside Yuan Shu with the ball and said, even Leonard of Mu Ne could see it, which shows that today's Owen is indeed a little unusual.
Before the start of the game, the starting line-ups were announced.
The Cavaliers' starting lineup was the same as in Game 1, with Irving and Parker partnering the guard line, Yuan Shu and Leonard matching the front, and the center was still started by Valejo, the Brazilian chicken nest head.
The Pistons' lineup has changed a bit from last season, with Greg Monroe starting at center, Jason Markhill and Tyshawn Prince at front, Rodney Starkey at shooting guard and Brandon Knight at starter. Also sitting on the bench was Ben Gordon, the sixth man who was extremely capable of scoring.
Yuan Shu put the prop "air brush" on his right hand and waited for the game to start. This prop was obtained by Yuan Shu by drawing a lottery with the lottery ticket rewarded in the previous mission, and it is also an extremely unusual prop.
Item Name: Air Brush (Blue Rare Item)
Item Description: A futuristic prop that fell out of Tinker Bell's Extradimensional Pocket, after wearing it, fan it against an empty place, you can obviously change the airflow of the space. After being modified by the basketball system, the wearer can implicitly increase or increase the distance or height of his block, or change the airflow on the opponent's shooting route to interfere with the opponent's shooting.
After Yuan Shu put the "air brush" on his hand, he felt as if there was a cloud of air around his hand, and then it dissipated in an instant.
Amid the noisy noise of the Pistons fans, the game finally began!
Monroe, who is taller and has longer arms, clearly had a clear advantage on the jump ball and won comfortably in a scrum with Vallejo.
Starkey got the ball right in front of the Cavaliers' Irving.
"Rodney, give me the ball, don't rush." Knight immediately shouted at Starkey.
"Hey, it's not a rookie's turn to teach me a lesson." Starkey ignored Knight's words and thought to himself, "Let me test what this year's top show is really about." ”
Thinking of this, Starkey held the ball and rushed to Owen in front of him, and when he was about to break through Owen's defense, Owen stood in place and didn't move.
"Could it be a silly boy?" Starkey just thought of this, suddenly his hand was empty, and he looked down in fright to see that Owen had quickly copied the ball from Starkey's right hand with his left hand!
"How is it possible, his left hand is so fast, is he left-handed?" Starki thought to himself in surprise after conceding the goal.
According to normal offense and defense, Starkey holds the ball in his right hand and breaks through from Irving's left-hand side, and it will be difficult for the average right hand to directly copy the ball from the offensive player's hand, but Irving seems to be left-handed, and he breaks the ball from Starkey's hand very quickly.
"Good ball, crisp and clean!" Yuan Shu, who was standing on the inside line, saw Owen's steal clearly, and couldn't help but praise it.
Irving surged to the Pistons' basket at flying speed after a steal and scored two points with an easy one-handed dunk. Immediately there was a chorus of boos in the Auburn Hills Palace arena.
In the second goal, Starkey was a lot more honest, and honestly handed the ball to Knight when he teed off in the backcourt.
"Carey, it's beautiful, I didn't expect you to be so skilled with your left hand." Yuan Shu said to Owen who came back from the front court, on the one hand, because Owen's steal just now was really beautiful, and on the other hand, he wanted to use encouraging words to help Owen reduce some of the pressure on his body.
"Hey, I was able to do a left-handed layup when I was 6 years old, and that's not much to me." Owen replied coolly.
"Damn, what a stinky fart!" Yuan Shu couldn't help but feel that Owen was not losing to himself at all in addition to some talents in basketball.
At this time, Knight had already dribbled the ball to the Cavaliers' half, and the 1v1 with Irving had come, as a point guard, Knight was very professional, and he was not in a hurry to one-on-one with Irving, but constantly organized the players to run tactics.
However, after the tactical run designed for Prince was destroyed by Leonard's tight clinging defense, Knight planned to go it alone, after making a passing feint, Knight suddenly started and threw Owen out of half of his body, Owen immediately turned to follow, but was blocked by Monroe, Valejo, who switched defenses, did not keep up with Knight's speed, although he made an aerial blocking action, but he did not touch Knight's layup, but increased the spectacle of Knight's goal.
Knight used his speed to break to the basket and hit a one-handed layup to tie the score at 2-2.
Knight also seemed a little proud after scoring this goal, his hands shook and kept rising, and the enthusiasm of the audience also rose!
Owen didn't care, and after turning around, he motioned Parker in the bottom corner to go to the other side, so that only Owen and Knight were left on the right side, and before the opponent's Prince came up to form a trap defense, Owen, who dribbled under the crotch continuously, suddenly started to the right side, and shook off Prince who came up from the left to wrap the clip, and Knight immediately leaned his body against the route of Owen's breakthrough, trying to stop the opponent's attack.
However, in the process of Irving's breakthrough, Knight suddenly fell backwards for no reason, looking like someone pushed him, but the referee's whistle did not sound, and Knight, who fell to the ground, did not make any action to indicate that the opponent fouled, but was lying on the ground and watched Irving break through his defense, easily went to the basket and made a layup to wipe the board, changing the score to 4-2.
Just when the fans didn't understand what was going on with the ball just now, the big screen above the stadium gave Owen a slow motion to break through Knight, it turned out that Owen suddenly retracted his center of gravity when he broke through halfway, and at the same time his body retreated, as if he was going to make a step back, so Knight also immediately stopped, trying to stabilize the center of gravity. However, when Knight just stopped and didn't catch it, Owen suddenly started again and continued to break forward, Knight wanted to follow the other party immediately, but the center of gravity had been completely shaken, although the body wanted to step forward to block, but the legs could not keep up with his rhythm, so the body fell backwards and fell to the ground.
Irving's abrupt stop and start during this breakthrough was so fast that it was as if there was no pause in between, thus creating the illusion that Knight had fallen suddenly. In fact, Knight was swayed by Owen's feints during the breakthrough!
"Carey, your dribbling is so cool!" After Owen scored, Leonard, who was closest to Owen, couldn't help but praise, because if this breakthrough is defended by himself, such a fast rhythm change, not to mention whether he can defend it, it is a good thing not to be shaken!
However, what Leonard didn't know was that Irving was already able to dribble when he was 13 months old, and at the same time, from a very young age, he had already practiced putting the ball in a plastic bag and then practicing dribbling, because the plastic bag can affect the rebound and feel of the ball, so this forced Irving to be more focused and more attentive to practice dribbling, which allowed Irving's fast breakthrough layup to have such an effect.
Knight, who was shaken to the ground, cursed in his heart, slapped his right hand on the floor, and immediately jumped up from the floor.
Looking back, in the cheers of the fans at the scene, Knight also began to hold the ball and single Irving, after dribbling back and forth in front of Irving twice under the crotch, a change of direction, changed the ball from the right side of the breakthrough to the left hand, with the help of the change of center of gravity suddenly retreated, and then shot outside the three-point line, although Irving tried his best to block, but failed to touch the ball thrown by Knight, the ball bounced into the basket after hitting the board, this is a three-point shot! The score was rewritten to 4-5, and Knight spread his hands after scoring and defiantly fell backwards.
Vallejo consciously ran to the left side of the front court after sending the ball to Owen from the baseline, and in the current situation, no one would bother the two who were going to fight each other on the court.
Irving dribbled to the right side of the court again, this time still only Knight, and when Prince was about to come, Knight immediately pointed to the right with his hand, signaling that he didn't need to wrap up the defense, and he could do it.
Prince shook his head and returned to Leonard's side, thinking to himself that the rookie was amazing.
Owen dribbled the ball back and forth under his crotch, looking for an opportunity to break through, and just when there was a hint of a hole in Knight's defense, Owen immediately activated, and made a crossover feint in the process of breaking through, just like Knight did just now, dribbling the ball from the right side to his left side, followed by another step-back jumper.
When the ball hit the hollow, Knight was once again shaken to the ground by Owen's breakthrough, and this time, Knight was on his knees with one leg forward, and the person in front of him was Owen.
"Zhuangyuanxiu will only be one, that person is me, and no one can replace me."
Knight, who was shaken down again, looked up and saw the fireworks of fighting spirit burning in Owen's eyes!