On January 18, 2000, Meng Xu woke up early in the morning, and although he practiced until late yesterday as usual, Meng Xu did not feel the slightest tiredness and did not sleep well all night. Because just tonight, the Spurs will face the Los Angeles Lakers, the biggest rival of the season, at the Alamo Coliseum at their home stadium, and it is still unknown whether Meng Xu can play in this game. After experiencing the failure of the Western Conference Finals last season, the Lakers have become stronger and stronger this season after a series of trades and signings in the offseason, first of all, they have not been able to integrate into the team's tactical system, and at the same time Glen Rice, who had a conflict with Phil Jackson in the playoffs, was sent away by Phil Jackson, and then the team traded Horace Grant, nicknamed Cobra, Horace Grant was the hero of the Bulls' first 3 consecutive championships, and he was also a 15+11 interior strongman at the peak, even last season, The 35-year-old Grant can also contribute 12 points and 8 rebounds per game.

At the same time, the Lakers also signed All-Star level scoring guard Isaiah Ryder with a base salary of 1 million for 2 years, you must know that Isaiah Ryder can also contribute an average of 19.3 points, 4.3 rebounds and 3.7 assists per game last season, Isaiah Ryder, who is only 29 years old this year, does not know what reasons and ideas he has, rejected the high salary of many teams, and chose to join the Los Angeles Lakers with a base salary.

After getting Isiah Ryder and Hores Grant, the Lakers' lineup can be said to be unprecedentedly prosperous, the interior partner composed of O'Neal and Grant is only stronger than the twin tower combination of Duncan and Robinson, and the trio of Rick Fox, Kobe Bryant, and Ron Haber can also be said to be both offensive and defensive. At the same time, after Grant became the starter, the bench lineup composed of Robert Hawley, Derrick Fisher, Tyronn Lue and Isiah Ryder was enough to blow up the bench lineup of most teams in the league, and even when encountering the main lineup of those fish belly teams, it can also wrestle with them, it can be said that the current Lakers have always been a team without any shortcomings.

Also at the same time that Meng Xu didn't sleep well all night, Popovich, who watched the video yesterday and saw it very late, also had insomnia, and now for the use of Meng Xu, and how to use it, Popovich is also unable to make decisions and trade-offs, Meng Xu and Duncan are unable to achieve the integration of their respective systems in a short period of time, is it to give up? Or do you want to keep going? Popovich is now also in a dilemma.

This game with the Lakers is very important for the Spurs, after two consecutive poor performances, the Spurs also urgently need to make changes to prevent the team from losing streak, otherwise the season has just begun, and the Spurs, as the defending champion, will fall into a losing streak, which is not only difficult to face, but also a very big blow to the team's morale and players' confidence.

Finally, a few hours before the start of the game, Popovich decided to put Meng Xu in the starting list for today's game, originally Popovich still wanted Meng Xu to continue to rest for a few days, but the Spurs' group of outside lines is too weak, if it is a weak team today, Meng Xu may continue to have food poisoning.

In this game, the Spurs returned to the regular lineup, starting center David Robinson, power forward Tim Duncan, small forward Sean Elliott, scoring guard Meng Xu, playmaking guard Avery Johnson, Derrick Anderson returned to the bench after starting two games, and now Popovich has basically decided that Derrick Anderson is unable to adapt to the tactical play of the starting lineup, so he will honestly play the sixth man in the future. In this game, the Spurs still played the twin-tower tactic, and at the same time, Popovich also strictly forbade Meng Xu to hold the ball and play alone, otherwise he would be replaced immediately.

The starting lineup on the Lakers' side, the center is still Shaquille O'Neal, the big forward Hores Grant, the small forward Rick Fox, the scoring guard Kobe Bryant, and the playmaking guard Ron Harper, before this game, the Lakers also defeated the Clippers, Grizzlies and Trail Blazers in a row, winning 3 in a row.

The Spurs and Lakers, as one of the strongest and most popular teams in the entire league now, naturally this game will be broadcast live in the United States, and this is also the Spurs' third game broadcast in the United States this season. This game is also a revenge battle for the Lakers, in the Western Conference finals last season, the Lakers, who had a good advantage, were reversed and eliminated by the Spurs, so this season O'Neal is also holding back his strength to find a game on the Spurs. And in this summer, the big sharks, who have always been lazy, did not go to Miami for the holidays, but stayed in Los Angeles and spent most of their time training, which was unimaginable in O'Neal's previous career, you must know that O'Neal would not even be able to miss the team's usual training sessions.

"Erwin, Shaq seems to be stronger this season than before, what do you think Popovich will use to limit him in this game?" In the first five games of the season, O'Neal averaged 35 points, 15 rebounds and 4.6 assists per game in less than 34 minutes of playing time. This season has just begun, and how to deal with O'Neal has become an important topic in the league now, but as a disciple of the old Nelson, Popovich carried out shark slashing tactics on O'Neal in the game with the Lakers last season.

Shark hacking tactics are actually a defensive tactic with a long history, the first to use this tactic is the cardinal, at that time, in order to limit Chamberlain's play in the playoffs, in response to Chamberlain's weak free throws, the Celtics will continue to foul Chamberlain and send him to the free throw line, for this tactic, Pat Riley, who witnessed his birth, will scoff as long as this tactic is mentioned, thinking that this is a very unintelligent and shameless tactic. And in modern times, due to the rise of O'Neal, the old Nelson has turned this tactic out of the garbage heap of history, and brought this tactic to a new level, in the hands of the old Nelson, the shark cutting tactics are not only limited to players like O'Neal, all the players who are not good at free throws are in the alternative list of the old Nelson cutting X tactics,

"Shaq has been working free throws this summer, and the results are still obvious, so it's hard to say if the shark slashing tactic will work." If O'Neal's free throws had been a little better in last season's Western Conference Finals, the Spurs would have been sent home long ago, but the game didn't have ifs. Therefore, O'Neal's training content this summer is mostly free throws, so O'Neal also consulted several Lakers all-time celebrities on how they can improve their free throw shooting percentage, including Magic Johnson.

"Of course, I also heard the news that in the last game against the Trail Blazers, Mike Dunwiley's shark-cutting tactics at the last moment ended in failure, so I am also very much looking forward to this game, what way Popovich will use to defend O'Neal." In the last game between the Lakers and the Trail Blazers, O'Neal got as many as 22 free throw opportunities, if it was last season, he could score half of the free throws, it was O'Neal who burned high incense, but in this game O'Neal actually made 17 of 22 free throws, and the shooting rate reached an astonishing 77%, if O'Neal can keep this shooting rate, then the shark slashing tactic will be completely swept into the garbage heap of history.

"In fact, in this game, I am more concerned about Meng, after the game with the Timberwolves, he was suspended for two games due to food poisoning, although this game has been confirmed to start, but how it will perform, it is still uncertain." Seeing the players of the two teams who have entered the warm-up, Magic Johnson said with a smile, Meng Xu's performance is really crazy, he can already touch that door in the second season of his career, and there are two different ways to choose from, this is really crazy, Magic is now eager to know the final answer, which path Meng Xu will choose in the end?

"Haha, Erwin, that's also a matter of great concern to me." The game between the Spurs and the Timberwolves was just a regular season, but the ratings of that game exceeded the ratings record of last season's finals. After that game, ABC TV Network was discussing to increase the number of live broadcasts of the Spurs in the United States, but after that game, Meng Xu rested due to food poisoning, which also made some senior executives of the sports department of ABC TV Network very anxious.

"Alright, the game is about to begin." When Duncan handed over the basketball in his arms to the referee on duty, he walked into the center circle according to the rules of the jump ball, and in this game Duncan will replace David Robinson for the Spurs to jump the ball, after last season's injury, David Robinson's athleticism has dropped a step again. When Duncan and O'Neal stood in the center circle at the same time, both stared blankly at each other, the referee holding the basketball in one hand and putting the whistle in his mouth with the other, ready to blow the whistle for the start of the game.