Chen An made personnel changes, Beverley was replaced by him again to replace Lillard, Anderson replaced the old AK, and Vucevic replaced Morris. Chen An is not ready to compete with George Karl for speed, he needs Harden to control the tempo, reorganize the offense, and Vucevic needs to better protect the basket.

However, Chen An didn't say much to Harden, and he believed that Harden could understand his intentions from such a substitution.

Sure enough, after restarting the game, Harden significantly slowed down, he took the ball from Turner, dangled eight seconds past halftime, and then stood in the middle of the high post and called Vucevic to block him, which he wanted to avoid the Nuggets using their previous defensive strategy to pinch him.

And in order to read the Nuggets' defense against him after the timeout, Harden and Vucevic did not directly hit the interior after the block, but went diagonally, and after seeing that there was no trend in the bag, he took two steps back, and after Vucevic completed the switch, he showed off his dribble against Faried's defense.

Continuous crotch. Down cross-step dribbling + shoulder shaking, at the moment when Faried's center of gravity shifted slightly, Harden accelerated almost hanging Faried and burst in, so squeezing the big one to bulge in, there are very few guards in the NBA can do, this is one of Harden's strengths, his core strength is too strong.

Seeing that Faried was about to be gotten rid of, Iguodala, who was defending Turner on one side, immediately let go of Turner to make up for it, but Iguodala is also an old gun, his co-defense is very confusing, the speed is not fast, and there is a return defense, and the route of the co-defense is the front end of Harden's travel route, which means that he is not ready to directly block Harden's breakthrough, he is prepared with two hands, cutting off Harden's pass to Turner's route, and if Harden chooses to make a layup, he will have enough time to fly and block.

Harden's eyes saw Iguodala's movement, and the guy suddenly slowed down, first holding the ball and making a small jump diagonally to the back, then a step back to just retreat to the three-point line, and then raised his hand like a cloud to make a shooting stance.

Faried didn't want to think about it, and jumped directly into the body to block, but Harden didn't shoot directly, and saw that Faried was clicked, this guy jumped up, and he leaned forward and jumped, made a shooting posture, and touched Faried lightly in mid-air, and then danced with both hands, like drowning, and the basketball flew and didn't know where it went.

Honk.

When the referee's whistle blew, he decisively drew three fingers, fouled on three-point shooting, and made three free throws, Faried looked remorseful, Iguodala quit, ran up and pointed at Harden and said to the referee: 'This guy was hit by himself, how can this be considered a shooting foul?' ’

The referee shook his head and didn't speak, and Harden walked to the free throw line like no one, but Chen An looked embarrassed on the court. Although I have long known that Harden will gradually become Magneto, it is really speechless to watch such a pompous touch of porcelain.

"Harden's ball quotient isn't average."

Cole couldn't help but sigh, and the corners of Budenholzer's and Kutch's mouths twitched with unnatural expressions. Seeing this, Chen An still had to defend his disciples, and opened his mouth to say a golden sentence: "No matter whether it is a black cat or a white cat, the one who can catch a mouse is a good cat." ”

Harden is indeed a 'good cat', after hitting three free throws steadily, the difference was stretched to five points, and Harden also stopped the Nuggets' momentum of chasing points.

And the Nuggets' baseline serve also allowed the Magic team to calmly defend and settle down, which slowed down the Nuggets' speed at both ends of the offensive and defensive ends.

In the next game, he was completely dragged into the quagmire by Harden by himself, and after eight seconds of halftime, in response to the Nuggets' strategy of infinite defensive changes, he called Vucevic in the high post again and again to block and dismantle, and replaced the defender with Faried, constantly playing small and big, and playing Faried alone.

Faryd is really not Harden's opponent, in just three minutes, in just six offensive rounds of the Magic team, Faryd's fouls soared from one to three, and he was directly 'punished' by Harden.

Harden showed a dominant performance on the offensive end in the final three-and-a-half minutes of the second quarter, scoring 10 points and an assist on 2-of-2 shooting and 5-of-5 free throws, and by halftime, the difference between the two teams had expanded to 11 points again.

The players returned to the tunnel with a smile and a smile on their faces, after all, the first half was good, and the advantage was already in hand. Chen An and the coaching staff followed behind, and Budenholzer smacked his lips and said: "I now understand more and more why you want to exchange for Harden, this guy is amazing, he just plays like this, and our team will be dragged into the playoffs." ”

Budenholzer's words were obviously ridiculous, but the other coaches understood what he meant, some agreed with it, and some still had reservations, but Chen An knew best that Harden had such ability.

There are many opinions and classifications about players, but there is a classification for top players, such as LeBron. James and Wade, the former can be said to determine the lower limit of a team, which means that a team with LeBron is waiting for the playoffs to be guaranteed, and may even become a strong contender for the division championship and championship.

The latter can be said to determine the ceiling of a team, this type of player may not be as good as the previous type of player in the ability to lead the team, control and control the team, but they have the ability to kill the game and win at the critical moment. Of course, this refers to Wade, who is not past his prime.

Harden is the top player who can determine the lower limit of a team, and as long as you get the hang of it, even if the role players you are assigned are not so good, the playoffs are guaranteed. Budenhozer was able to realize this so quickly, and this guy's eyesight is still quite powerful.

Chen An smiled and didn't say much, after trading for Harden, he was sure that the team would definitely enter the playoffs, and his goal was not only the playoffs, but no matter how ambitious the goal was, the game still had to be played one game at a time, and the team still had many problems to solve.

At halftime, Chen An took out his own small notebook, which is the size of a palm, and many head coaches have such a small notebook to record some of their thoughts and opinions. Chen An recorded little by little according to the team's performance in the first half.

For example, Zhu Fangyu's appearance with Lillard is not suitable, and Lillard cannot activate Zhu Fangyu's ability on the offensive end.

For example, Morris needs to step up his ball-handling offense. At present, Morris's skills are still very average, although he has excellent physical fitness, strong impact on the basket, and three points are okay, but his offensive skills are not rich enough, and in the process of impacting the basket, once someone blocks the breakthrough route or the opponent has a strong interior guard, his breakthrough effect will be sharply reduced.

It's a situation that requires Morris to improve on himself, and he needs better offensive options, as well as more offensive skills to make more options when breaking through and blocking.