After returning to his home court, Popovich did not change the starting lineup of the last game, and he knew that the current lineup of one big and four small was his trump card, and he planned to use this lineup until the Trail Blazers cracked it. Pen × fun × Pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 Although the old man likes to play cards not according to the rules, but in the face of the disadvantage of taking a step back is the abyss, he has to deal with it carefully, so as not to mess up his position and hand over the victory of the entire series.

When he saw the starting lineup of the Trail Blazers, Popovich smiled slightly, even if the opponent saw the clue and wanted to use the same lineup to face each other, so what? Although the Spurs' firepower on the offensive end is not among the best in the league, they have never feared any opponent.

But at the beginning of the game, he noticed that something was wrong, and he didn't pay much attention to Hixon, a player he didn't pay much attention to, after all, he was just a rotation player for the Trail Blazers. However, this time he was like a piece of kraft candy to entangle Duncan, who was organizing the offense in the high post, although the defensive skills were still very immature, but the attitude was enough to make up for a lot of things.

As long as Duncan gets the ball near the free throw line, he will rush to the ball as soon as possible, stick to Duncan and wait for the opportunity to steal, and completely do not give the opponent a chance to pass the ball easily. And his style of play is in the form of a hard bridge and a hard horse, and Duncan, who is 12 years older than him, is very unbearable.

The most critical thing is that there are also Spurs players who want to find an opportunity to slip to the bottom line and make a layup, but Ginobili was blocked by Hickson. Although it is normal for players to be blocked by opponents once or twice on the court, Popovich saw that the Trail Blazers' No. 21 has a movement speed comparable to that of a guard, and can return to the baseline in time to directly interfere with the layup of Spurs players.

Of course, there are also contributions from other Trail Blazers players, led by Ye Feng and Matthews, who did their best to cut off Duncan's passing route in one-on-one, and even Felton, who is not very good defensively, used his strength to closely follow Parker.

And when Duncan was ready to attack with the ball himself, Hickson played his own specialty and blocked Duncan's back. And even if he can't defend it, the Spurs' tactics don't make much sense, and putting Duncan in the high post is not in itself to allow him to attack with the ball.

Ye Feng and the others admired McMillan's judgment and saw that Duncan was the core of the Spurs' tactics and made targeted arrangements. And McMillan was indeed very courageous, daring to remove Oden and Aldridge, the two starting interior players, and instead trust the team's backup power forward Hickson. No cautious manager would have done that, but McMillan did, and it seemed to work well.

So even if the Trail Blazers unexpectedly won the championship last season, he wasn't questioned much, and it was clear that he had two brushes.

Seeing Hickson follow Duncan closely on the court like a shadow, Popovich couldn't help but smile bitterly, you must know that Duncan, who was born in 1976, is 36 years old this year, and no one knows how long he can maintain his state. Now that he's not as comfortable with an interior player as Hickson as he used to be, it seems that it's time for the Spurs to start developing the next core of the team, and Leonard may be the most suitable one among the others, right?

But the situation of the game now doesn't allow Popovich to think about the next core of the team, and at the end of the first quarter, the Trail Blazers only led by three points at 27-24, but everyone could see that they had the advantage. McMillan has already made a move, and it's up to Popovich to respond.

In fact, Popovich doesn't have a good way for the time being, let's play a pure small lineup, and the Trail Blazers can do the same; Let's go back to the normal starting lineup, the first three games of the series have proven to be unworkable, and for a while he feels constrained, and he doesn't know how to deal with it.

Although both GDP and Leonard are slashing at the score, they are using too much energy on the offensive end, resulting in a lack of consistent intensity on the defensive end. For them, a decrease in defensive intensity means a decrease in the probability of winning, after all, defense is the foundation of their existence. Especially against a young team as strong as the Trail Blazers, who can't make up for the points they lose on the defensive end.

This is fatal for the Spurs, if it is an offensive team such as the Trail Blazers and Thunder, they will make up for it with higher points when they concede high points, but the Spurs can't, they don't have players on the team who can score like crazy, Duncan when he was young may be, but now ......

At halftime, Popovich surprisingly didn't criticize the Spurs players who were mediocre in the first half, just let them enjoy the game. After watching the first half of the game, Popovich finally made up his mind to rebuild the core of the Spurs' new generation, even if the GDP played good statistics in the first half, but it is undeniable that they are all old, and the time has come for the Silver and Black to be renewed.

However, in the second half, the Spurs, who put down their baggage, still played the team offense they were good at for a while, and at one point narrowed the gap to seven points. But soon the Trail Blazers pulled the gap back apart, and Hickson played a big part in that.

There is no doubt that the biggest sacrifice in this game was Hickson, although the team scored 115 points in the game, but he only had 5 points, 10 rebounds and 2 blocks, which is completely blue-collar statistics on the inside. If you just look at the statistics, it is easy to think that he was playing soy sauce in this game except for grabbing rebounds, but only when you are on the scene will you know how much Hickson sacrificed for the victory of this game.

Not to mention anything else, just looking at Duncan only scored 13 points and handed out 5 assists in this game, you can know how Hickson contributed to the Trail Blazers as his counterpart player in the main defense, you must know that Duncan almost had a triple-double in the last game: 22 points, 13 rebounds and 8 assists. The game was able to cut Duncan's assists by almost half, and Hickson contributed a lot.

In a league where numbers are king, Hickson's performances are often underrated, and only managers and veteran commentators know how good a player they are and see their true value. For the Trail Blazers, Hickson's sacrifice in this game is meaningful, and it is not an exaggeration to say that he is the first contributor to the Trail Blazers, and McMillan is not someone who only focuses on technical statistics.