After winning the series in a two-game winning streak, the Trail Blazers will travel to Denver to continue the third and fourth games of the series. But McMillan is a little worried, because Denver is not a good place to be, regardless www.biquge.info of the Nuggets' strength, and it's one of the league's most famous devils' home courts.

Denver is the capital of the U.S. state of Colorado and the largest city in the state. Denver is nicknamed The Mile-High City because the height measured at the 15th step west of the state capitol is 1 mile (5,280 feet, or 1,609 meters) above sea level, and at Denver International Airport, it is 5,431 feet (1,655 meters). In other words, Denver is a veritable highland city, and the Nuggets' home stadium, Pepsi Center, is located right in downtown Denver.

Unlike other Devils' home stadiums in the league, Pepsi Center Arena is home to the devils due to the harsh environment of its location, and the away players are always a little uncomfortable with the high altitude area, and even altitude sickness in serious cases. However, many players choose to come to Denver for training every offseason, and the main reason is to use Denver's high altitude to train their cardio. If you look at the history of the Nuggets, you can see that almost every period this team has used the fast play whirlwind as the basic tactical style, which is likely to have a lot to do with their long stay on the plateau.

It's okay to say that the regular season is not so hard, but the intensity of the playoffs is completely different from the regular season, plus the Nuggets have long been the most extreme track and field team in the league, the whole team is constantly running all the time in the game, and the opponent will fall into their rhythm if they are not careful, and it is undoubtedly a stupid thing to run back and forth with the Nuggets players in Denver. Even if the Trail Blazers continue to play inside, they will always have to keep up with the Nuggets when defending, which is an unsolvable problem, and it may only allow the players to adapt to the feeling of high sports in the plateau as soon as possible.

Despite the distance between the two places in a straight line, McMillan decided to leave for Denver as soon as possible so that the players could get used to it sooner. Fortunately, the schedule of the first round of the playoffs is relatively less intense, with the second game being April 20 local time and the third game being April 23, giving the Trail Blazers plenty of time to adapt to the local environment after arriving in Denver ahead of schedule. It's not the first time they've played on the road, but they haven't tried the intensity of the playoffs yet.

In the pre-game training session, the Trail Blazers players behaved quite normally, that is, a few first- and second-year rookies looked a little unbearable, but this is also normal, the NBA has always been not so friendly to newcomers, which can be regarded as giving them a first experience. Matthews's performance in the starters was not very good, and his dark face showed a sickly paleness, giving people a sickly feeling. But he still gritted his teeth and held on, and when McMillan asked him if he could play, Matthews gasped and shook his head, but did not speak, which was also expected by McMillan, Matthews would definitely not give up such an opportunity.

McMillan continued to start the previous game, but before the game he solemnly told his players: "You all know what Denver is, I don't want you to spend more energy on the court than usual, so you have to play smart." When attacking, try to fight positional battles, of course, if there is a chance to attack quickly, you still have to attack quickly. The defense is as much as possible to use joint defense, and one-on-one will consume a lot of physical strength, which is something I don't want to see, understand? ”

Everyone agreed loudly, but the course of the game did not follow their script. On the defensive end, they did use joint defense, everyone occupied their own area, and did not give the opponent any opportunity to take advantage of, but perhaps because of the cheering of the home fans, the Nuggets' outside three-pointers in this game were like a god, and a series of three-point rains made the Trail Blazers hug their heads. At the same time, Lawson also showed his breakthrough skills, because of his short stature, his movements were very fast, and the elder Miller could not keep up with his pace at all, so he could only let him rush inside.

It is recognized that there are two ways to break the joint defense, one is to break through, and the other is to shoot three-pointers, and the Nuggets played both things at a normal level in the game, and the Trail Blazers' seemingly solid joint defense instantly became full of holes. In the absence of explicit instructions from the head coach, the Trail Blazers' players automatically switched to one-on-one defense, which is exactly the rhythm that the Nuggets really like, as they can use the pass to mobilize the defense.

I have to say that under the coaching of Karl, this Nuggets team has faintly had the demeanor of the old Nuggets players led by Vanderwig and Inglish under Doug Mo. The basketball was like a bomb that could explode at any moment, and almost everyone passed the ball out as soon as they touched their hands, as if they didn't want the ball to stay in their hands for even a second longer. But their passing was not without purpose, and every flight of that orange basketball was accompanied by a change in the Trail Blazers' defensive system, and at the end of all flight paths, there was an unguarded empty space.

The Trail Blazers players are like a bunch of sharks that smell blood, but the smell of blood is unpredictable, and it's almost impossible for them to keep up with the speed of the ball with manpower. As a result, with four minutes left in the first quarter, McMillan had to substitute his starting lineup early, leaving everyone breathless for the short stretch to the bench. Obviously, they didn't take the manager's words to heart and there was a fitness problem.

McMillan sighed and didn't criticize them, after all, when the joint defense has failed, there is no way to switch to one-on-one marking by himself. He stepped forward and hugged the players one by one, completely ignoring whether the sweat on their bodies would turn his suit into a rag, he knew that the players were in a bad mood right now, and they also needed comfort, not random accusations.

Watching the substitute players play on the field one by one, but the score was slowly pulled away, Ye Feng sat in the position with an unwilling face, he really didn't expect that in the middle of the game, Denver's altitude had such a big impact on him, he didn't want to score, but physical strength has become a big problem, when you can't even guarantee the strength of the shot, who can believe that you can use scoring to help the team win?