Although the opponent is not too strong, the two consecutive big wins have made the Bobcats also get more attention, and whether they can surpass the Suns in previous years is the most concerned question for fans. Although the Suns didn't win a championship, people liked their offense and the way they played.

The offense may not win the championship, but it will win the crowd. The Bobcats welcomed D'Antoni and signed a group of players who could run and jump, and the offense became sharper.

This season, the Suns' head coach was replaced by Terry Porter. Porter is a former Spurs player, only retired in 2002, because he retired at the age of forty, strictly speaking, Porter is not a particularly young coach, especially in the Bucks, which is dominated by newcomers, Porter is definitely highly respected, and his coaching is quite smooth. Despite the fact that the Bucks have an unreasonable age structure and are not strong enough defensively, the Bucks still have a 41-41 record under Porter in the 03-04 season, which is a very satisfactory result.

But the Bucks, who had high hopes, were beaten back to form the following season, with a 30-52 record and missing out on the playoffs, and Porter was fired.

Graham Potter's coaching experience is hard to convince. The Suns' selection of him as coach was more of a reluctant move, and in the summer, they reached out to Adelman, but the latter joined the Rockets. The Suns also wanted to hire Van Gundy to coach, but Van Gundy gave up as head coach and only joined Bobcats as an advisor and assistant coach.

Porter's arrival hasn't brought much tactical change to the Suns, who have been playing run-and-gun tactics for three seasons and are the team that knows the most about them. If they fight positional warfare, they will be self-defeating. Potter just instilled some defensive philosophy in his players on top of the run-and-gun.

D'Antoni joins the Bobcats to give this game a special meaning.

D'Antoni's goal is to turn the Bobcats into the league's most flashy offensive team and lead the team to a championship, starting with the Suns.

The Suns are even more reluctant to lose to the Bobcats. If defeated by the Bobcats, who are just starting to run and bomb, it seems to prove wrong to fire D'Antoni, which will make the Suns' boss look a little embarrassed.

The Suns didn't take the Bobcats seriously last season, and it's normal to win by two or thirty points, but now the players don't have the confidence to win the game, not because of D'Antoni, but because the Bobcats now have Hayes. Last season, Hayes made Suns players uncomfortable with almost every game and was the Suns' nemesis. Marion, Dio, and Stoudeyer are hard to defend against in one-on-one situations, and the departure of Kurt Thomas this season has made the Suns' interior defense even more vulnerable.

The Suns have not invested heavily in the transfer market in order to clean up their money. The Suns signed Sean Marcos to a one-year contract and Brian Skiner on two interior players. They drafted Fernandez in the first round of the draft, but after learning that Fernandez couldn't sign for the new season, they sent him to the Trail Blazers in exchange for cash.

The overall strength of the Suns has fallen instead of rising compared to last season. They started the season with even 13 players in their squad.

Centre-forwards: Sean Marks, Stoudamire.

Power forwards: Sean Marion, Brian Skinner.

Small forwards: Dio, Ryle Marshall, Eric Piakowski.

Shooting guards: Raja Bale, Jalen Rose, Lindello Barbossa.

Point guards: Steve Nash, Marcus Banks, Arlando Tucker.

Although the Suns seem to have a slight advantage in strength, the bench players cannot compare with the Bobcats, and it should be difficult to play. Pre-match predictions are a five-five win for both sides.

The Suns mainly rely on Stoudeyere and Nash, and whether the Bobcats can win depends mainly on Hayes. Marion was ravaged by Hayes last season, and Nash was the best passer in the league. Calderon's performance this season can be described as amazing, but can he compare to Nash?

Tickets sold out early for the game against the Suns. The media portrayed the game as a battle of the century between the strongest offensive teams. The game was broadcast live across the United States, and people wanted to see what the two teams could play.

Time Warner Arena, the home of the Bobcats, became the hottest arena in the league, with two consecutive games to full spectators.

In the locker room, D'Antoni said: "No one knows the Suns better than me, although they have changed coaches, but the players have not changed, the only tactics that suit them are to run and shoot, so in this game, they must still run." When other teams encounter running and shooting, they all focus on defense and play positional battles to reduce the number of attacks, but I want to say this...... I want you to run and fight them to the end. The Bobcats have one obvious advantage, and that is the bench. None of the 12 people we played on the court were weak, and the Suns were really only 7 people, so they couldn't have played against us all over the court! When attacking, you can move flexibly and shoot when you have the opportunity. Chuck and Gerald can play alone! ”

Veteran Kurt Thomas will not play this game due to knee discomfort in training, and Landry is in the 12-man squad with Moon. With the exception of Okafor, the rest of the 11 players in this game were all very fast. On the other side of the sun, there is also a group of speed maniacs.

When defending, D'Antoni stressed not to trap Nash, cut off Nash's assist lane, press the defense, and try to exhaust his physical strength. Defender to man.

The first time D'Antoni was heard in training explain the concept of "man to man", Van Gundy's idea was to give him a brick.

The Bobcats' defense and last season's Rockets are two extremes entirely. The Rockets attach importance to the defensive system and rely on stars on offense; The Bobcats attack all the people, and the defense depends on individual ability.

Usually man-to-man marking refers to determining which player to mark on the opposing team, so that it is not easy to mess around. But D'Antoni's running and bombardment "man-marking" means that when the opponent plays a quick counterattack, he will quickly return to defense, and defend whoever is close. So although the Bobcats now have a lot of players with good individual defense, the Heat can still score 90 points without Wade. If it was Van Gundy's tactical system, it would be good for the Heat to score more than 70.

Of course, D'Antoni also has his own merits, and Van Gundy is not confident to lead this group of players to score so many points. The Bobcats lineup is completely patchwork, and it can play so smoothly after just a month of running-in, which can only be done by D'Antoni. He only emphasized two points, one is that Hayes is attacking the core, and the other is Calderon organizing the attack. Others are free to play.

On the Suns' side, Terry Porter meant it very firmly. "Fight against them. The Bobcats are fast right now and will definitely be running and banging like the first two games. You have to prove that you are the most authentic running team. When defending, if they are in a timely position, they will defend the joint defense, and if they play a counterattack, they will be man-to-man. ”

Porter didn't put as much emphasis on defense as he usually did, and he found it useless to talk too much, the Suns defended together, and Nash's position was a hole. The interior combination of Stoudamire and Marion also struggled to effectively defend the basket.

Ross Barkley partnered with Kenny Smith to explain the game.

"Last season, the Rockets played the Suns very unsuspensefully, but this time Chuck faced the Suns himself, without Yao Ming to slow down the speed, without Maddie to grab the shot, I don't know how to play. I'm optimistic that he can play a good game. Barkley took advantage of the fact that the game had not even started and hacked the two stars of the Rockets last season.

"In the first game, Hayes played at a superstar level, and he only scored 14 points in the last game, so it seems that his performance is not consistent enough." Smith laughed.

"The Heat team is terrible right now, and they surrendered after only half the game at home, which affects the star stats. Chuck didn't attack much on the court, and it was all up to his teammates to perform. And Haslem is the only person on the Heat team who defends well, he didn't do anything, just follow Chuck, Chuck passes, and it's the right choice. He deserved MVP last season, see what the Rockets would have become without him? Barkley said. He is worthy of the biggest "Haimi" in the United States, and the rocket is missing Yao Ming, he just doesn't talk about this, and the credit is all Hayes's.

Players from both sides played.

When he got on the court, Nash walked up to Hayes, shook hands and smiled, "Chuck, meet again." ”

"Hello, Steve. What tactics are you going to play today? Hayes asked with a smile.

Nash laughed, "How are you going to fight?" If you say it first, I'll tell you. ”

"Run, boom. After settling down, I'll play singles. Even if I did, I don't think you can prevent it. Hayes leaned closer to Nash and whispered.

"Whether you can prevent it or not, we'll know in a moment. Don't be too confident. Your defense can't compare to last season's Rockets. Nash said.

Hayes wasn't talking. The game is about to begin.

The Suns' starting lineup is unchanged from last season: Nash, Raja Bell, Dio, Marion, Stoudmire.

Bobcats starters: Calderon, Petrus, Gerard Wallace, Hayes, Biedrins.

The two big running centers Stadameyer and Biederings stood in the center circle, the referee threw the ball into the air, Biedlings and Studalmeire jumped high at the same time, Stadameyer touched the basketball first, but the direction of the plucked ball was not mastered, and Hayes grabbed the basketball.

Hayes passed the ball to Calderon, who dribbled up front and waited for someone to get into position.

The first round is a positional battle. Nash thought to himself. He and Calderón took a step away and prevented the opponent from breaking through. At this time, Calderon suddenly pulled up on the spot and made a jumper for three points. The ball makes a beautiful arc and hollows into the net. 3 to 0.

In the retreat, Calderon made an "OK" gesture with both hands outstretched. Sudden cold arrows are his trick.

The Suns quickly send out a baseline ball, and the Bobcats mark to man. Hayes followed Marion.

"Sean, you have to work hard to renew your contract with a high salary!" Hayes said beside Marion.

Marion's three-year, $60 million contract extension was rejected, and Hayes couldn't open it. Marion believes that the reason why he has not been able to impress the club's hierarchy is because of the presence of Hayes, who is said to be inferior to Hayes. He was not convinced in the regular season last season. After the playoffs, he found that he did have many aspects that were inferior to Hayes.

Marion pulls up high and gives Nash a pick-and-roll. Hayes switched to defend Nash. The leg was slightly bigger, and it was sent to the basket by Nash with a crotch pass to Stadameyer, who turned and smashed the ball with one hand! 3 to 2.

Nash smiled at Hayes, who reluctantly ran towards the Suns half.

Defending Nash, you can't just focus on the break. Nash is different from the average defender, and his offense is inexplicable. In addition to passing, he is also very strong in individual attacks, and if he doesn't want to string up teams, he shouldn't have any problem averaging more than 20 points per game. Hayes is unhappy that he may be the background of today's top five again.

Calderon borrowed Hayes to block the break, and then crossed back to Hayes in the high post. The defender was replaced by Nash, and Hayes was not polite, and immediately made a quick stop jumper, 5-2.

Nash dribbled to the frontcourt, waited for Stadamyre to step up to block and pick, broke down the left to attract the Petrus defense, and passed to Raja Bell in the low corner, who made an open three-point shot and also scored! 5 to 5.

Bobcat attacked, Suns 122 defense, Hayes asked for the ball at a 45-degree angle on the right side to play Marion, Calderon hoisted the ball in, and Bale on the weak side immediately stepped forward to wrap it. Hayes picked up the ball, threw it over Bale's head with a backhand and handed it to Petrus from a 60-degree angle outside the three-point line, who hit an open jumper. 8 to 5.

It's a beautiful no-look pass with very fancy action.

The results of Hayes' coordination training have been revealed!

(To be continued)