On the 22nd, the first game of the Western Conference finals between the Hornets and the Spurs officially began. As early as a day ago, Yao Ming and others came to New Orleans in advance to live, as the host of the Hornets, Wang Meng naturally wanted to invite Yao Ming to dinner, along with Yi Jianlian, this is also a small gathering of Chinese players, and the three Chinese players currently playing in the NBA are all there. As for Jeremy Lin, he is only Chinese-American, and he can't even speak Chinese well, so of course he will not be included in it.

"New Orleans is pretty good, it's much better than San Antonio." Full of wine and food, Yao Ming lazily half lay on the chair and said: "Especially this Chinese food, although it is authentic compared to the Chinese restaurant I opened in Houston, it is much better than the Chinese food in San Antonio." ”

"Since it's delicious, let's just transfer to the Wasps." Until this time, Wang Meng still remembered Yao Ming's whereabouts.

"You guy!" Yao Ming looked at Wang Meng with a smile: "We are enemies now, and the first game will be played tomorrow, you still want to dig the foot of the wall?" ”

"Of course." Wang Meng said as a matter of course: "You have only signed a one-year contract with the Spurs, which means that after this season, you will be a free agent.

Yao Ming smiled and shook his head, "It's too early to say this, but you don't need to say that, I myself have some intentions in this regard." You and the UAE are both in the Hornets, and if I go to the Hornets next season, then I can form a Chinese Big Three. ”

"Big Three, you two may be okay, but I'm not much worse." Yi Jianlian shook his head with a smile and said with some self-deprecation.

"You can't say that, you're also a very important member of the team." Wang Meng said: "It would be great if Yao Ming really came to the Hornets next season." ”

"Don't talk about this, I have to play well in tomorrow's game, the reason why I joined the Spurs is for the championship, so I will definitely not let the water go!" Yao Ming said very seriously.

"Of course, we're not here to be losers!" Wang Meng and Yi Jianlian are also not to be outdone.

In this way, the next day's match between the two sides officially began at the New Orleans Arena.

Hornets start, Wang Meng, Tony Allen, Wallace, Gasol, Oden. Spurs starters, Tony Parker, Danny Green, Leonard, Duncan, Yao Ming.

It's the jump ball again, and the Hornets players love the jump ball very much, because Oden rarely loses to others in jump ball, but today Oden's jump ball lost to Yao Ming.

Yao Ming is in very good shape today, although the bounce is weaker than Oden, but with the advantage of height, plus the timing of the jump is very appropriate, he really won over Oden on the jump ball.

Parker received the jump ball and stabilized it for the first time, the Spurs are not a fast-break team like the Heat, with players like Duncan Yao Ming, the best tactic for the Spurs is to play a steady positional battle, in fact, the Spurs have been playing like this for more than ten years.

Fortunately, the Hornets are not particularly afraid of the Spurs' steady play, because the Hornets are also a team that plays positional battles like the Spurs, the only difference is that when the Hornets want to be fast, they can also be fast, but in most cases, the Hornets will choose to deliberately slow down the rhythm and drag the rhythm to play, because the probability of winning in this way will be greater.

Defending the Spurs' offense, the Hornets had a decision from the beginning, and defending Tony Parker would also prevent most of the Spurs' offense. Therefore, Wang Meng resisted Parker at the first time.

Under Wang Meng's marking, Parker didn't have any chance, tossed and turned for a long time, and finally chose to pass the ball from the outside to the inside to play.

Duncan received the basketball, looked around, and found that Yao Ming's position was much better than him, so Duncan passed the ball to Yao Ming inside, and Yao Ming went to play the first ball.

Yao Ming did not disappoint Duncan, after receiving the basketball, he was a hook hand shot on the spot, although Oden has a strong blocking ability, but when facing the hook hand, he can only helplessly watch the basketball enter the basket.

At 2:0, Spurs managed to score the first goal.

It's just that the Hornets quickly came back, unlike Wang Meng, who was able to limit Parker, Parker on the defensive end couldn't prevent Wang Meng at all, just a butterfly through the flower step, Wang Meng threw off Parker and rushed inside.

The Spurs' letting go has always been a zone defense, Wang Meng burst into the inside, and immediately players came over to help defend, this time it was Duncan who helped defend.

Seeing this, Wang Meng did not hesitate at all, and directly passed the ball to Gasol, Duncan immediately returned to defense, and Gasol did not have a particularly good chance to shoot, but he was not in a hurry, and at the same time Duncan returned to defense, he stuffed the basketball to the ground, and Wang Meng, who cut into the inner line, just received the basketball and made a layup with a low hand to equalize the score.

The situation on the court soon became beneficial to the Hornets, Wang Meng's restriction on Parker was not a little bit, without Parker's powerful offensive point, the Spurs could only rely on the inside attack to maintain the score of the two sides, but the Spurs' inside line, whether it was Duncan or Yao Ming, was already a veteran, they simply did not have enough physical strength to support the long-term offense, sure enough, at the end of the first quarter, the scores of the two sides were still equal, but in the second quarter, the gap between the two sides was immediately revealed, Duncan and Yao Ming, who have physical problems, can only take turns to play support, and they can't provide strong interior support to the Spurs, and the most important thing is that the Hornets' two interior players, Gasol and Oden, are not easy to mess with, and it takes many times more energy to score on their heads than when they play with other teams.

In this case, the Spurs' second half of the second quarter completely began to collapse, Duncan and Yao Ming fell into a physical crisis in the starters, Parker has been struggling with Wang Meng's iron-clad defense, and the other two starters, Green and Leonard, their defenders are one Tony Allen, the other is Wallace, just with these two guys, they can't make much waves. There is no advantage in the starters, and the disadvantage on the bench is even greater, and Ginobili, who was expected to lead the Spurs to chase points, met Roy tragically.

Roy, who is not weaker than Ginobili in skill and far superior to Ginobili in terms of physical strength and physical fitness, easily gained the upper hand, so the difference between the two teams continued to widen.

However, Spurs have always had a very scary place, where the play is stable, and the more critical it is, the more stable the Spurs' play becomes. There are many teams that have had such a strange thing, originally led the Spurs by a large score, thinking that the victory was decided, but suddenly unconsciously they would be overtaken by the Spurs, watch carefully, the Spurs did not suddenly exert force, the momentum of chasing the score, but this is how unconsciously you can catch up with the score and overtake.

That's the stability of the Spurs' horror, no matter how tough the opponent is and how strong the defense is, the Spurs always have a way to score, and at the same time, they have a way to limit the opponent's score. Under the advantage of one and the other, it is easy to make the score successfully overtake.

Midway through the fourth quarter, the Hornets encountered such a situation.

The Spurs suddenly strengthened their defense, which made the Hornets players very uncomfortable, and they couldn't score smoothly, but when the Hornets didn't score, the Spurs could score, although the Spurs' offensive efficiency also dropped significantly under the Hornets' strict defense, but it was still able to score.

In this case, the score gap between the two sides is getting smaller and smaller.

"That's not good." Seeing that the score gap was narrowed to less than 5 points, Wang Meng couldn't sit still, he didn't want to joke about the task of the system, it was a big loss, and he couldn't use active skills in future games. If you lose the game in the first game, not to mention that you may lose if you can't use your skills in the finals, even if you are playing in the Western Conference Finals now, you are likely to lose because of your weakness.

Wang Meng didn't want to lose, so he broke out.

The Spurs' regional defense is very powerful, and the speed of the assist defense and the speed of the defense are first-class, even if Wang Meng causes the first time to make up for the defense and pass the ball to the vacant player, the opponent can immediately make up for which vacancy, and the point guard shooting machine will not give the Hornets too many shooting machines at all.

"It's just a regional joint defense, and it can only defend the inside, if it's really angry on the outside, can you make up for the defense?" Wang Meng controlled the ball, and his body rushed to the inside line, although Parker knew that he couldn't prevent Wang Meng, he still took the initiative to meet it.

As soon as Parker moved, Wang Meng immediately took back the basketball and pulled out his hand at the three-point line.

"Huh!" Basketball hollow into the net. "No matter how fast the inside line assists in defense, it is only the inside line of defense, in such a large place on the outside, even if you want to, it is impossible to come over to make up for the defense in the first place! As long as you can create open shots from the outside, then the offense is simple! ”

Of course, a three-point can not suppress Wang Meng's desire to score, you know, in the regular season, Wang Meng broke two three-point records held by Kobe, and his three-point shooting is not weaker than any outside shooter, including Ray Allen.

Two three-pointers in a row, both of which were shots after shaking off Parker, not only made Parker have no temper at all, but also pulled the Spurs' hard-to-chase 5-point gap back to more than 10 points.

Now Spurs are a little overwhelmed.

Parker can't guard Wang Meng, which means that the Spurs have no player who can guard against Wang Meng, do they have to use a bag? But Wang Meng is on the outside, sandwiching Wang Meng on the outside, Wang Meng, as a point guard, passing the ball to the outside player is a very simple thing.

Wang Meng's small outburst immediately turned the Spurs' half-day efforts into ashes.

It is true that the Spurs' style of play is indeed very solid, but it is such a steady way that it is difficult for the Spurs to explode at such critical moments.

In fact, it's not once or twice that the Spurs have been defeated by a certain star at a critical moment. The most famous of them is undoubtedly Maddie's 35.13 seconds.

At that time, the Rockets were behind the Spurs, but Maddie suddenly felt like a convulsion, and the Spurs couldn't stop Maddie no matter what they did. In 35 seconds, the Spurs let Maddy score 13 points alone, and finally the Rockets completed the comeback, although the Spurs were extremely depressed, but there was nothing they could do.

The current situation is the same as at that time, Wang Meng's power on the outside made the Spurs have no way, and can only helplessly watch the score gap widen again, this time it is the end of the fourth quarter, and the Spurs' struggle has lost its meaning, and in the end, the Hornets won the first game smoothly at home.

The Hornets can win this game, the biggest contributor is undoubtedly Wang Meng, who is definitely the best player with 31 points and 9 assists in the game, not only that, Wang Meng stared at Parker throughout the game, and only scored 6 points against the French. There is no brilliance of the MVP of the finals that year.

Although he won the game smoothly, Wang Meng didn't feel a little relaxed, he didn't dare to relax easily, the system required that the Western Conference finals sweep the Spurs, even if he lost a game, he would be judged to have failed the mission, so Wang Meng couldn't lose any game, otherwise he would not be able to use those three active skills again.

And what makes Wang Meng more concerned is that the Spurs will make adjustments to deal with next.

Parker has always been the core of the Spurs, and many of the Spurs' playing styles need to be implemented around Parker, and Parker, who surprised everyone in the last game, was completely contained by Wang Meng, so in the next game, the Spurs will definitely target this point and give Parker more cover and the like, after Parker's point is lived, the game between the Hornets and the Spurs is not as simple and easy as the first game.

In order to provide Parker with a good opportunity, the Spurs used a lot of blocking and pick-and-roll, and in some cases even used double blocking to block Wang Meng, in order to provide Parker with a better breakthrough space, once Parker rushed into the Hornets' interior line, his options were varied.

Passing the ball to the outside to shoot three-pointers, throwing himself from the middle distance, and passing to the inside Duncan Yao Ming singles, these options are very simple and effective, and they are very difficult to defend.

And in this game, Ginobili, who has been in the doldrums, also sat up slightly, and the two played evenly in the sixth man against Roy.

In fact, if you calculate carefully, Roy still has a lot of upper hand, but after all, Roy's playing time is limited, only 25 minutes, and the time to play against Ginobili is limited, and Roy's final play is only about the same as Ginobili.

Due to the stubborn resistance of the Spurs, the game was also difficult to solve, and the game was carried out until the last minute, but fortunately, Wang Meng's character broke out, and the skill of hitting the hit was refreshed again, so he relied on the three-point shot that must be hit to establish an advantage, and stabilized this advantage, taking away the victory of the second game.

At this point, the Hornets have a 2-0 lead over the Spurs.

(To be continued)