With the strong addition of Auden and Wallace, the overall level of the Hornets instantly rose to a notch, and they jumped from a pseudo-strong team to one of the real strong teams.

On the 22nd, the Hornets won easily, unknowingly winning five in a row.

Monty in the starting lineup after the neat, began to work hard to study the Hornets' various defensive tactics, now the Hornets' five starters, all of them are first-class defensive strongmen, Wang Meng was in the Lakers every day and Kobe Bryant, the defensive ability is naturally not weak, Tony Allen, Wallace and others needless to say, the Hornets' outside defense can be said to be the most terrifying in the league at present. Of course, the Hornets' outside line is not without weaknesses, Tony Allen and Wallace are both players who impact the basket, and their outside projection ability is weak, although Wang Meng is very accurate in three points, but after all, he is only alone, which means that the Hornets' three-point ability is weak.

In terms of the inner line, although Gasol's physical fitness is different, but he has rich defensive experience, Oden is the opposite of Gasol, and the recovered Oden is extremely explosive, but because he has not played for a long time, he has not had enough defensive experience, and the two of them can complement each other on the inside.

Some people may question that these players are all masters of single defense, but their joint defense ability is not strong enough. Monty scoffs at this kind of question, what is called joint defense? If you can't defend the opponent's arrow player, you can't choose to join forces to defend, if you can defend alone, why do you want to defend together?

The earliest NBA did not have a joint defense, the players relied on one-on-one single defense to defend, and later saw the joint defense of the Europeans, the NBA introduced it, this set of tactics can not be said to be good or bad, it can only depend on the actual situation, each of the Hornets' starters is a defensive strongman, what else do you use to defend together? Even if Kobe James and others come, they can't stand the Hornets outside the three people taking turns to serve. Not only that, but the inside Oden and Gasol are very fast-paced inside, even if the opponent can get away with breaking through the outside defense, they are still waiting for the two big players on the inside.

Evans, the Kings' rookie of the year, had a taste of it.

finally relied on the weight he had gained during the shutdown to squeeze Tony Allen out of the way and break into the inside, and before he could be happy, Gasol ran over, fortunately, Gasol was some distance away from Evans, Evans immediately accelerated to the basket, and Gasol couldn't catch up.

But as soon as Evans's hand was raised, he was immediately slapped away by a large, black and thick hand. Falling to the ground, Evans turned around, but what he saw was the harmless smile of Auden, and the innocent expression of Cousins next to him.

That's a true picture of the Hornets' defensive ability right now.

In the game against the Kings, the Hornets only allowed the Kings to score 85 points, and they scored 101 points, which shows how strong the team's defensive ability is.

Of course, playing against a weak team like the Kings doesn't show how strong the Hornets' defense is.

On the 24th, the Hornets flew to New York to challenge the Knicks, who have the Big Three Anthony, Stoudemire, and Tyson Chandler.

The Knicks have not been doing well recently, the giants have played averagely, they are always injured, and their record has been tepid.

Hornets win six in a row! The record went straight up to 10-8 and turned positive, and the team also moved up to seventh place in the West.

The Hornets' strong rise seems to have become irreversible.

In these games, Wang Meng's statistics have declined slightly, but he still maintains an average of 27 points and 9 assists per game.

The All-Star voting has been conducted several times, and the Hornets have a total of three people in the voting, namely Wang Meng, Gasol and Wallace.

Wang Meng leads the league in the number of votes alone, even Kobe James and others are a lot worse than Wang Meng, Wang Meng finally enjoyed Yao Ming's original privilege, watching his All-Star voting ranking has been hanging high at the top, Wang Meng is very happy, although many superstars in the NBA say that they don't pay much attention to this kind of thing, but that heart will not care? Even if they don't care, Wang Meng really cares. Sometimes Wang Meng has to admire, more people are better.

Not only Wang Meng, but Gasol, who has the best relationship with Wang Meng, was also voted by many Chinese fans because of Wang Meng's light, and he was in the top ten of the Western All-Star Poll, which also made him happy every day.

However, Wallace had just arrived at the Hornets, so he had few votes before, and although he has risen slightly, he is still far from the number of votes he was selected.

The All-Star vote has always been only 5 people selected by the East and West, and the others are the head coaches of the two teams, if Wallace is not voted, there is only one possibility for those who want to play All-Star by the head coach.

On the 26th, the Hornets defeated the Jazz at home, and Wang Meng broke out in this game, scoring 43 points, increasing the Hornets' winning streak to 7 games.

After seven consecutive wins, the Hornets will challenge the Heat on the 28th good away road, this is the first time the Hornets have faced the Heat this season, and it is still on the road, the Heat has introduced Battier this season, and the defensive ability has gone up a notch, Bosh has gradually adapted to his role in the Heat, and his performance has gradually stabilized, James and Wade continue to contribute to the level that this superstar should have, although there is no strong interior line, but the Heat's small ball is playing more and more impressively.

When it comes to the Heat's small-ball tactics, by the way, another team in the league that plays very well in the small-ball whirlwind is the Thunder, with Westbrook, Durant, Harden, the three super backcourts, the Thunder, in terms of small ball is not weaker than the Heat, and even slightly stronger, after all, Durant and Harden's projection ability is much stronger than James Wade.

To get back to the point, Monty attaches great importance to this game of the Heat.

He can't pay attention to it if he doesn't want to, there are only 66 games this season, there are fewer games, and there are fewer opportunities to play against strong teams, and it is a little late to understand the opponent in the playoffs.

Although the regular season has only been played at less than half of the time now, it is very easy for the Hornets to make the playoffs. So Monty has begun to plan the hypothetical enemy of the playoffs, in the West naturally Lakers, Thunder, Spurs, Grizzlies These teams are the strongest enemies of the Hornets, and in the East, the Heat, Bulls, and Celtics cannot be ignored, although it is a little difficult for the Hornets to enter the Finals, but they can't give up their observation of the East for this reason, right?