"The curse is fulfilled, and the Spurs' road to defending the title is blocked"

"The fourth game cannot be lost, how will the Spurs respond?" ......

While the outside world is generally no longer optimistic about the Spurs' road to defending the title, and concerns are expressed about the Spurs' fourth game, Popovich is sitting with assistant coaches in Oklahoma City, where the Spurs are staying, discussing how to deal with the next game. Pen % fun % Pavilion www.biquge.info

While Popovich's team doesn't believe in the so-called curse, one thing they know is that the Spurs are in a very unfavorable situation.

In the first two games, Popovich sent the team's two point guards to the starters, in the second half of Mills's second game, the Spurs were overtaken by the Thunder and finally lost, and in the third game of Joseph's start, the Spurs also lost by a large score, and the two adjustments were very poor.

Without Parker's offense, Westbrook had too little pressure on the defensive end, which allowed him to spend all his energy on the offensive end and become extremely aggressive on the offensive end.

And because Parker can't play, the Thunder have a natural superiority in psychology, so the Thunder are completely different from the first game of the impatient play, including Westbrook, the most impulsive Thunder player, played very calmly, so that the Thunder had a lot of team cooperation.

It can be said that in the first two games, in addition to the Spurs themselves due to the lack of Parker's personnel adjustment rhythm on the offensive end, resulting in a lack of offensive strength, there is another reason that the Thunder team did play well, and they combined talent and team basketball, which brought huge pressure to the Spurs' defense.

Therefore, there are two problems in front of Popovich and others at this time, one is how to solve the offensive problem when Parker is not there, especially the offensive problem of the starter, and the other is how to cut the connection between Westbrook and Durant and the team, so that the two can fall into more singles than leading teammates to attack.

Neither of the two point guards on the team is good, so can someone else take the place of a cameo? Popovich and his assistant coach have been discussing these two issues for more than half an hour.

In the Spurs, the top three assists are Parker, Ginobili, and Li Yang, so after Parker's injury, if purely from the perspective of organizational ability, Ginobili or Li Yang is the best choice.

Among them, Ginobili's organizational ability is more trusting to Popovich, because Li Yang's assists are often the offensive opportunities he creates for his teammates when leading the bench lineup.

But in a game like the Western Conference Finals, the Spurs can't get so many counterattack opportunities, and Li Yang's assists will definitely be much less.

Falling into the positional offense, Li Yang's organizational offensive ability is not completely different, but many times, this kind of work is done by Ginobili, so if Li Yang takes the position of Parker, Popovich They have to worry about whether Li Yang can organize the offense when the team falls into the positional battle.

Compared with Li Yang, Ginobili has a better ability to organize and attack in the position, and he is more experienced, even if he falls into the positional attack, he is more sure.

However, Li Yang's defensive ability makes Popovich very eager to put him in the starting lineup, if you put Split, Duncan, Leonard, Green, Li Yang in the starting lineup, the Spurs' defense after the opening can rise to a very high intensity, which is very likely to have a good limit on the efficient offense shown by the Thunder in the first two games.

At the same time, purely in terms of physical fitness, Li Yang undoubtedly has an advantage, even if he is included in the starting lineup, he can also stay on the field for most of the time when he is on the bench, without too much impact on the team's rotation.

"Do you think Young will be able to organize the team's offense in the positional attack after the game starts?" asked Popovich as he spoke to his assistants after a brief pause in the room.

"Young's playmaking has been improving this season, and he may be a little less playmaker than Manu and Toney, but I think he should be up to the task. ”

Fusier, an assistant coach who has been in charge of the training of young players such as Li Yang, took the lead in saying, "At least I think he can do better than Patrick and Cory, Yang's basketball IQ is top-notch, if we have some targeted tactical training in the team training in the past two days, I think we can try to put Yang in the starting lineup." ”

Speaking of this, after a slight pause, Faucier continued: "After the opening game, put more emphasis on defense, even if Young can't really organize the offense, I don't think the score will be completely opened, and we will consider replacing Manu on the court." ”

Popovich listened and nodded, in fact, Faucier's thoughts were basically in line with his.

Defense, this is Li Yang's biggest advantage as a cameo point guard, even if he can't play the offense, he should not be blown up by the opponent.

It's just that the Spurs really have no capital to gamble at this time, after all, once they lose one more game, the Spurs will step one foot into the cliff, so even the experienced Popovich can't help but hesitate at this time.

After some discussion, it was determined that Li Yang was the candidate for a cameo point guard, and the next step was the arrangement and adjustment of tactics, and the Spurs also needed to make some targeted adjustments to the offense and defense shown by the Thunder in the first two games.

As a result, the Spurs coaching staff stayed in the room for the entire morning after Game 3 to ponder tactics, while in the afternoon, the Spurs organized the players to conduct team training before Game 4.

Before training in the team, Li Yang was taken by Popovich and others an hour and a half early into a room where the video tape could be played.

"What? I'm a point guard?"

When Li Yang heard Popovich's words, he was first stunned, he really didn't expect Popovich to choose to make such an adjustment.

After this slight stunned, Li Yang's expression immediately became serious, and when Mills and Joseph did not start very well, the team's coaching staff would even think of letting themselves play a cameo as the starting point guard, which is undoubtedly a huge trust in themselves.

"Coach, let's study the tactics. After calming down, Li Yang immediately thought of Popovich's intention to call himself into the room in advance, although his assists this season are not too small as a sixth man, but this is completely different from when the starting point guard organizes the team's overall offense, for this, Li Yang is still very clear.

After hearing Li Yang's words, Popovich's heart was a little more relaxed, Li Yang showed confidence or calmness at this time, which is a quality that a team must have for the ball controller.

"Yang, I hope you can really accomplish this mission. Popovich thought to himself, and then turned on the video that had been prepared a long time ago, and took the tactics board and began to explain the tactics to Li Yang.

Fortunately, Li Yang has been in the Spurs for nearly two years, plus his understanding has always been good, and he has also undertaken a lot of tasks to organize offenses this season, and he still has a deep understanding of the Spurs' tactics, so he can calm down and study carefully at this time, otherwise he will be replaced by someone else who has never played point guard, and it is estimated that he will learn enough in the face of such complex tactics as the Spurs.

But even so, it took a lot of effort for Li Yang to really learn and absorb it, and this is just a study on the tactical board, and it is not so easy to implement these tactics.

Therefore, in the subsequent intra-team training, Li Yang still needs to conduct more actual combat training. (To be continued.) )