Chapter 88: Back to Back
"Yang, I watched your video of last night's game again, and that block of yours is fantastic!"
Listening to Karen Inya's praise on the other end of the phone, Li Yang couldn't help but feel a little embarrassed in his heart, people, after all, they still like others to praise themselves, especially the person who touted him is still a beautiful woman. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 info
Recently, Li Yang and Inia have been in contact more frequently, although Inya calls most of the time, but Li Yang has gradually become accustomed to contact with Inya, and when he is free, he will also call each other.
After finishing the game yesterday, Li Yang didn't have time to call Inia because he went back to live with his teammates, but just sent a text message, so today, after coming to Memphis from Oklahoma, Li Yang took the initiative to call.
After receiving Li Yang's call, Inia seemed very happy, and she kept chatting with Li Yang about last night's game, which also led to the previous scene.
After listening to Inia mention last night's block, Li Yang picked up, "Thank you for the compliment, Karen, actually...... I think so too. ”
"Yang, you're not humble at all. Inia laughed amused by Li Yang's words.
"Oh, modesty? I have to think about what that thing is. ”
Li Yang's words made the two laugh, and after laughing, Li Yang continued: "Karen, I remember you told me a few days ago that you had a work that was awarded by the academy, what was the result?"
After hearing Li Yang's question, Inia immediately said with a slight expression: "Of course I won the award! ”
"That's great! But, Karen, that's what you told me to be humble?"
"Yes!" Inia chuckled, didn't she just say that about Li Yang.
"Oh, yes, Yang, our classes will end in mid-May, and I'll be in the U.S. to watch you play. ”
Hearing some excitement and anticipation in Inya's words, Li Yang immediately shouted, "Oh God, I have to train hard, I don't want you to see me perform badly on the field......"
"Go ahead, you training freak!"
After ending the call with Inya, Li Yang actually didn't go to training, because there was a game in the evening.
Back-to-back games against the Grizzlies after playing the Thunder are not a good arrangement for the Spurs, needless to say, the Thunder are second only to the Spurs in the West, and the Spurs were eliminated last season.
And the Grizzlies have also been very strong in these seasons, especially in the past two seasons, they have been able to stabilize in the top five positions in the West.
Speaking of which, the Spurs and the Grizzlies still have a little grudge, last season, that is, the 10-11 season, the Spurs won the first place in the West in the first season from defense to offense, but in the playoffs, they were blacked out by the Grizzlies.
The Grizzlies have two excellent interior players, Marc Gasol and Zach Randolph, and on the outside, they also have strong players such as Mike Conley, Tyshawn Prince, and Tony Allen, and although the team's offense is not too good, the defense is extremely good.
In the West, it's not easy for any team to beat the Grizzlies, including the Spurs.
Under normal circumstances, against such a team, the Spurs must go all out and field the best lineup if they want to win, but in back-to-back situations, this situation is naturally impossible to happen.
It's the end of the season, and it's back-to-back, it's impossible for Popovich to put all the players on the activation list and take a break, which is inevitable!
In this game, Popovich arranged for two main players to take turns off, that is, Duncan and Green.
This season, Duncan has hardly played back-to-back games, either the first game or the second game, and Duncan played in the previous game against the Thunder, so this game should naturally be rested.
Green is one of Popovich's relatively few players to rest this season, he and Leonard are both young players, and they have had very few rotations before, that is, at the end of the season, Popovich has arranged more rotations.
Against a defensive powerhouse like the Grizzlies, without Duncan and Green, two offensive firepower points inside and outside, plus Ginobili is still trapped by injuries and unable to play, and it is still on the road, the Spurs naturally did not play easily.
The game set the tone for the whole game from the very beginning, and that was to fight defensively.
In recent seasons, the Grizzlies have been on the defensive side, and against the Spurs, there will naturally be no slack on the defensive end, and the overall defensive system formed by the two defensive cores of Marc Gasol on the inside and Tony Allen on the outside has played a very good role in limiting the Spurs' offense.
And after the Spurs couldn't open the offense, they also focused on defense, hoping to limit the Grizzlies' already not good offense.
In such a situation, the score of both teams was only 44:40 at the end of the first half, and both sides scored very low.
After the start of the second half, the Grizzlies began to find a feel on the offensive end, and their two point guards, Mike Conley and his backup Jerry Bayless, were in great shape, and the two combined to score 19 points in the third quarter alone, and the Grizzlies scored 30 points in the first quarter led by the two of them.
On the other hand, the Spurs may have fought too hard with the Thunder in the last game, and they were not able to play too well on the offensive end, scoring only 21 points in a single quarter, which made them fall behind by 5 points after three quarters.
In the last quarter of the game, it was time to fight defense, and the Spurs' defense in this quarter had improved significantly, and the Grizzlies' offense fell to the same inefficiency as in the first half.
However, the Grizzlies are 5 points ahead after all, and in such a defensive situation, they have the advantage on the court.
In the last minute or so of the fourth quarter, the Spurs had a chance to tie the score or overtake, because at that time, the score of the two teams was 89:91, but under the defense of the Grizzlies, the Spurs could not score for more than 1 minute, and finally had to accept the result of the loss.
89:93, in the end, the Spurs lost to the Grizzlies on the road in back-to-back situations.
In this game, Li Yang's playing time was not too small, reaching 24 minutes, mainly because Danny Green was not there, and his performance in the last game also earned some trust from Popovich.
However, against the Grizzlies, who are very good at defense, especially interior defense, Li Yang's performance on the offensive end of this game was not good, shooting 3 of 5 in the whole game, 1 of 2 free throws, and only scored 7 points, which is still a little bit behind the previous game.