(Yesterday's starting list was wrong, and there was a duplicate, in fact, Luke. Wharton, the previous chapter has been revised, and I will talk about it here. ）

Luke. Wharton, both as a player and as a future coach, perfectly highlights one word – mediocrity.

As a player, Walton's evaluation is generally that he is a role player with a good level, has a high basketball IQ, and knows how to cooperate with the team.

There's neither great break-through ability nor consistent shooting accuracy, which means that passing ability can make people shine, but that's exactly what it is.

In terms of defense, Wharton is not a defensive giant, at most it can only be said that it is not a defensive black hole.

In his 10-year NBA career, Walton averaged just 4.7 points, 2.8 rebounds and 2.3 assists per game.

This guy and Wang Chao are in the opposite position, which is definitely easy for Wang Chao, who started the playoffs for the first time.

How could such a rare opportunity be missed?

……

The game begins, Kwame. With his height and excellent bounce, Brown easily scramble over Marion.

No matter how poor Bennett's basketball skills are, his physical fitness really doesn't have to be said, otherwise he wouldn't have been selected as the champion by Joe's gang leader.

Lakers ball possession, Smush. Parker dribbled the ball across the half court and passed the ball to Bryant naturally, completely without the idea of attacking with the ball himself.

Kobe Bryant stood with the ball in the top arc position and faced the Suns' outside defensive elite Raga. Bel.

The reason why Bale will be dubbed the "Kobe Bryant Terminator" in the future is that the entanglement between him and Kobe Bryant played a crucial role in this series.

If nothing else, although the Suns played a very tough game in this series, they will eventually eliminate the Lakers with a score of 4:3 to advance to the second round of the West.

And Kobe Bryant's average of 27.9 points per game in seven games, and his 49.7% shooting rate is definitely not limited by Bell's success.

But after this series, Bale is still regarded as one of the best guards in the league to defend Kobe.

The main reason is that in the game, because he always couldn't prevent Kobe, Bell was annoyed and angry, and directly gave Kobe Bryant a trick to lock his throat and put him directly to the ground.

One thing to say, Wang Chao doesn't look down on this kind of behavior of engaging in dirty methods if he can't prevent it, but the NBA of this era still has a little bit of the so-called "iron and blood" thinking of the 90s, so Bell has become a hero of the Suns.

In any case, there is no doubt that Bell, known as the "Kobe Terminator", can't prevent Kobe Bryant at all.

The two have met a total of 44 times in their careers, and Bryant averaged 28.1 points, 5.7 rebounds and 4.6 assists per game, shooting 44.6% from the field, all of which remained above the career average.

This is evident in the arena at this moment.

Holding the ball in the face of Bale's defense, Kobe Bryant directly chose to break through with the ball, Kobe Bryant in his peak stage is also the top level in the league with the ball, the speed is as fast as thunder, Bale has no time to react that the latter has passed most of his body and is the first to hit the basket.

Dio immediately stepped forward to help defend, but Kobe Bryant chose to pass the ball in the middle of the march, and Odom, who received Kobe's pass, immediately scored a layup.

2:0, the Lakers scored the first point of the opening game.

The ball was exchanged, and Marion served the ball to Nash, who quickly held the ball and advanced it through the half.

The Suns' fast-paced run-and-gun tactics continued unabated even in the playoffs.

The Lakers, on their side, can only quickly follow the Suns players back to defense, and dare not slack off in the slightest.

Team small forward Luke. Wharton followed Wang Chao at this time.

In this game, when it was learned that the Suns' starting small forward was Wang Chao, Lakers head coach Phil Brown. Jackson gave it to Luke. Wharton gave a mission.

"Luke, you don't need to do anything in this game, give Kobe and Lamar (Odom) to score on the offensive end, and the team's defense doesn't need you to shape, your only task is to keep an eye on Wang Chao and don't give him the chance to catch the ball!"

Today's Wang Chao has successfully become a thorn in the side of various teams in the league, and an outside shooter who can shoot 5 three-pointers per game is quite a big threat to any team.

In view of Wang Chao's height advantage in small forwards and his speed of shooting that is difficult to react to, it is no longer enough to prevent him from making empty three-point shots, and the current league team's method for Wang Chao is more simple and direct, which is to arrange a player to follow the whole defense, intercept the passing route, and not give him a chance to receive the ball.

This arrangement is actually a bit of a future way for other teams to target the Warriors' Splash Brothers.

But does this approach to defense work? Apparently it didn't work very well.

Wang Chao's position on the Suns is a role player in itself, and it is good to be able to score, but if he can't score, even if he just stands outside the three-point line, draws the attention of a defensive player, and makes the opponent unable to participate in the overall defense, it is not a loss.

The Suns' lineup at this time, from the No. 1 position to the No. 5 position, all have three-point shooting capabilities, and at this moment, all five are pulled outside the three-point line.

Faced with such a situation, even Kwame. Brown also had to run out to the perimeter.

The Lakers' interior defense was completely hollowed out, and then Nash directly singled out Smush. Parker, just like Kobe Bryant broke through Bell, Nash shouldn't be too simple to get past Parker.

After passing Parker, Nash didn't have to face the complementary defense of other players like Kobe Bryant, and scored a layup easily.

2:2。

Such an outcome is completely acceptable on the Suns' side.

The only one who is a little unhappy is Wang Chao himself.

Even if this is to contribute to the team, in contrast, Wang Chao still prefers to score points by himself, because the most critical factor in judging a player's ability and value is personal data.

Speaking of which, some people may be on the bar, there are a lot of very strong players in the league who sacrifice their stats for the sake of the team.

So the question is, did these so-called extremely strong players get the maximum salary contract after sacrificing their data for the team's victory?

Obviously, in this league, most of the players who can get a high salary and be selected as an All-Star are those who have very good personal data.

As a veteran fan from 2022, Wang Chao is too aware of the nature of the NBA league.

The so-called sacrifices for the sake of the team and the honor of the team will not end well.

Wade chose to take the initiative to take a salary cut for the sake of the team, but the Heat would rather choose to sign Dragic with a high salary than give Wade a decent contract at the end of his career.

It's as good as Wade, let alone those lesser-known role players?

Therefore, Wang Chao is very clear that he can be used as a three-point deterrent to attract the opponent's defense to pull space for the team, but in the process, he must also score, which is why he will practice running without the ball.