It's December.

The Nuggets continued to maintain a consistent and high winning record, but the number of games they lost began to increase.

In the previous month's game, although the team showed strong offensive and defensive dominance, the team's squad was too young and the performance was not consistent enough.

Wang Chao is well aware that the Nuggets will have to go one step further if they want to make a difference in the playoffs and challenge for a championship in his first season.

To this end, Wang Chao must further train the ability of Mitchell and Murray, the two No. 2 and No. 3 scorers, to resist pressure and how to quickly find their form on the court when they have poor hands.

The most intuitive and efficient way to exercise is, of course, to let them take on more offensive scoring responsibilities in the game, increase the proportion of shots, so that other teams can make some targeted tactical arrangements for the two, so that they can feel what the targeted stars are treated in advance.

Therefore, after entering December, Wang Chao began to reduce his playing time and the number of times he held the ball, and instead handed the ball to Mitchell and Murray more.

At first, the two were very happy, after all, in the first few games, the opponent's defensive focus always revolved around Wang Chao, and no one cared about their offense, at most, a player was arranged to defend alone, and the pressure on the defensive end was not great.

In this case, both men had bright performances, with Murray scoring a career-high 31 points per game and Mitchell scoring 27 points in a game, and their scoring averages began to improve.

However, what followed was the analysis and targeted defensive strategies of other teams.

And rightfully so.

After all, this is the NBA, the league with the highest level of basketball competition in the world.

Even the weakest teams in the league have a very professional coaching staff, scouts and video analysts, who will carefully watch the video footage of each team's game, thoroughly dismantle and analyze the opponent's situation and characteristics, and conduct targeted defense.

This is also the origin of the term so-called rookie wall in the league.

Many rookies were able to play extremely well when they first joined the league, which made people think that they were about to rise in the league.

However, after playing a better game, the basic characteristics, playing styles and weaknesses of these new players will be exposed as the schedule progresses, and then they will be analyzed and discovered by other teams and targeted defensive arrangements.

For example, if a rookie is good at holding the ball and breaking through but is not good at three-pointers, then the defensive player will deliberately defend the breakthrough and not prevent shooting, and if it is more detailed, the rookie may be better at breaking through with his right hand, and the weak side hand dribbling ability is weaker, so the defensive player's position will be more biased to the right, and deliberately guide the rookie player to use the weak side hand dribble that he is not good at to break through the offense, so that even if he breaks through to the basket, the offensive efficiency will be greatly reduced.

Under this kind of targeted defense, most of the skills are not comprehensive, and the rookies with weaknesses will play abnormally, and the offense and defense are not smooth, and they fall into confusion, which is the origin of the rookie wall.

Of course, for some rookies with outstanding talent and who are among the best in the NBA, they can completely ignore the existence of the rookie wall with their own talents, even if there are obvious shortcomings, there is no way to target them, but for the vast majority of rookies whose talent is not so explosive and crushing, the solution to the targeted defense is to find ways to improve their skills to make up for the shortcomings.

Both Mitchell and Murray, despite being high-pick draft players, have not reached the level of amazing talent in terms of talent.

Therefore, when the rest of the league notices the increase in the proportion of the two on the offensive end, it is natural to do a lot of analysis and research on the two.

And at a glance, this Nuggets team looks at it, except for Wang Chao, the players who can rely on the offensive end are Mitchell and Murray.

Gobert and Tucker are both defensive blue-collar players who do not have the ability to attack independently, and Wang Chao will definitely not be able to prevent it no matter what, in this case, as long as he can strangle the scoring points of Mitchell and Murray, the two guard lines, Wang Chao will be isolated at least on the offensive end.

That alone deserves a lot of analysis and research on these two rookies by all teams.

The technical characteristics of the two were completely analyzed thoroughly, as if they had been stripped naked, naked.

Immediately after, the nightmare of the two came.

On Dec. 10, the Nuggets played the Pacers on the road.

Paul. George's departure and the return of the Pacers who were not Oladipo were not Oladipo, and their strength was significantly weaker than the original 17-18 season.

However, in the face of the Nuggets, the first in the league, the Pacers were very good, and maintained the suppression of the Nuggets throughout the game until the end of the game. 112:106 defeated the Nuggets to win.

In this game, Mitchell and Murray were both defended, with shooting percentages falling below 40% and scoring in single digits.

When the two main scoring points were contained, although Wang Chao got a triple-double of 33 points, 11 rebounds and 10 assists, it was difficult to support himself...... It seems so it seems.

But in fact, with Wang Chao's current personal ability and offensive firepower, and the defense of Gobert and Tucker, as long as the opponent is not the top teams in the league, such as the Cavaliers, Warriors, and Nets, he can completely defeat the opponent by himself.

The Pacers are obviously not among them, so as long as Wang Chao is willing, the Nuggets have every chance to beat the Pacers with full firepower.

But Wang Chao didn't do that, because then his purpose of training Mitchell and Murray would not exist.

The Nuggets have had a rough ride over the past month, which is not a good sign, especially with multiple rookie players, and the constant wins will leave them with no sense of awe and urgency for the game.

In this case, they need to be alerted by some failures and setbacks in the game.

No way, this is completely different from when it was in the Rockets, Nets and other teams, whether it was in the Rockets or the Nets, in addition to Wang Chao, there was also an experienced player with outstanding personal ability.

When the Rockets started with Da Yao, there were Leonard, Butler and others who grew up, and the Nets had Brook in their first season. Lopez, in the second season, was replaced by Durant.

Only the Nuggets, Wang Chao can only rely on the right hand of Mitchell and Murray, two rookie rookies, so in order to have someone to give him enough support in the playoffs, even if he uses the failure of the regular season to give the two of them the opportunity to learn and grow, it is definitely not a loss.

The effect was immediate.

The Nuggets lost three games in the space of nearly a week, and both Mitchell and Murray played poorly, with both of them facing a rookie wall almost at the same time, suffering from their opponents' targeted defensive tactics.

Of course, Wang Chao didn't plan to let them find a way to break through the rookie wall by themselves, it was too slow.

Now that you know where your weaknesses are, isn't it enough to make up for them through hard work?

Although it hasn't been mentioned for a long time, Wang Chao's training potions, including sparring potions that allow teammates to enjoy the training bonus effect, have been continuously used.

In daily training, the Nuggets coaching staff will also train Mitchell and Murray's technical shortcomings to find countermeasures.

As long as the two rookies have the right mentality and deal with it seriously, it is only a matter of time before they break the rookie wall, and once both of them break through the rookie wall, they will truly become Wang Chao's reliable right-hand man in the playoffs.

For this reason, even if the entire December schedule is sacrificed, and even the next two months of games are affected, and then the first record in the league is not lost.

For Wang Chao, who has led the team to win 70+ wins in the regular season three times, the regular season record does not matter at all, as long as he can contribute to winning the championship in the playoffs, it doesn't hurt to lose some more games.

It's just that what Wang Chao didn't expect was that when the team fell into turmoil because of his strategic record, the team actually killed Chen Biting Gold halfway.

On December 20, the Nuggets played away against the Charlotte Hornets.

This season, the Charlotte triumph ushered in a real explosive period, to be exact, it should be Victor. Oladipo's strong outburst gave the Hornets a real Big Three.

Thick eyebrows continue last season's efficient performance of one team and one defense, averaging 28 points, 11 rebounds and 2.6 blocks per game so far in the regular season, and can dominate the game on both offensive and defensive ends.

Kemba. Walker's play is as always, averaging 20 points and 5 assists per game, and his shooting percentage is also decent.

What really brought qualitative change to the Hornets was Oladipo.

Oladipo, who just signed a contract with the Hornets this summer, showed good individual ability in the new season, averaging 23.4 points per game, replacing Walker as the team's second scoring point, and shooting close to 48%, which is quite efficient.

At the same time, Oladipo's contribution on the defensive end is also very obvious, and he teamed up with Brother Bushy to build the Hornets' defensive system, making the Hornets an offensive and defensive team.

As a result, the Hornets performed well in the regular season, and their current record in the East is second only to the Raptors, Cavaliers, and Celtics, and they are only 2 wins away from the Celtics in third place in the East.

Like the rest of the league, the Hornets have put a lot of effort into analysing Mitchell and Murray, and they have one of the league's best outside combinations, Walker + Oladipo, so they're more comfortable coping with it.

At the beginning of the game, the Hornets directly assigned Oladipo to defend Mitchell, and let the weaker Walker mark Murray, who mainly plays off-ball and mid-range shooting.

Speaking of which, the technical characteristics of Oladipo and Mitchell are a bit similar, both of them are stronger and explosive players among the defenders, and on this basis, the 1.93-meter Oladipo is much taller than Mitchell.

In the 17-18 season, Oladipo himself will be selected as the best defensive team because of his outstanding defensive ability, which shows his strong defensive ability.

If you can't beat it, that's it.

But Mitchell may have struggled because of his performance in previous games, and his mentality was a bit explosive because he was by Oladipo.

Mitchell attacked with the ball and wanted to use the speed advantage to force a breakthrough through Oladipo, but the latter judged the breakthrough path in advance, rushed up to steal the dribble, and immediately wanted to counterattack the fast break.

was cut off in a one-on-one situation, Mitchell broke the defense on the spot, and couldn't help but go up and wrap his arms around Oladipo's neck is a choke defense, directly pulling the opponent to the ground from behind.

"Squeak Squeak——!"

The referee's quick whistle blew immediately, and Mitchell paid the price for his impulsive and irrational behavior.

After repeatedly watching the replay video, the referee determined that Mitchell's defensive behavior was very bad, and decided to blow for Mitchell's second-degree malicious foul and directly ejected him.

The head coach of the Nuggets team who learned of this penalty immediately objected, after all, Mitchell's actions did not cause Oladipo to be injured, and at most he could give a warning of a first-degree malicious foul, and there was no need to blow a second-level malicious foul.

But how can a referee who has already made a decision change the penalty casually.

The young Mitchell paid a terrible price for his impulsiveness, with a second-degree malicious foul that would result in a game-saving fine of up to $35,000.

In this regard, Wang Chao expressed his gratitude.

The lack of emotional management skills of first-year rookies led to the current situation, which happened in the regular season is a good thing, eat a trench and grow wise, and then in the playoffs when Mitchell encounters a worse situation, he should remember today's events and calm down.

However, Mitchell's ejection necessitates the Nuggets to redeploy a point guard.

Therefore, Rose on the bench had to go into battle early.

Derek. Rose's performance this season has been remarkable and eye-catching.

Wang Chao and the Nuggets kept their promise, not only giving Rose at least 25 minutes per game on average, but also completely giving Rose control of the ball during the bench period.

It also turned out that Ross did still have gas in his tank.

So far in the regular season, Rose has averaged 16.2 points and 4.8 assists per game off the bench, even surpassing Mitchell, who averaged 15.6 points per game because he hit the rookie wall, to become the team's third-highest scoring player.

Of course, such a performance is far from the Windy City Roses back then, and all that can be received is some praise from some fans.

At least Rose himself is very content with this, and it is enough that he can still shine on the field and play well enough as a team's main substitute sixth man.

In this game, when Rose replaced Mitchell, who was sent off, there were less than four minutes left in the first quarter.

And with Rose on the court, the Hornets also changed their defensive strategy, Oladipo and Walker switched defenses, ran to defend Murray, and handed over the work of defending Rose to Walker.

That's understandable, and Mitchell and Murray are tougher opponents than the scarred Rose, even if Rose averages 16.2 points and 4.8 assists per game and shoots more from the field than the two rookies.

But Rose's stats are more often obtained in bench time, and the intensity of the opponents against is completely different, and scoring is naturally simpler.

The height difference between Rose, who is 1.88 meters tall, and Walker, who is 1.83 meters, is not much different, and without the explosive power that he relied on to survive, Rose basically has no advantage in front of Walker, who is outstandingly fast.

However, who would have thought that it was in this game that the original Windy City rose actually bloomed again! (End of chapter)