Anthony the Reborn

Chapter 246 Opener

After a month of preparations, the preseason officially started.

In the first season, Anthony has won all the honors except for the MVP of the finals. Naturally, he does not need to participate in such a game, but he still appears on the team roster, but his suit and shoes are still inactive. status.

Playing with the team is equivalent to having a free front-row spectator seat. Anthony is on the sidelines and begins to observe his new teammates and their style of play, especially Nash. Vandeweghe once told him about his Worried, and judging from his performance in the preseason, Vandeweghe's worry does have a reason, that is, Nash's ball control rate on the court is too high.

Almost every offense, teammates are running, and then by Nash to launch the offense.

Nash's passing is really great, but Anthony is a person who has traveled through time after all. He knows Nash's characteristics clearly, and he has read a lot of previous evaluations of the Suns led by Nash. The predicament of the Suns after the restriction.

Anthony can make changes, but he found that D'Antoni's love for Nash was somewhat beyond expectations. Originally, Brand was on the team, and most of the offense could be initiated by him, but after these preseason games, Brand It seems that he has become a bouncer who can only dunk and shoot.

After these few games, although the team has beaten their opponents by a large margin, their average conceded points actually approached 110 points per game. What a terrifying statistic, even if it is just a preseason game, it is unacceptable enough.

But maybe it is because of the preseason and the team is winning that no one has attracted much attention.

In the end, after the preseason, White's performance was barely passable. Vandeweghe eventually traded him to the Sonics for a second-round pick in 2005. Dooling, who was traded to the Bucks for a 2006 second-round pick.

This time, there are only 15 players left in the Nuggets' roster, and these 15 players are their final roster.

This lineup is impeccable in terms of configuration and rationality. In the ball-handling position, Nash is an iron starter. His substitutes are "White Chocolate" Williams and this year's rookie Chris Duhon , At the shooting guard, Bell is still the starter, Korver and Roger are the substitutes, at the small forward position, Anthony leads, and Diaw and Ariza are his substitutes.

In the interior, Brand and Nene will start together, and their substitutes include Okur who is good at shooting, veteran Dikembe Mutombo, rookie Jefferson and meat shield Battelle.

This lineup can be described as luxurious, and the depth of the lineup has also been greatly improved compared to last year.

The preseason ended, and soon, they ushered in the opening game of the regular season.

In the first game, their opponent was the Rockets with the "MM" combination. McGrady joined the Rockets with the momentum of the three-time scoring champion, and formed a dual-core inside and outside line with Yao Ming, which brought infinite reverie to Rockets fans.

This is also Anthony's first game this season.

Because the team has been greatly strengthened during the offseason, there are huge crowds of fans watching the game from the opening game.

The commentators for this game are "Magic" Johnson and his old partner Devin Brown. It is said that this game, the original commentator was not him, but he took the opportunity to get it.

At this moment, players from both sides are still training on the field, and the two commentators can’t help but start talking, especially Johnson, as a die-hard fan of Anthony, he has very high expectations for Anthony’s Nuggets this season. height of.

"Devin, the Nuggets were a blockbuster in the playoffs last season. They directly pulled down the defending champion. Although they stopped in the Western Conference Finals, everyone can see that the absence of the team's core Brand is a big blow to them. Now that Brand has returned and Nash has joined, people are full of expectations for the Nuggets this season." Johnson was full of praise as soon as he came up.

However, out of Johnson's expectation, Brown did not immediately agree with his point of view, but said with some concern: "Erwin, maybe you didn't pay much attention to the Nuggets' preseason game, and their loss reached a terrifying level. I don't know what adjustments D'Antoni has made to the tactics, but I think this is not very good news."

"The preseason game?" Johnson shook his head and said, "The preseason game is a stage for rookies to perform, and each team will have a lot of reservations about their strength, so this kind of game has no practical reference value."

Seeing Johnson's state, Brown didn't continue talking, but turned his head to look at the field and said, "I hope it's just like this. Their opponents in this game have the "little giant" Yao Ming and the scoring champion Tracy McGrady. And Van Gundy is said to have strengthened the team's defense this season, so the pressure on the Nuggets in this game will not be small."

Johnson saw Brown's worry, and hurriedly said: "Don't worry, Melo will not disappoint the fans. To be honest, I can't wait for his matchup with McGrady."

"beep!"

As soon as Johnson finished speaking, the referee on the sidelines blew the whistle to start the game.

The starting positions of the Nuggets, except for Nash, have not changed from last season, while the Rockets' lineup has changed a lot from last season because of the trade.

Veteran Juwan Howard, who starts with Yao Ming, is naturally the scoring champion McGrady on the front line, while on the guard, it is the defensive titan Bob Sura and the team's starting point guard Jim Jackson.

At the beginning of the game, Yao Ming and Nene jumped the ball, and Yao Ming used his height advantage to get the first offensive opportunity for the Rockets.

In this attack, after Jackson controlled the ball for a period of time, he naturally handed the ball to McGrady, the core outsider of the Rockets.

Naturally, it was Bell who defended McGrady. If Bell came back this offseason, his body was a little bit fatter, which is also an important reason why the Nuggets lost points in the preseason.

McGrady observed the positioning of other players for a while. He has just joined the Rockets. Naturally, he wants to show his importance through offense, so he directly chose singles for the first ball.

Tan Bu, a sudden acceleration, Bell, who showed great power in the playoffs last season, was actually directly passed by McGrady at this moment, and McGrady was followed by a picturesque and ecstatic shot.

With a sound of "swish", McGrady easily scored the first two points in the opening game. This ball was also his first point as a player of the Rockets. The background emperor looked a little embarrassed.

"Bell's defense..." Looking at the situation on the court, Brown couldn't help but say something, but after seeing Johnson's face not looking too good, he continued, "McGrady's offensive ability is still very strong now, I'm afraid few teams in this league can stop him..."

"McGrady's talent is indeed one of the few in the history of the league. Even I think Melo's first game is still much inferior to McGrady's. It is not difficult for such a player to dominate the game." Johnson also said Said his affirmation of McGrady.

Just when the two commentators were talking, the Nuggets had launched their first offense.

Nash and Brand's pick-and-roll, after quickly reaching the inside, attracted a double-team, and passed the ball from the gap between the two players to the outside Anthony's hands while running, Anthony then raised the knife and dropped, "Shhh "The sound of the Nuggets also scored the first score of the opening, and it was a three-pointer.

"yeah!"

The fans at the scene erupted into a tsunami of shouts. Anthony's performance and the Nuggets' smooth offense are what their fans like to see most.

"Look, this is the role of Nash. I said, Kuban is too stingy. He actually gave up Nash because of Dampier. At this moment, the role of Nash can be said to have completely revitalized the entire Nuggets team. "Johnson laughed and said that the excellent performance of the Nuggets can be said to be completely within his expectations.

Anthony watched the reaction of the fans on the scene, and he was relieved. As long as they maintain such offensive firepower and work hard on defense, it will not be difficult to win the game.

It's just that before Anthony was happy, the Rockets suddenly launched another attack.

This time, Jim Jackson, who entered the interior, used the pick-and-roll to easily get rid of Nash's defense, and then successfully entered the interior to throw a shot.

This season, D'Antoni did not deliberately arrange for defense during training, so the defensive tacit understanding among the players at this moment can be said to be relatively low, and it is completely relying on feeling to defend, but it has to be admitted that Nash The assists and firepower on the offensive end are very fierce, but the defensive end is limited by his body. Even if he is facing Jackson, his defense seems to be at a disadvantage.

During the preseason, Anthony once suggested that D'Antoni should make some adjustments to the defense, but D'Antoni seemed to be just perfunctory. From the later training, he knew that because of getting Nash, he was not interested in bombarding basketball. Some changes have taken place in his understanding. In his philosophy, defense is a very exhausting sport, so why should the team's scorer participate in the defense?

So his idea is to let the team's two arrow figures mark the opponent's firepower, while his own offensive players devote themselves to the offense in all aspects, and just make the opponent blossom.

D'Antoni's philosophy was fully reflected in the opening of this game.

In the next few rounds, the Nuggets fired fiercely, and Brand even contributed a very exciting violent dunk, declaring his return from injury, but the Nuggets' defense was unsightly. McGrady He even dunked twice over the head of Nene.

The fans watched the win very much, but Anthony's worries in his heart became more and more intense.

(End of this chapter)