Soul of the Golden State

Chapter 418 Status Adjustment

Just when everyone thought that the Warriors were about to start a new round of winning streak, No. 7 challenged the Lakers in an away game, but was defeated by the Lakers 142:121. The disastrous defeat of 21 points became the worst loss for the Warriors this season. A miserable game.

In this game, the Warriors' starters all performed abnormally, including Li Weisi.

The highest scorer on the Warriors team was Malone, who made 16 of 8 shots and scored 23 points. In addition, everyone scored less than 20 points.

It seems that the basket of the entire Great Western Forum has a grudge against the Warriors players, and they can't make any shots.

In addition to Li Weisi hit a three-pointer at the beginning, the Warriors missed 18 three-pointers after that.

Faced with such a situation, the Lakers seized the opportunity. They shrank the defense, suppressed the Warriors' inside offense, forced a counterattack, and led the Warriors by 33 points in three quarters.

Such a disastrous defeat, not to mention the Warriors fans, even the Lakers fans themselves find it incredible.

Is your own team so awesome?Is it possible to imagine this year's champion again?To a three-peat?
It’s no wonder that Lakers fans think so. In fact, since the rise of the Warriors, there has been a voice that the Warriors are a regular season team. Their style of play can enable them to achieve good results in the regular season. But it is difficult to go further in the playoffs.

In other words, shooting doesn't win a championship.

Originally, after the start of this season, due to the crazy performance of the Warriors, such voices were already very subtle, but after this disastrous defeat to the Lakers, such voices showed signs of recovery.

Obviously, facing such a brand new tactical system and style of play, everyone will always be accompanied by various doubts before seeing him truly succeed.

Fortunately, regarding this point, the players of the Warriors did not waver because of this, and they did not become depressed because of this loss. On the contrary, this loss came at the right time, which made them already a little bit flustered. The mentality sank again.

Champions have never been so easy to win.

On the 9th, the Warriors returned home to face the Cavaliers.

The Cavaliers' record this season is quite good, with a record of 44 wins and 14 losses so far. This record is even better than the Lakers. In the East, it is only second to the Pistons in the East.

All of this is naturally inseparable from the strong rise of Kevin Johnson.

Because the Cavaliers did not get Price, Kevin Johnson stayed in the Cavaliers. This year, he has grown extremely fast. From last season's average of 15.1 points, 10.6 assists and 5.6 rebounds, he has rapidly grown to 20+12. star data.

Not only that, other Cavaliers players have also performed quite well this season. During the All-Star Game, a total of three Cavaliers were selected for the All-Star Game. From this point of view, they are not even weaker than the Warriors.

However, although the Cavaliers have gradually improved their lineup and their system has matured, compared with the Warriors, there is still a big gap in strength. The most important gap lies in the quality of their stars.

Compared with the Warriors' Li Weisi, Mullin, and Malone, the Cavaliers' three All-Stars are much inferior in terms of talent and experience.

Therefore, although this game was very anxious, at the last moment of the game, Malone scored after grabbing offensive rebounds in two consecutive rounds, completely killing the game.

The Warriors also defeated the Cavaliers 120:114 and got rid of the losing streak.

Malone became the MVP of the game. He played 38 minutes and scored 38 points and 12 rebounds. The old man taught the young Doherty a good lesson.

The next day, back to back, the Warriors played the Jazz away.

In this game, Karl Malone vented his anger in the All-Star Game on the field. Rodman, who was defending him, was completely blown away, especially in rebounds. Malone grabbed 14 rebounds. Higher than Rodman's 12.

In addition, Stockton was unimaginably accurate tonight. He made 11 of 9 shots and his shooting percentage was as high as 81.8%. Scary, but at the end of the game, looking at the score, it was only 23 points, but in addition to scoring, Stockton also sent 15 assists.

Officially relying on the excellent performance of the two, plus the strength of other teammates, the Jazz, who scored in double figures with 6 players, successfully defeated the Warriors at the Salt Lake Palace Arena with 126:120, giving the Warriors their seventh defeat of the season.

In less than 10 days, the Warriors lost three games. Compared with the first half of the season, their state has declined significantly. Anyone with a discerning eye has noticed the problems of the Warriors.

For a team that is committed to breaking the record in regular season history, such a dense loss is worthy of vigilance, especially when the playoffs are approaching.

Once this problem is not solved well, it will not only affect the creation of history, but also affect the playoffs.

However, the concerns of the outside world are still a bit superfluous, because as early as the day when the team's winning streak was interrupted in the first loss, Nelson had already begun to adjust the players' state.

The reason why the team's state has fluctuated greatly during this period is precisely because of Nelson's adjustments.

During this period of time, he reduced a lot of the team's training, spent a lot of time, and organized the players to perform various relaxation activities.

For the long-term mental tension some time ago, through this period of adjustment, the players' spirits have gradually recovered. Although the record has declined, in Nelson's view, all of this is worth it.

Among other things, take Rodman as an example.

This guy, who is usually distracted by training, actually went to training very consciously during this time.

You know, after getting along with Rodman's guy for nearly three years, everyone around him felt that this guy seemed to have ADHD, and it was difficult for him to concentrate on one thing for a long time.

Not to mention keeping him focused for a long time during training, even during the regular season, he obviously has a lot of rest time, but his mind will still be distracted.

In these few losses, it has a lot to do with Rodman's distraction on the field. Not only is the defensive oppression not comparable to before, but even the rebounds are much less than before.

However, after this period of relaxation, the Warriors teammates were surprised to find that the perpetual motion machine-like Rodman had returned during the game.

In the subsequent game against the Lakers on the 12th, Rodman grabbed 24 rebounds alone, 14 of which were offensive rebounds.

Although his score was only 4 points, which was almost negligible, he also contributed 4 steals and 3 blocks, which perfectly restricted James Worthy on the defensive end, allowing Worthy to only make 18 of 7 shots in this game. 15 marks.

It was Rodman's outstanding performance that made the Warriors successfully avenge the Lakers with 115:106 in just five days.

(End of this chapter)