Junior Basketball says

Chapter 369 Two Triple Doubles
The Thunder, with three young players in charge, are best at playing against each other. After all, Durant, Westbrook and Harden are undoubtedly talented on the offensive end, and it is undoubtedly a great waste to let them focus on the defensive end.But the reality is that the Thunder's offense is very sluggish. Their singles with the ball in turn did not have a good effect, but slowed down the team's rhythm.

Brooks's mind is now full of thoughts on how to block the Timberwolves' backcourt. He sees very clearly that as long as Xu Hao and Rubio can be suppressed, the Timberwolves' offense will be self-defeating.The people who delivered the shells are gone, how can others attack?Although Love can rely on his feet to score inside, Ibaka and Perkins are not vegetarians on the Thunder side.

It's a pity that what the Thunder lack most is the perimeter gate. The management seems to be all offensive madmen, and they will only strengthen the offensive end during the offseason.Fisher is a typical example. The Thunder signed him because they needed his experience. In terms of defense, the old fish who has entered the twilight of his career will basically be overwhelmed by most starting point guards in the league. .

In desperation, Brooks could only resort to the way he dealt with the Timberwolves last season, that is, to use a three-back lineup, and put Westbrook, Harden and Sefolosha on the field at the same time, of which Westbrook and Sefolosha As the main defense, Harden is responsible for filling the loopholes, trying to keep the Timberwolves' back line out, and at the same time cut off their passing routes.

At the beginning of the second quarter, the Thunder's blockade did have some effect, but soon Brooks found that his idea was completely wrong.The three-back lineup did prevent the Timberwolves from passing the ball inside, but he ignored a role player who had no sense of presence on the court before, and that was Korver, who was the Timberwolves' starting small forward.

Korver is a very functional player. He is tall but has no confrontation ability. He can hold the ball but always floats outside. The only thing McHale values ​​is his ability to shoot three-pointers. This is Korver's foothold. of this.

When the Thunder's perimeter players swarmed to defend Xu Hao and Rubio, the two ball-handlers, Korver's opportunity came.In terms of running without the ball, Korver can be said to be the top in the league, and the Timberwolves' inside players are also very solid in covering, which can help him firmly block the defenders behind him, so that Korver gets more space. It's even bigger.

When he played for the Bulls before, Korver didn't have such shooting opportunities. After all, the Bulls' head star Rose is a master who picks up the ball and kills inside if he disagrees.But now Xu Hao and Rubio obviously have no intention of going to the basket, but they still created a huge shooting space for him, which seems to save much effort than Rose.

In the second quarter, Korver made 8 of 6 shots from beyond the three-point line and scored 18 points in a single quarter, becoming the most important scoring point for the Timberwolves.His outside firepower caught Brooks off guard. In his mind, Korver might just be the Timberwolves' last choice, but he caught the Thunder by surprise.At the end of the half, the score of the two sides was 67 to 55, and the Timberwolves still maintained a double-digit lead. For the Thunder, 55 points in the half is not bad, but it is still not enough to face the Timberwolves.

Although Xu Hao and Rubio combined only scored 5 points in this quarter, they jointly sent out 8 assists. Now both of them have reached a quasi-double-double. Xu Hao scored 13 points and 9 assists. Rubio It was 8 points and 10 assists.For them, scoring is no longer the main task, the most important thing is being able to link up teammates and let them score.

During the intermission, Brooks frowned. He didn't expect the Timberwolves' firepower to be so strong, and they scored a lot of points.Korver's three-pointer has already made the Thunder players jealous. Love is the core of the Timberwolves' inside line. Although Jordan does not have the ability to attack with the ball, he can still attack the frame after the pick-and-roll. With their two guards Continuously sending out assists, the Timberwolves' offensive system naturally runs very smoothly, which is much better than the Thunder's singles with the ball.

What happened in the second quarter made Brooks no longer dare to empty Korver. This seemingly harmless white shooter pierced the heart of the Thunder like a sharp knife, and continued to use three guards to deal with the Timberwolves' backcourt combination. , the Thunder may be directly pierced.In desperation, he can only ask the players to strengthen their offense, and simply don't even want to defend.

In fact, the Thunder's defense is not bad. They have Sefolosha on the outside and Ibaka on the inside.However, facing the Timberwolves, their proud defense was completely penetrated, and now they have to fight their opponents to attack. This is the sorrow of the Thunder.

Of course, the saddest thing is that they soon found that they couldn't even beat the Timberwolves on offense.Everyone knows that the reason why the Timberwolves' offensive firepower is so strong is largely because they have two outstanding young guards, and in this game, Xu Hao and Rubio seemed to be fighting chicken blood. Except for passing, as long as they see anything, they are very actively involved in it. It is a piece of cake for them to grab rebounds and so on.

Although Thunder's third young master continued to rely on individual singles to give Thunder blood transfusions, but the embarrassing thing was that Thunder lost blood much faster. At the end of the third quarter, they were already behind by nearly 20 points.Although Brooks didn't want to give up the game, it could be seen from the expressions of the Thunder players that they no longer had any fighting spirit.Reluctantly, he replaced the full bench with 7 minutes and 13 seconds left in the fourth quarter, which also meant that the Thunder admitted the failure of the first game of the series.

Seeing the Thunder put on a substitute, McHale was also taken aback for a moment, he thought the opponent was going to pester him until the last moment!That being the case, there is no need for him to continue to let the main players stay on the court. Anyway, the Timberwolves' substitutes are also strong. Barea and Ellington can fully meet the team's firepower needs, plus Milicic and Pekovic Waiting for players, there is no need to be afraid of the Thunder coming back at the last moment.Of course, judging from their spirits, you can tell that there is no such thing as a comeback!
最终森林狼轻松地以121比105先下一城，拿到了系列赛的开门红。不过让人惊讶的并不是整个比赛过程，而是他们的后场组合同时得到三双：徐浩是24分、10个篮板和11次助攻，卢比奥是15分、12个篮板和12次助攻，这在NBA历史上也是罕见的。

(End of this chapter)