Basketball boy, starting to shine from the slam dunk

"Requesting a timeout."

Seeing that the Lakers had widened the gap to 9 points, Coach D'Antoni had to call a timeout. He shook his head helplessly, he was really helpless. If there was no double-team, Zhuang Yu would score crazily, but when Zhuang Yu was double-teamed, other Lakers players jumped out to score.

What to do, how to prevent it?

I'm too hard!

Coach D'Antoni sighed again, and tried to adjust his emotions and control his expression. He said to the players: "The double-teaming of Zhuang Yu remains unchanged, but our switching and backup defense must be fast, and we can't give the opponent too many comfortable shooting opportunities, especially Lopez and Holiday."

"Also, our offense should be more about breaking through and passing the ball. The opponent is consciously limiting our three-pointers, but we can't stop shooting just because the opponent focuses on defending our three-pointers."

"Wait, Eric Gordon and Ryan Anderson, you two come on and replace Ariza and Tucker. Break through whenever you get a chance. We need to disrupt the Lakers' defensive formation and force them to shrink their defense. Only then will we have a chance outside the three-point line..."

After some arrangements, the suspension ended.

Players from both sides returned to the court and made personnel rotations.

The Rockets' lineup became Paul, Harden, Eric Gordon, Ryan Anderson and Capela.

Originally, Paul or Harden should be substituted at this time, allowing one of them to rest, but when the team is trailing by 9 points, how dare they substitute them?

The Lakers made normal rotations, replacing Holiday, Korver and Kyle Anderson, while Zhuang Yu and Lopez remained on the court.

In addition, Clarkson and Nance Jr. were replaced.

After returning to the court, the Rockets increased their breakthroughs. Paul, Harden, and Eric Gordon were all capable of breaking through. The consecutive breakthroughs and passes forced the Lakers to shrink their defense, and then the ball was passed outside the three-point line, where Ryan Anderson made a three-pointer.

On the defensive end, the Rockets still double-teamed Zhuang Yu, but they also strengthened their defense on Lopez.

Since the Lakers have replaced Holiday, besides double-teaming Zhuang Yu, the next thing they need to do is to defend Lopez.

However, what made the Rockets depressed was that they had done their best to double-team and defend Lopez well, but Clarkson suddenly broke out, first hitting a jump shot, then breaking through and scoring consecutively...

This made the Rockets players feel very depressed.

How can we defend this? The Lakers have too many players who can score.

It’s impossible to defend against it. It’s impossible to defend against it at all!

"Hey......"

Coach D'Antoni sighed again and could only yell at the court, trying to calm the players and ask them to play well on offense.

The defense is really helpless.

We can only rely on offense.

Fortunately, the Rockets' strategy of breaking through and passing the ball worked. After consecutive breaking through and passing the ball, they got more three-point opportunities from the outside and seized them.

First, Ryan Anderson hit the three-pointer, and then Eric Gordon and Harden also made three-pointers.

For a while, although the Rockets still failed to limit the Lakers well on the defensive end, they played quite well on the offensive end. After three three-pointers, the score gap was narrowed a little.

But at this moment, Zhuang Yu stood up again. He got rid of the defense by running back, received the ball outside the three-point line, and then pulled up directly. Ignoring the Rockets players who rushed over, he threw the ball out in an instant. With a "swish", the ball went in.

It’s still a three-pointer!

"Fake."

"What the hell, the score difference has become 9 points again."

The home fans couldn't help but swear as they saw the score difference narrowing a little, but Zhuang Yu's three-pointer made the score become 9 points again. It was so frustrating.

With Zhuang Yu's three-pointer, his personal score reached 32 points.

Several Rockets players looked at each other and could only shake their heads and smile bitterly, but it was not too surprising. With Zhuang Yu's scoring ability, even a double-team would not prevent him from scoring.

In the last few rounds, both teams continued their respective styles of play. The Rockets hit another three-pointer, and the Lakers also got two points...

After some back and forth, the difference between the two sides was still 8 points.

At this time, Coach D'Antoni had no choice but to make substitutions, replacing both Paul and Capela to let them rest, leaving only Harden on the court.

The Lakers also made substitutions, with Zhuang Yu coming off and Lopez remaining on the court.

For a period of time afterwards, the Rockets had a slight upper hand, mainly because Harden played very well, including free throws, helping the Rockets narrow the gap to 4 points.

At the end of the third quarter, the Lakers led by 4 points.

......

"It's okay, we're only leading by 4 points."

"The offense played well today, the three-point shooting was good, and Harden's performance was also outstanding. He also scored 30+."

"It all depends on the last quarter. I hope we can turn the tables..."

Today's situation is somewhat similar to the previous game. The Rockets have been at a disadvantage, but the home fans still believe that the Rockets can turn the tide in the final quarter.

But when entering the final quarter, the Lakers quickly gained the upper hand.

At this time, the Lakers sent Holiday, Clarkson, Kyle Anderson, two main players and a "best sixth man". The Rockets sent Paul and Eric Gordon, but they were no match for the Lakers. The Rockets still lacked some depth in the lineup.

Coach D'Antoni had to substitute Tucker to prevent the score gap between the two sides from widening too much.

However, just over three minutes into the fourth quarter, the Lakers replaced Zhuang Yu. Coach D'Antoni smiled bitterly and had no choice but to replace Harden.

He was a little worried.

Harden played very well today, but he played too long.

Sure enough, Harden's physical fitness soon began to deteriorate. His offensive efficiency dropped and even his running speed slowed down. Especially on the defensive end, it became difficult for him to defend well.

The situation took a sharp turn for the worse. Previously the Rockets were able to keep up the score, but now they were losing both offense and defense.

In just a short while, the gap between the two sides widened to 11 points.

Coach D'Antoni had to call a timeout to let the players rest, but when he saw that there were only more than two minutes left in the game, he felt terrible.

Today's game, I'm afraid...

......

When the timeout ended and both sides returned to the court, the situation had not changed.

Harden is the absolute core of the Rockets, but at this time he has physical problems and his efficiency on both offense and defense has dropped a lot.

What's more, the team was still trailing by about 10 points and morale was low. Although Paul tried hard to help the team boost morale and catch up with the score, he ultimately failed.

"drop......"

The whistle sounded to signal the end of the game, and the score was fixed at 123:113. The Lakers defeated the Rockets by 10 points and changed the series score to 2:0.