Chapter Fifty-Four: The Critical Point of Speed

  "This game, the Nuggets' deployment is still a bit conservative," Zhuang Fei said with some meaning as he watched the Nuggets players on the court. Although he is younger than Lupo, after all, he is a top-three rookie, and his strength is definitely not a problem. Moreover, his rating in the dynasty system has reached 80, which is higher than Lupo's. However, he cannot get a starting opportunity with the Nuggets. The Nuggets and Timberwolves are considered to be the two weakest teams in the league right now. This is not only because the team lacks big-name stars, nor is it just because the team has too many new players, but also because the team has too many young players. Young players, no matter how talented they are, cannot contribute much to the team's performance. Even the basketball god Jordan couldn't lead the Bulls to fly high when he was young. Zhuang Fei thought that Daniil would arrange a young lineup like him, but now he is clearly disappointed.

  "I actually think the Nuggets' lineup is fine, although it's not as expected with Lyles not starting. But Bryant-Thomas is indeed more experienced than Lyles, and a healthy Thomas can contribute 15 points per game on average. Now it depends on how much he can recover from his injury. Moreover, Thomas was also one of the key players when D'Antoni created the 'Black Eight Miracle'. DeAntoni gave Zhu Fei a white eye, thinking that not all coaches are as obsessed with rookies like him. As a former uniform staff member of the Nuggets, he is very familiar with the team and thinks it's correct for the Nuggets to abandon Lyles in the starting lineup."

  The starting lineup for this game was center LaVine, power forward McDermott, small forward Eric Williams, shooting guard Stacey, and point guard all-star Nick Van Exel.

  Nick Van Exel, Zhu Fei is not very familiar with this so-called All-Star player, he even took the trouble to understand this person, it's an upgraded version of Little Black Bean Brooks, also known as Crazy Fan. This player averaged 5.5 three-point attempts per game in his five years with the Los Angeles Lakers, note that it's 5.5 three-point attempts per game on average.

  The Timberwolves, meanwhile, kept the same starting lineup as the preseason: center Gobert, power forward Rashad Lewis, small forward Stephon Jackson, and point guard Nash. Three of this year's rookies started.

  The chief referee threw the ball into the air and the game officially started. Garnett jumped high to tap the ball, successfully suppressing LaFrentz, and the Timberwolves gained possession of the ball first.

  The game started, and Nash and Pierce quickly followed Zhuang Fei's tactical instructions to take down the first two points of the game when Nuggets were not stable.

  "Woah, what a beautiful dunk! And it's Paul Pierce and Nash who are pushing the pace so fast, it's clear that Coach Z is intentionally doing this. The Nuggets' defense isn't slow either, but they still can't stop the Timberwolves' offense!" exclaimed commentator Al Michaels. Coach Z's team has never lacked beautiful attacks and dunks, although this dunk by Pierce can't be compared to Carter's in terms of level, but the speed of this attack is indeed very fast, and the viewing experience isn't bad either.

  "This kid doesn't look like a rookie at all. Actually, Paul was originally going to go for the layup just now, but with a flick of his wrist in mid-air, it turned into a dunk, as if he saw Eric Williams behind him." DeAntoni couldn't help but exclaim in admiration as he watched Paul Pierce deceive Eric Williams and commit a foul.

  Zhuang Fei smiled slightly, how could Pierce, with an ability value of 86, be considered a regular rookie? In the 1998 rookie class, only Carter and Szczybiak had higher ability values than Pierce, both former Vancouver Grizzlies players.

  "Kevin, this Pierce is really something," Glen Taylor said to Kevin McHale in the Minnesota Timberwolves' office, pointing at Pierce on TV. Maybe trading for Paul Pierce would be doable after all. McHale nodded in agreement.

  Start with a fast pace, bring up the rhythm of the game, the faster the better. Nash made many mistakes during the array, but his passing was excellent during the counterattack. In fact, the Nuggets' moving speed is not slow, but as long as the Nuggets don't make shots, the Timberwolves can immediately launch a counterattack.

  Nash, Pierce and Jackson formed a fast-breaking outside trio that was extremely active in the early stages of this game.

  The game had only been going on for 4 minutes, and the Forest Wolves were already leading by 15-8 with a 7-point lead, scoring 15 points in just four minutes, this scoring efficiency is absolutely against the sky.

  "In fact, the Nuggets' offense and defense speed is not slow, but Nick Van Exel's three-pointers are too many. He shoots from 2 steps away from the three-point line, if he makes it, it's fine, but he often doesn't make it, which completely disrupts the Nuggets' defensive rhythm, but fits the Timberwolves' offensive rhythm." DeAntoni shook his head, he was very disappointed with the old boss for bringing in such a point guard.

  Zhuang Fei was secretly delighted, the most enjoyable thing about the Thunder's tactics was that their opponents were following their own rhythm, and the faster the better. Now, because of Nick Van Exel, the Nuggets had already taken control of the entire game's rhythm, neither team could fall back to defend, which was Zhuang Fei's favorite situation. Nash's problem now was that after falling back to defend, he didn't know how to organize his teammates, but if they didn't fall back to defend, then Nash's power wouldn't be much different.

  The fast break tactic is like many other small ball tactics, which are afraid of positional warfare. Zhuang Fei remembers that in the game between the Suns and the Spurs, the Spurs would always slow down their pace, even if they had 24 seconds to attack, just to engage in positional warfare with their opponents. Many times, when facing such a Spurs team, the Suns' methods wouldn't be many either.

  However, it is clear that the Nuggets are not thinking of going slow against the fast-paced Timberwolves, but rather they think their own speed is just as good as Minnesota's.

  Zhuang Fei looked at the situation on the field, smiled slightly, and then stood up from his seat under DeAndre's surprise, ran to the edge of the court and shouted a sentence to the Timberwolves players.

  "Nash, Paul, Jack, speed up a bit"

  Nash, Pierce and Jackson on the court looked at Zhuang Fei off the court with a smiling face and nodded heavily.

  Danieal also saw this situation, but he didn't intend to make any changes for the time being. He had studied the Timberwolves' two preseason games and felt that their playing style was similar to that of the Nuggets, both of which were not good at positional warfare. In fact, the Nuggets were the same, with neither of the two inside players being the kind of inside player who could withstand hard defense under the basket, and the team's point guard was not a traditional organizer-type point guard. After studying the Timberwolves, he was convinced that this game would be a fast-paced counterattack battle.

  "Oh my god, Coach Z was just yelling at the players on the court to speed up, is he not satisfied with this kind of speed? In my estimation, Forest Wolves only take 10 seconds to complete each offense, and 10 seconds is still slow? So does the 24-second rule apply to Forest Wolves? I remember in 1996 when they played against the US team at Vicksburg, they used a similar fast-break tactic. Has Coach Z already prepared to revive this tactic for Forest Wolves?" commentator El Michaels shouted loudly.

  "Aren't you afraid that it will cause a lot of mistakes and then be counterattacked by the opponent?" DeAntoni said with a smile to Zhuang Fei, who had just returned to his seat. In his view, an attack within 10 seconds is a very good boundary point, which can maintain a low error rate while achieving a relatively good effect of running and bombing. This is also a theory he mentioned when discussing tactics with Zhuang Fei, the most effective attack time theory for running and bombing tactics.

  "I suddenly feel that maybe we can be a little faster" Seeing Zhuang Fei still calm, De An Dong also smiled helplessly, what a madman.

  "The Timberwolves are still not dropping in shooting percentage after speeding up the pace, while the Nuggets' shooting percentage has come down again. Both sides can still maintain a stalemate," commentator Al Michaels said.

  Obviously, under the joint interpretation of Forest Wolf and Excavation, the rhythm of the game is getting faster and faster. From the visual effect of the game, the two sides are evenly matched, because the speed and number of shots on both sides are almost the same, but it seems that the hit rate of Forest Wolf is slightly better, and the hit rate of Excavation is slightly worse.

  But is it really like this?

  Daniels frowned, because the Nuggets were about to be dragged down. That was the intention of that Chinese kid just now. He had seen the critical point of the Nuggets, so he signaled to speed up again. The situation on the field is that many of the Timberwolves' shots are opportunistic, while the Nuggets are getting more and more reckless. In short, the Timberwolves are still in control, while the Nuggets are at their last gasp.

  It's incredible that they can create a shooting opportunity in less than 10 seconds, what kind of team is this? Daniil Airapetyan doesn't think his team is as defensively strong as the Spurs or Knicks, but even so, the Timberwolves' attacking performance in this game was terrifying.

  Nikolai Kulemin is no longer able to control the rhythm of the game. The Nuggets urgently need someone who can pull them back to their most suitable attacking speed, and they can't just keep up with the Timberwolves in terms of speed. Danilo Gallinari has already conceded defeat in terms of speed.

  At this time, he made the first substitution adjustment in this game.

  Just as Zhuang Fei was thinking about when he could take down Juggernaut, he saw Biluopu preparing to go on stage at the technical station. Under De An's puzzled gaze, Zhuang Fei smiled wryly and said: "Trouble has arrived."

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