"Dunn, Kobe will be absent for the next week. You won't let Shaq down, right?"
The Lakers still have 22 games to play before the end of the regular season.
Coincidentally, due to off-court factors, Kobe will be absent for another week.
O'Neal is worried that the departure of Payton and Kobe will have an impact on the Lakers' record.
In particular, the Lakers have a busy schedule in the coming week, with five games to play, including two back-to-back away games and a four-game away streak in the East and West.
Such a devilish schedule is undoubtedly a torture for O'Neal, who weighs more than 300 pounds.
"Shaq, this is not something you should worry about!
Didn’t you say that already? I'm the boss of the Los Angeles Lakers!
Don't worry, as the team leader, I will lead you to victory. "
Seeing Du En looking like he didn't deserve a beating, O'Neill subconsciously clenched his fists, but quickly released them and squeezed Du En's shoulders in a massaging manner.
"You're right! We are brothers, and Shaq will help you! Let us keep winning!"
O'Neal didn't care whether Duen's team could win or not. After all, no matter how bad Duen performed next, Kobe would eventually come back.
By then all the Lakers are here, and it will be difficult to lose.
Now that Du En has spoken big words, he can wait and see what happens and wait for good news.
Just like Du En said to him in the summer, it doesn't matter who leads the Lakers or who can't help the Lakers win.
As long as the time comes, when he comes back, when he contributes, when he leads the team to win, then he can confidently say: "You guys need me so much!"
At this time, Duan didn't care what O'Neill thought.
What Du En cares about is that due to the problem of ball rights some time ago, he basically played health basketball, usually with a score of 17 or 18 points.
This season's scoring average has dropped to 23.3 points, and he is about to fall out of the top ten in the scoring list.
Although Du En is willing to sacrifice some ball rights in order to win the championship, play team basketball, but he is also ambitious!
Being selected to the best team in his rookie season is exactly what Du En is pursuing next!
Duen's regular season data this season is quite good. In addition to not accumulating enough impression points in front of the judges, Duen still has great hope to make the best team in his rookie season.
Los Angeles is a big city, and Lakers players can easily be selected for the best team.
Duen is relying on Nike again. As long as Nike mobilizes its energy to help Duen with public relations, Duen has hope of winning the third team or something.
Of course, it is better to seek help from others than from yourself.
This time, Duan decided to take advantage of Kobe's absence from the team to make up for his personal data.
By the way, let’s also test the benefits brought by Kidder templates.
After half a month of digestion, Dunn has almost digested the templates of Eddie Jones, Brent Barry and Kidd.
What is lacking now is the practical experience of leading a team to participate in games as a core player and letting go of high scores to lead a team to win.
To put it bluntly, Duan was pretty lucky, leading the team in their first game against the underdog SuperSonics in the Western Conference.
However, due to the absence of Payton and Kobe, Duane cannot play as easily as before.
Someone on the wing attracts the defender. Duan takes the ball in the high post and can directly play one-on-one, and then rushes to the basket to feed O'Neal.
Now without Kobe, Duen can only rely on his personal strength to solve defensive problems, and even face high-intensity double-team defense.
Closer to home, after the game started, O'Neal helped the Lakers jump to get the ball. Then Fisher dribbled the ball across half court and immediately handed the ball to Dunn.
Duane noticed that the Sonics were setting up a zone defense and seemed intent on double-teaming him.
So, he stopped at the top arc and dribbled the ball for a while, while giving a gesture to O'Neal in the low post.
O'Neal understood and immediately assumed a post-playing posture, reached for the ball from his position.
Ray Allen and Reggie Evans kept an eye on Duane, wondering what was going on in the low post.
I saw Du En suddenly break through with the ball. As soon as they flanked Du En, Du En quickly lobbed the ball to O'Neal.
After obtaining Kidd's template, Duan's passing is even more exquisite!
O'Neal felt very comfortable after taking the ball, so he immediately turned around and dunked, and the shark jumped.
The whole set of movements was done smoothly and only took about one second.
O'Neal's low-post dominance is needless to say! At this time, there is an outside star beside O'Neal who can pass the ball well, which is even more terrifying.
In Jackson's triangle offensive system, role players will be given a few balls at the beginning.
However, the Lakers are now under the control of Duen. The first three offenses were initiated by Duen, and then O'Neal ended it.
After playing for more than a minute and scoring 6 points, O'Neal was very happy.
Duan asked him to ask for the ball in the low post, and O'Neal immediately did so.
It's also because O'Neal's deterrence at the basket is so strong!
Lewis, who was guarding Malone, had to break through from the top of Dune. When O'Neal was preparing for a single in the low post, he subconsciously walked into the penalty area and leaned towards O'Neal.
Unexpectedly, Du En pointed east and west and passed the ball to Malone. Malone also started to eat the pie and score efficiently.
This made the Zen master who originally wanted to say something return to his Zen master persona. Gu Jing stood calmly on the sidelines without saying a word.
Just over 2 minutes into the game, SuperSonics head coach Nate McMillan had to call a timeout and adjust his tactics.
Originally, the Sonics deployed a zone defense to effectively limit Duan's breakthrough and O'Neal's low-post offense.
However, the Sonics lack a help defense expert like Kirilenko or Marion.
SuperSonics small forward Reggie Evans is often attracted by Duan, who breaks through with the ball in the top arc.
After O'Neal gets the ball, he retracts inside. Of course, it will be too late.
In a one-on-one situation under the basket, O'Neal couldn't play too easily.
What is the triangle offense? This is called the triangle offense!
Dunn used his shooting threat to attract double-teams from the SuperSonics perimeter, and then created one-on-one and even 1-on-0 opportunities for O'Neal and Malone.
Even though the Lakers' game pace is not fast, their scoring speed is no slower than those teams that play fast breaks!
When McMillan saw this situation, he naturally couldn't accept it.
In order to limit the Lakers' triangle offense and reduce the Lakers' interior scoring efficiency, McMillan could only keep Reggie Evans stationary and plan to help defend O'Neal on the wing.
Then Ray Allen will lead the defense of Duen until Duen enters the three-point line, and then let Antonio Daniels wait for an opportunity to double-team.
It is said that Ray Allen's defense is not bad. In the Yellow-Green War, the Celtics used Ray Allen to lead the defense against Kobe, but Kobe did not break out, which shows Ray Allen's ability.
However, Ray Allen's defense is too clean, leading Duane to have little effect.
When Duan broke through, he swung his arm to push away Ray Allen. He didn't need to change direction or turn around to speed past Ray Allen.
When Duen hits the basket, the SuperSonics insider is not good at defending, but he still has to go two-on-three. How can he defend against this?
Originally, Du En wanted to see how his shooting ability could improve in actual combat.
However, Duan easily defeated the Sonics' defense using only two tricks: passing and breakthrough.
It was also relying on Duan's passing and breakthrough points that made O'Neal and Malone's work easier. The Lakers opened up the point difference early in the first half.
In the third quarter, Duen also sweated a little and made up some points.
In the end, he got off work early with a double-double of 24 points, 4 rebounds and 12 assists.
There is no doubt that Duen's answer in the first game was quite good, and everyone in the Lakers was very satisfied with it.
The Zen master couldn't find any fault with Du En, and O'Neill even liked to do this kind of simple, rough but easy work.
The Lakers' role players are also very happy to play in the garbage time of the fourth quarter.
Of course, does anyone really have a problem with Du En? That's still there.
All I can say is that no one is perfect!
At this time, Payton was in a villa in Los Angeles. Payton, who was unable to attend the game because of his groin, turned off the TV in advance before the game ended.
If Dunn leads the Lakers to win until the end of the regular season, Payton can only lick his face and announce in advance that his groin injury has recovered and return to the Lakers to prepare for the playoffs.
However, it is still too difficult for a rookie to lead a team and continue winning streak until the end of the season.
Even if it were Jordan at his peak, he wouldn't be able to win all the time.
On March 7, after the Lakers defeated the Nets, the second-placed team in the Eastern Conference, at home, they restarted the Devils' four-game road trip.
Early the next morning, the Lakers arrived in Salt Lake City.
Because of the plateau climate, Salt Lake City is one of the toughest away games in the back-to-back schedule.
In addition, last night the Lakers just defeated the Nets, who are good at defensive counterattacks, and O'Neal's physical energy was exhausted a lot.
Therefore, this time against the Jazz, O'Neal, who was physically exhausted, once again took a break.
Zen Master is also worried that O'Neal will be injured due to overwork, and he is also worried that Malone will have another accident.
So only two guys, O'Neal and Malone, were allowed to play the first half.
Doon came out firing in the second half, but the weather in Salt Lake City did have some impact on Doon.
Duan scored 37 points, 8 rebounds and 10 assists in the game, a near-triple-double, but found that he was surrounded by CBA, which was not worthy of his passing.
The quality of the role players is not good. After O'Neal and Malone went off the court, no one in the Lakers could score in the penalty area. This is also a headache.
89 to 94, after leading the team to two consecutive victories, Du En suffered a lesson of failure.
However, the Lakers flew to the East Coast the next day and received Eastern Conference bonuses from their arch-rival Celtics.
O'Neal, who was fully resurrected, punched hard and directly put Celtics center Mark Blount on a stretcher.
The Celtics had no one available inside. The starting center was sent to the hospital by O'Neal, and the substitutes were even more unable to stop O'Neal, who became more and more courageous as he fought.
109 to 98, the Lakers defeated the Celtics by 11 points and continued to rush to the next court.
The Lakers played back-to-back away games against the Timberwolves, who overtook the Kings and advanced to second place in the Western Conference. Duan's leadership ability undoubtedly encountered another severe test.
It's very helpless. When it comes to choosing to defend Cassel or the madman, Du En makes the wrong choice no matter what.
Fisher tried his best, but was still beaten badly by Cassel.
Duan went to defend Cassel, and the madman beat Kareem Rush again.
Even though Duan effectively connected the team, O'Neal in the inside achieved good offensive efficiency.
However, O'Neal still wanted to rest for a while because of physical problems.
Duane is not Kobe, so he will not push O'Neal to death.
At most, Duan could only say a few words about O'Neal, vigorously promoting O'Neal as the number one center in history.
However, there are still several championships and regular season MVPs behind Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
Duane hopes O'Neal can play with more passion.
It's a pity that you can never wake up a person who is pretending to be asleep, and O'Neal is not fooled at all!
O'Neal made 10 of 17 shots and 6 of 10 free throws. He only had 26 points, 11 rebounds and 1 block.
If it were another center, he would be thankful if he could occasionally produce such data.
But Duan knew very well that with O'Neal's strength, there would be no problem in scoring 10 more points in this game.
It can only be said that O'Neal is limited by his own weight and mentality.
Otherwise, with O'Neal's strength, he wouldn't be just one of the top ten goalkeepers in history.
Speaking of this game, Malone was also entangled by Garnett and failed to perform at a better level.
He only made 7 of 16 shots, 3 of 6 free throws, 17 points, 8 rebounds and 2 assists.
To put it bluntly, the Lakers' two big men scored 43 points together, which is indeed quite good.
However, if the Lakers want to win, they need at least 43 points from Dunn on the outside.
Without Kobe to share the offensive pressure, Duan only scored 35 points in 27 shots under the madman's bite and Garnett's defense.
98 to 106, the Lakers lost to the Timberwolves by 8 points in an away game, and the gap between the two teams was narrowed to one game.
There is no way, a clever woman cannot make a meal without rice!
Although Duan has obtained Kidd's template and possesses Kidd's passing talent, he cannot really tie the team together like Kidd and play around Duan alone.
What's more, the quality of the Lakers' role players is indeed average.
Kidd was able to lead the team to the finals because, on the one hand, his teammates only had technical flaws and most of their physical talents were fine.
On the other hand, there are indeed dividends for the East.
But Du En was in the west, fighting to the death with real swords and guns against a strong team like the Timberwolf Three-Headed Monster.
On March 13, the Lakers arrived in Chicago, and at the same time, Kobe also returned to the team.
During the week of Kobe's absence, Duan led the team with a record of 3 wins and 2 losses.
Most of the games lost were due to back-to-back away games, but among the games won, there were strong Eastern teams like the Nets.
If any team is missing a top-paid player, its record will more or less show signs of decline.
Therefore, Du En's performance in leading the team cannot be said to be bad, but it just did not meet expectations.
In other words, Kobe's return has added another barrel of oil to the Lakers, the No. 1 super battleship in the Western Conference.
The Lakers, who were almost running out of motivation, soared into the sky again! We won 11 consecutive games from mid-March to early April.
Among them, the teams the Lakers won also included the Kings, who were third in the Western Conference, and the Rockets, who were seventh in the Western Conference.
Unfortunately, in April, the Lakers met the counterattack king and attacked the defending champion Spurs, who were third in the Western Conference.
The Spurs lineup is not as good as the Lakers, but the Lakers have won so many games, and they are inevitably a little tired.
The Spurs are good at waiting for work at the end of the season, relying on resting their leading players to keep their main force strong.
After the Lakers lost, Payton finally found an excuse, saying that the team was in difficulty and he had to come back early to continue playing on the court for the Lakers to win the championship.
A month has passed, and Master Jackson is not a petty person. In order to win the championship, Master Jackson also held a return ceremony for Payton in the locker room.
Next, there are only 5 games left in the regular season, and the Timberwolves cannot threaten the Lakers' first position in the Western Conference.
Therefore, Zen Master also began to adopt a rotational rest arrangement for the Lakers' veterans.
In the last 5 games of the regular season, the Lakers ended with 3 wins and 2 losses.
But this did not affect the Lakers' 60 wins and 22 losses, ranking first in the Western Conference and advancing to this year's playoffs.
It is worth mentioning that the eighth-ranked team in the Western Conference is the Lakers' regular season victim, the Utah Jazz.
During the regular season, the Lakers and Jazz each had two wins and losses.
No one expected that Mr. Sloan could lead the Jazz to a 42-40 record in the Western Conference and reach eighth place in the Western Conference at the end of the season...
(End of chapter)
