"Tuk-tuk-tuk-"
"Tuk-tuk-tuk-"
Hearing someone knocking on the door early in the morning, although Du En was a little unhappy, he still got up and came to the door.
The hotel was arranged by the Lakers, and there were also official people from the NBA and possibly the FBI staying there.
The upper and lower floors are filled with Lakers players and staff, and ordinary people have no chance to knock on Duan's door.
Of course, it is necessary to be on guard against others. Du En only opened the door a crack and asked through the door: "Who is it?"
"Dunn, it's me! You played so well last night. Shaq wanted to reward you and invited you down for breakfast."
Hearing O'Neill's low, hoarse voice, Du En opened the door.
"Shaq, why did you get up so early? You probably didn't come to treat me to dinner, right? If you have anything to say, just tell me!"
bother you for something! O'Neal knocked on the door early in the morning, saying he was here to invite him to dinner, but in fact he must have something else to say.
Du En didn't have time to delay with O'Neill. He wanted to go back to bed to catch up on his sleep early in the morning, so he smoothed his hair and immediately asked O'Neill's purpose.
"Hey, brother, what you said before is right!
We should work together more closely, and we will completely kill the Sacramento Kings in the next game!
Gary is my good brother. He came to seek refuge with me, but he was injured!
As the team boss, I must stand up for him! Oh, by the way, the Los Angeles Lakers are your team now.
Shaq just wants to help you and avenge Gary! Du En, as the boss of the team, you shouldn't just sit idly by and ignore it, right? "
Although O'Neill was still beating around the bush and making jokes, Du En had already understood.
The Kings' style of play made O'Neal uncomfortable. Whether it was because he really wanted to avenge Payton or to regain the field, O'Neal was determined to play a pick-and-roll with Duan in the next game and must win the game.
Obviously, when O'Neal really wants to give up his position as the team leader, O'Neal will inevitably be duplicitous and not very willing to see Kobe come in front of him.
As for chatting with Du En and letting Du En take advantage of him verbally, O'Neal seemed to be indifferent.
After all, in O'Neal's view, Dunn is the central axis of the triangle offense, a passer, at most an enhanced version of Pippen, here to assist him.
Kobe is different. As an end point, he played even better than him in these two rounds of playoffs this year...
Although O'Neal has been renewed by the Lakers, he is still in his prime and does not want to hand over the ball and his low offensive area so quickly.
In fact, in O'Neal's plan, after beating the King, he will not continue to come to Duen for pick-and-roll unless absolutely necessary!
What he is best at doing is to be himself and continue to make waves in the low post!
It was also because the playing time in the last few games was less and less, but Kobe's points were more and more. This made O'Neal's mentality a little unbalanced and difficult to accept for a while.
After weighing the pros and cons, O'Neal chose to cooperate with Duen. After all, Duen could also assist him and create easier opportunities for him to score.
By the way, although Du En didn't know what kind of plan O'Neill had in mind, he could probably guess some of it.
Regarding O'Neal's idea of taking the initiative to practice pick-and-rolls, Duen not only did not refuse, but was extremely happy.
From Duan's point of view, it's not a bad thing after all that O'Neal is willing to cover for him.
No matter what ideas O'Neal holds, in the game, as long as Duan disagrees with the starting point of tactics, O'Neal will be busy working in vain.
To put it bluntly, when O'Neal eats cake, it doesn't depend on what O'Neal ordered, but on what fillings Du En puts for him!
"The ball is in my hands, even if Jordan comes, you have to listen to me!"
Taking into account O'Neal's screen quality and pie-eating ability, this will also be of great help to Duan in gaining data in the following playoffs and the regular season next season.
If you look at Stockton and Malone, and then look at Nash and Stoudemire, you will know that practicing more pick-and-rolls with O'Neal has absolutely only advantages and no disadvantages.
It was also because Lang Youqing was interested in concubine, and everything was kept secret.
After O'Neal asked Duan to finish breakfast, he quickly suggested that he go to the hotel gym to exercise a little and eat up.
Two hours later, Duan and O'Neal naturally came to the basketball court of the hotel and began to perform basic pick-and-roll cooperation.
In the afternoon, O'Neal even called Malone over to teach him and Duane how to effectively run pick-and-rolls in the game.
Malone came to the Lakers to win the championship. Since O'Neal is willing to leave his comfort zone and cooperate with Duan in the pick-and-roll, Malone, as a pick-and-roll expert, has no intention of hiding anything.
Throughout the afternoon, Malone was instructing O'Neal on how to improve his pick-and-roll skills, and even provided some useful suggestions for Duane to use screens to break through and use screens to shoot.
Two days passed by in a hurry, and it was the night of May 12th in a blink of an eye.
The Lakers' players want to avenge Payton, and the Kings' players don't want to be swept out. Therefore, this desperate fight tonight is undoubtedly inevitable.
In fact, after G3, Jackson received instructions from the Lakers management.
As for why not be ready to play tacit understanding before G3 starts?
That's because the Kings are also very strong. If they didn't get the match point in advance, the Lakers management wouldn't dare to intervene at will.
However, tonight, Jackson was ready to withstand the pressure from the management and leave the game to the OK team and others.
After all, he is also a player! Jackson knows better than anyone when the coach should step in to manage the locker room and step in to control the game.
Sometimes players have their own ideas, and the coach's wanton intervention will only end up being counterproductive, causing everyone to betray their relatives.
If people's hearts are broken, it will be difficult to lead the team!
Jackson is also looking forward to leading the current Lakers to win another championship!
Therefore, even if the management has a task to supervise, the Zen master will go against the management for his own benefit.
The Lakers were already stronger, and now their morale is particularly strong.
After the Zen Master blocked the hinderers from the court, the Lakers quickly performed like a favorite in the championship.
At first, when they saw O'Neal pulling outside the three-point line to play a pick-and-roll with Duan, everyone in the Kings was a little dumbfounded. Is this O'Neal?
Just when everyone was stunned, Duan used O'Neal's cover to get rid of Doug Christie's defense.
Then he passed Divac with a change of direction and went directly to the basket to complete the dunk. The Kings had to recover and deal with it calmly.
Although Duan and O'Neal's pick-and-roll only ended in one, anyone with a discerning eye could see that this move was extremely lethal to the Kings' zone defense.
O'Neal pulled outside the three-point line, and Divac had to pull to the high post. Because of O'Neal's screen quality, Doug Christie was almost useless.
At the same time, Peja would never let go of Kobe.
In this way, as long as Divac fails to delay Duan, the Lakers will form a local three-on-two situation in the area below the elbow area.
Duane, O'Neal and Malone played against Bibby and Webb.
If Fisher cuts to the basket when Bibby lets him go, then the Lakers are 4-on-2.
With the support of Duan's master passing ability, the Lakers' offense is simply not too easy.
After talking about offense, let’s talk about defense. O’Neal, who is running without the ball, does not have so much physical contact, and the physical exertion is not as exaggerated as in the first three games of the series.
Moreover, O'Neal discussed the issue of returning to defense with Duan and Malone beforehand.
As long as Duan breaks through with the ball and passes Divac or Brad Miller, then O'Neal can turn around and return to defense.
If Bibby's attack comes early and he cooperates with the Kings' center to attack Duan above the free throw line, then Duan will pass the ball to O'Neal, allowing O'Neal to attack the basket and finish.
At this time, it doesn't matter whether O'Neal returns to defense or not.
If the Kings switch offense quickly enough, Duan will even make a long pass from the backcourt to the bottom line, allowing O'Neal who stays in the frontcourt to eat directly under the basket.
He also considered all aspects clearly, and O'Neal worked very hard to cover Duen.
There has never been such a thing as a false screen and then immediately followed. O'Neal just finished building a wall for Du En before leaving.
Sure enough, Bibby spontaneously cooperated with Divac to double-team Dunn, the ball holder.
Duan passed the ball to O'Neal who was following the pass. Before Divac could turn around, O'Neal had already stepped into the penalty area.
At the same time, Fisher also cut to the basket.
Faced with the situation of one man defending three people, Weber could only take a strong breath, hold his breath and rush into the penalty area, blocking O'Neal.
boom--
The 300-pound O'Neal directly held up the 200-pound Weber to complete the dunk!
"Have you ever been hit by a truck?"
Seeing Webber being dunked by him, but not hearing the whistle, O'Neal spat out trash talk and immediately returned to defense.
When Webber heard O'Neal's trash talk, he didn't get angry at all and just continued to lie on the floor for a while.
He waited for his teammates to come forward and pull him up, then stood up and rubbed his aching chest after being hit.
It was also because Webber fell to the ground before, and the Kings had no chance to switch immediately.
When the battle started, Peja and Doug Christie were restrained by Kobe and Duane, and with O'Neal under the basket, the Kings could only think of ways to deal with Bibby and Webber.
Fisher, who is so fast on defense, can only stand on his feet. When it comes to defending Bibby, who is good at pick-and-rolls, he can actually squeeze in the screen and restrict it.
Ever since, the king went around in circles and still had no choice but to look for Weber.
Weber had scored against Malone's defense before, but this time it seemed that because he had just been hit by O'Neal, his muscles were a little tense, so he turned over and made a jump shot.
After Malone protected the rebound, it was soon time for Weber to suffer.
Duan and O'Neal repeated their same tricks, and then O'Neal took the ball and hit the basket.
As the leader of the team, Webber is the only one under the basket. It is impossible for Webber to let O'Neal attack the basket.
He held his breath again, pushed up again, was knocked away again, and lay on the ground again.
It seemed that the league wanted to make the series one or two more games. The whistle blew and O'Neal was whistled for a good ball.
But it didn't have much impact. O'Neal seemed to want to knock Webb out before the sixth foul left the field, or knock out Brad Miller, the culprit who hurt Payton.
It is said that Mutombo held up O'Neal, who weighed nearly 300 pounds, for a series. He had to wear bandages all over his body and was immediately admitted to the hospital after the beating.
Now Weber was facing O'Neal, who was charging up with more than 300 kilograms of explosives on his shoulders. You can imagine the terrifying impact!
Because of the constant pick-and-roll attacks, Webber couldn't stand it. Although Rick Adelman was very angry, he felt that O'Neal was murdering instead of playing basketball.
But in the end, Brad Miller could only be replaced on the court!
At this point, O'Neal has gotten his wish and can directly attack Brad Miller and avenge Payton.
O'Neal and Brad Miller have a long-standing feud. Two years ago, O'Neal was offended by Brad Miller's little moves and punched Brad Miller directly.
However, Brad Miller has profound boxing skills. Even if O'Neal grabbed Brad Miller's clothes, Brad Miller dodged all of O'Neal's fists.
In other words, if he really entered the Octagon, O'Neal might be beaten to death by Brad Miller.
But on the court, Brad Miller had no choice but to withstand O'Neal's brutal attack.
More than 8 minutes into the first quarter, O'Neal received his third offensive foul with satisfaction and went to rest.
However, the three inside players of the Kings were all beaten by O'Neal.
It can only be said that pick-and-roll is fun for a while, and pick-and-roll is always fun.
In the past, O'Neal was focused on low-post singles, but now he has discovered a new world, and he can beat people so much in pick-and-rolls.
Although this style of play consumes physical energy, it undoubtedly focuses everyone's attention on him.
In the low post, there are also situations where he goes around to block the ball and gets double-teamed after getting the ball.
Playing pick-and-roll makes it easier to get the ball. Most of the time, the opponent is like a sandbag, standing there to accept his impact, and then dunk hard.
O'Neal thought, if he could hit an elbow to open the way like Malone did, Malone's elbow would be notorious.
So, in the future, will he be able to rely on this move in the pick-and-roll and score a lot of points more easily?
As for the low position? So unfamiliar!
It is said that after O'Neal came off the court, Kobe finally got the ball and was able to play alone.
The Lakers' high double screens and Duan's passing provided Kobe with many opportunities for low post singles.
Kobe also enjoys this feeling of defeating his opponents in the low post and leading the team to win points.
29 to 25, although the Lakers' offense in the first quarter of G4 was very fierce, three of O'Neal's balls were called offensive fouls, so in the end the Lakers' lead was only 4 points.
In the second quarter, O'Neal continued to start with Duan.
The Kings noticed that O'Neal was carrying three fouls, so they called O'Neal on the pick-and-roll as soon as possible, trying to get O'Neal out as early as possible.
The referee's meaning was also clear, O'Neal was not suitable to continue wreaking havoc on the court.
The second quarter lasted just over 2 minutes, and O'Neal had a total of four fouls and was taken off the court again.
However, Duane continued to play pick-and-rolls with Malone and Grant, driving to the basket to challenge the Kings' inside line.
Relying on the residual power of O'Neal's collision with the Kings in the first quarter, Duan repeatedly scored in the mid-range and near the frame, helping the Lakers stabilize the situation.
On the other hand, the Kings, even though the Lakers' interior defense was weak, did not seize the opportunity of O'Neal's absence and continued to score in the low post.
On the contrary, because of frequent strikes, the Lakers seized the opportunity to play defensive counterattacks.
Peja and other Kings outside players were jointly guarded by Kobe, Duane, and Fisher. The Kings' scoring efficiency dropped in the second quarter, and their momentum also began to decline, which was obviously not as good as in the first quarter.
As for the Lakers, when Duan is tired, he still has Kobe. When Kobe is tired, Malone can still take the shot. If it doesn't work, Fisher can also suddenly throw a cold arrow and shoot a three-pointer.
When others could no longer play, Duan regained some strength and began to take over the ball and the game.
Of course, it was mainly Duane and Kobe who scored, and it was also thanks to Duen and Kobe who scored 21 points together in the second quarter that the Lakers further widened the point difference, 57 to 47, which was exactly 10 points.
In the third quarter, O'Neal punched again, but this time he learned smartly and knew to pass the ball to Malone after the pick-and-roll attracted the defense.
On the defensive end, he crouched under the basket and couldn't get out, so he didn't get fouled too quickly.
It wasn't until more than 7 minutes into the third quarter that O'Neal suffered his fifth foul.
But by this time, the Lakers had further widened the point difference.
Even if the referee was on the side of the king, the king was still unable to turn defeat into a victory.
After the third quarter, 83 to 71, the Lakers entered the fourth quarter with a 12-point lead.
Even though O'Neal played 3 minutes in the fourth quarter and left the game early with 6 fouls, the Lakers' morale was not damaged. Instead, they became more united and tougher.
In the fourth quarter, when everyone could hardly run, Duan took the lead in the charge and suddenly dunked under the basket twice.
Immediately afterwards, Kobe's superb low post play also helped the Lakers continue to stabilize the point difference.
There were about four or five minutes of game time left in the fourth quarter, and fans in the Golden Arena kept leaving early because of disappointment.
The final result was just as they predicted. The Lakers took the initiative to lower the pace of the game and relied on Duane and Kobe's ability to digest the ball to securely win the game.
104 to 97, even though O'Neal, the head coach of the Lakers, left the game with six fouls early, even though tonight's home whistle was a bit obvious.
The Lakers still relied on the effectiveness of the three armies to win the Western Conference semifinals G4 with a 7-point advantage.
At this point, the Lakers also won 4 consecutive games in the series, swept the Kings, successfully advanced to the Western Conference Finals, and became the first team to advance to the conference finals this season!
(End of chapter)
