The Wizards took the lead in scoring the first point of the game, and the home fans at the McI Center began to cheer. At the beginning of the game, the fans were more focused, so after the goal was scored, many fans shouted in cooperation. A few words.
The Rockets serve, and Yao Ming gives the ball to point guard Ish Smith. The latter is this year's undrafted draft. He graduated from Wake Forest University and is the captain of the school team. He averaged 9 points and 5 goals per game during the NCAA period. Rebounds are a good statistic, but losing the draft is not surprising at all. He is an older draft pick, and his physical talent is average, even a little thin.
With a height of 1.83cm and a weight of less than 80Kg, he can't survive in the NBA. I don't know what the Rockets head coach thinks. He leaves Lowry, the team's good backup point guard, and has to use an undrafted rookie instead. Starter.
However, the only advantage of Ish Smith is that he is relatively fast. Hinrich has more trouble with him, especially since the Rockets also have a huge insider like Yao Ming. The latter's screen quality is probably better than his in the entire league. Residential.
Ish Smith used the pick-and-roll from the outside to reach the mid-range, Hinrich followed, and Blatche also raised it slightly, because Yao Ming is not one of those simple-minded muscular insiders with well-developed limbs. He has a very soft touch and can hit the mid-range. The distance was also very accurate, and Brachi didn't dare to let go.
However, Rockets coach Alder seemed to have made adjustments before the game to try to keep Yao Ming in singles as little as possible. So even though Yao Ming could catch the ball at this time, Smith still did not pass the ball. He dribbled twice and suddenly directly Get to the basket and prepare for a layup.
He has good speed, but Blatche and Li Kaiming, who is concentrating on defense on the side, are watching. The two big men are sandwiching each other. Ish Smith's thin body cannot maintain balance at all, let alone score the ball.
His layup didn't even touch the rim. Blatche gave up the backcourt rebound and blocked Yao Ming with all his strength.
Because the latter is too tall, especially after gaining weight later, standing on the court makes the 213-meter Brachi look much smaller.
With such a giant standing under the basket, Blatche had to focus more on blocking, and as for rebounding, it was left to Li Kaiming.
I don’t know if Yao Ming has not fully recovered yet, but Brac’s blocking was very successful. Li Kaiming successfully got the offensive rebound, and then handed the ball to Hinrich, while he was light-weight without the ball and directly threw the ball away. Kai Yazi ran towards the frontcourt!
It is true that Yao Ming has strong offensive power and defensive deterrence in the paint, but what the Rockets are most afraid of is the fast inside line. Sanders emphasized when setting up the tactics before the game that this time against the Rockets, the speed of the inside line is very important. Attack is a very important weapon.
Seeing Li Kaiming rushing forward at full speed, the Rockets players, including Yao Ming, were a little panicked, especially Scola, who was facing Li Kaiming. His whole face was squeezed together due to excessive exertion, which showed that he had He tried his best to follow Li Kaiming.
But what made him feel extremely desperate was that even if he risked his life, he could only watch Li Kaiming's back getting further and further away from him!
Without the ball, Li Kaiming throws away his burden and runs, which is really terrifying!
Among the entire Rockets' starting lineup, only Ish Smith, who is known for his speed, could barely smell Li Kaiming's exhaust, but he could only smell the exhaust. Li Kaiming took a step forward, and Ish Smith's short legs were crazy. It took three waves of the ground to cancel it out, not to mention that the frequency of Li Kaiming's legs waving was not much slower than the former.
Seeing that Li Kaiming had already rushed to the three-point line, Hinrich, with the blessing of a long-term tacit understanding, swung the ball directly to the frontcourt. The basketball flew out of his hands, flew over the heads of the players along the way, and passed halfway. The field fell to a position one step ahead of Li Kaiming!
The commentator at the scene exclaimed, "What a pass! The ball was passed just right! If nothing else, this guy will give us another Top 5 dunk!"
Seeing that Hinrich's ball had arrived, Li Kaiming speeded up again and caught up with the basketball in front. At this time, he was already within a three-step layup distance. He held the ball with one hand, stepped out with the last step, and then rotated 360 degrees in the air. degree, and finally dunked the ball into the basket with one arm!
5 to 0!
Li Kaiming scored 5 points in a row in the opening game, pushing the atmosphere of the entire mcI Center to a climax!
The Rockets serve. This time the Rockets played a very classic tactic. After picking and rolling at positions 1 and 5, they created a mismatch and gave the ball to Yao Ming, who was back-up inside. Because the misalignment between Yao Ming and Hinrich was almost It's like an adult hitting a child, so the Wizards simply double-teamed and left point guard Smith free on the outside.
Yao Ming played very reasonably. There was little chance of the ball, so he passed the ball to Smith. Hinrich immediately returned to the outside to defend. Smith transferred the ball to Kevin Martin at the top of the arc. After the latter received the ball, Regardless of whether there is a defender in front of him, he just feels that the rhythm is good, so he takes action directly.
Kevin Martin was the 26th pick in the first round in 2004. He is a very good off-ball shooter. Although he moved to three teams last season, he was able to perform very well in each team and averaged 10 points per game. to 20 minutes.
Nick Young's defense was actually in place on this ball, but Martin's offense was sharper. He hit a three-pointer over Nick Young and the Rockets scored the first point of the opening game.
5 to 3!
After the Rockets scored, everyone immediately went to the backcourt to defend. It seemed that they were frightened by Li Kaiming's fast break in the previous round, for fear of being "scored twice" by the latter.
Of course, the Wizards didn't panic at all when it came to positional battles. There were so many teams that wanted to beat the Wizards in a positional battle, but no team could crack this hard nut.
Li Kaiming's first two offenses made him the focus of the Rockets' defense. Scola knew that he couldn't guard Li Kaiming, so he simply told his teammates that as long as Li Kaiming participated in the pick-and-roll, he would double-team.
You have a good plan, I have a ladder to cross the bridge.
Since it is difficult to play with the ball, Li Kaiming once again turned into a player without the ball. Hinrich and Blatche's pick-and-roll was picked up again. Yao Ming was limited by his body and was not very good at defending the perimeter, so he chose to delay and wait for Smith to come out and return. Defend.
Hinrich took advantage of this opportunity and put the ball into the hands of Nick Young inside the three-point line. Kevin Martin scored against the latter in the last round. Nick Young, as a singles player, naturally couldn't swallow this breath.
Kevin Martin's defense was not impressive compared to his offense. Nick Young took a step and just picked it up and threw it, scoring two points.
The Wizards' opening shooting percentage was so high that even Nick Young, who had been in a slump for a while, found his form.
7 to 3!
In the next round, Yao Ming finally got a chance in the paint. However, it was not a misplacement, but a chance to directly take the ball and hit Brac. He was so shocked that he took a step back, and the space immediately became available. Yao Ming turned sideways and hooked with his right hand, steadily scoring two points.
Seeing that Yao Ming finally scored, several commentators in the Huaguo Sports Channel studio looked excited. Yao Ming has not been in good condition since his comeback this season. His efficiency in the previous games was very low. Maybe this goal was coming from Yao Ming. Maybe it's a sign of glory back in the day.
The two sides went back and forth, and time passed slowly. With six minutes left in the first quarter, Yao Ming, who was returning to defense, suddenly stopped. Then the Rockets suddenly applied for a timeout. After that, Yao Ming came to the team doctor. Accompanied by his wife, he limped back to the locker room...
A second ago, they were still discussing what kind of data Yao Ming could score tonight. The next second, the studio of Huaguo Sports Channel became extremely silent.
This moment cast a shadow over the hearts of all Chinese fans. Yao Ming suddenly exited the game less than six games after his comeback. Everyone had a bad premonition in their hearts.
Li Kaiming was sitting on the bench and found that the faces of Yi Jianlian and Sun Yue beside him were not very good. The big brother of the national team suddenly left the game. How can their mood be better?
Before the timeout ended, news came back that Yao Ming would miss tonight's game and would not return.
This news was like a huge meteorite, smashing into the huge lake of the Chinese basketball world, setting off towering ripples...
