The league's game to decide which one is more valuable, the scoring leader or the rebounding leader, kicked off the second night after the Wizards arrived in Minneapolis.
The Wizards' starting lineup remains the same as before, because Josh Howard has not performed well in limited playing time in the two weeks since his return. If you only look at offensive efficiency, it is not even as good as Trevor Booker.
Fortunately, Josh Howard's defense is still as sharp as ever, so he naturally became Sun Yue's substitute.
Sun Yue now relied entirely on himself to gain a foothold in the Wizards. Because of his hard training, he won the competition with Howard and retained his starting position!
This is the truth. Basketball doesn't lie. As long as you are willing to train down-to-earth, you will definitely get progress and recognition from others!
The starting lineup for the Timberwolves is as follows, point guard Luke Ridnour, shooting guard Wesley Johnson, small forward Corey Brewer, power forward Kevin Love, and center Darko Milicic.
The two sides had a jump ball at the beginning, and Brac won. The first attack ball was taken away by Li Kaiming, and Hinrich dribbled the ball into the frontcourt.
The Timberwolves' overall defense relies on the outside. It seems that their head coach Kurt Rambis has made sufficient preparations before the game. He came up with his ultimate move tonight to prevent the Wizards from throwing three-pointers.
But Rambis never expected that the Wizards' starting lineup did not use three-pointers as their main offensive method. Seeing that the Timberwolves' defense was so outside, Hinrich and Li Kaiming reached the three-point line with a pick-and-roll, and then Hit in an unguarded mid-range emergency stop!
The Timberwolves' two big men, Love and Milicic, are both white men who are not good at defense. Faced with this combination, how could the Wizards choose to throw from the outside?
Unless Sanders is smart!
The Timberwolves served to Ridnour, who dribbled the ball past half court and handed it directly to Love, who was stuck inside with his back.
Li Kaiming stood behind Love and resisted the latter. He did not specifically defend Love's catch. The main reason was that he wanted to test it and see how Love played.
In the video class before the game, we will also watch how the opposing players play, but that can only show one shape. Practice is the only criterion for testing truth. If you really want to know how the opposing players play, you have to experience it yourself on the court. one time!
After Love caught the ball, he started to push his back inward. Post-up singles inside were Love's main shot type. At this time, Love was still a slightly fat man, and his strength level was also very good. Li Kaiming felt it briefly. You know that Love's strength level is definitely not worse than his own!
Since the defender cannot take the initiative to exert force, even if Li Kaiming still has some strength that he has not used, he cannot exert force. NBA stars are all experienced players. If the defender goes all out to hit the back, there are only two ways. As a result, one was turned around by the opponent and the other was fouled.
Li Kaiming, who has played for half a season, has already mastered these routines. Naturally, it is impossible for him to make such low-level mistakes, so he can only keep himself behind Love, but Love pushes him to the basket step by step. Down.
After reaching the basket, Love turned around and shot, easily scoring before Li Kaiming's block came!
2 to 2 draw! The fans cheered sparsely at the Target Center Arena.
This ball was pushed into the basket by Love. Li Kaiming did not feel any discomfort. With Love's inside offensive skills, it was almost impossible for him to completely defend against it. Therefore, if he wanted to win this game, he still had to You have to work hard on offense.
And what type of player do Love and Milicic fear the most? Fast!
When it comes to speed, we Lao Li don't feel sleepy anymore. Even if all the power forwards in history were compared with speed, he would not be vain.
Isn't this a coincidence?
So after arriving in the frontcourt, Li Kaiming once again engaged Hinrich in a pick-and-roll, but this time he turned around very quickly and reached the penalty area first.
Hinrich knew what Li Kaiming wanted to do at a glance, so he hit the ball and sent the ball to Li Kaiming's hands. At this time, Love had already been left behind by Li Kaiming and could not catch up at all.
After Li Kaiming got the ball, he strode directly to the basket and dunked with one arm before Milicic came to defend him!
4 to 2!
Love and Milicic, who ran to the basket, looked at each other and then showed a wry smile!
How to prevent this? You can't prevent it even if you risk your life!
However, Timberwolves head coach Rambis was not moved by Li Kaiming's easy hit to the basket. He still insisted on the strategy of focusing on defending the perimeter.
After the first quarter, the Wizards led 28-25 by 3 points on the road. It can be seen that there is basically no problem with Rambis' defensive strategy.
As long as we grasp the key point of not throwing three-pointers to the Wizards, we can suppress their scoring frenzy. Rambis smiled and shook his head. Are all the head coaches who played against the Wizards confused? How could you not think of such a simple thing?
But the smile on Rambis's face didn't last half the game, and things quickly changed in the second quarter.
The Wizards did win many games with three-pointers, but there were also other games where Li Kaiming's personal ability completely defeated the opponent.
For example, Li Kaiming stepped forward and scored consecutively. Once the opponent was unable to respond, the rhythm of the game was controlled by the Wizards.
In order to defend Li Kaiming and suppress the Wizards' rhythm, we have to help double-team Li Kaiming, which will miss the Wizards' outside line. So the question is back to what it was at the beginning: How to guard the Wizards' outside line?
In the second half of the first quarter, Sanders switched to the five-small lineup. Unfortunately, Rambis still defended the three-point line, so the advantages of the five-small lineup were not used.
So in the second quarter, Li Kaiming couldn't stand it anymore.
Are you looking down on the Wizards by being so defensive about Rambis? You look down upon my, Li Kaiming's inside power!
As soon as the second quarter started, Li Kaiming began to desperately break through to the inside, cutting to the basket without the ball, changing direction with the ball and passing Love to break to the basket, and mid-range one-on-ones inside the three-point line.
Various means were used to present a scoring feast full of variety and highly enjoyable to the audience at the Target Center Arena!
Li Kaiming's sudden outburst made the Timberwolves unable to react for a while. Originally, the Timberwolves were still playing inside as strictly as before, and occasionally throwing a few outside.
After Li Kaiming stepped forward in person, the score was immediately stretched to double digits, and Rambis was forced to call a timeout!
After a minute of ideological struggle, Rambis finally decided to change his strategy and help defend against double-teaming Li Kaiming!
This incident fully proves that the vast majority of people are short-sighted and can only see the gains and losses in front of them.
Rambis's wrong decision directly cost the Timberwolves this game.
After returning to the game, Li Kaiming found that the Timberwolves began to double-team him. This was exactly what he wanted!
So he began to use the space created by his breakthrough, and then distributed the ball to outside shooters.
Otherwise, this group of shooters on the Wizards are bullying the weak and afraid of the strong. When Rambis was guarding the perimeter, almost none of these guys could throw in the fleeting openings.
Now, in order to defend Li Kaiming, the Timberwolves have given some big openings on the outside, which now allows these shooters to find opportunities.
Not one, not two, but three or four stood up.
Under such a large-scale outbreak, at the end of the first half, the score difference that was only just over 10 points suddenly reached nearly 20 points...
Seeing this sudden change of situation on the field, Timberwolves head coach Rambis felt filled with regret and slapped his thigh, almost crying!
The original three-point defense tactics were executed very well. Why do you think you would replace him with him?
It's better now, there's no need to fight, and you don't even have to face losing!
In the second half of the game, Rambis changed his defense, and it was too late to make up for it.
The Wizards hold an 18-point deficit. As long as they don't waste time, they can wear the Timberwolves to death in the second half.
And with people like Li Kaiming on the Wizards, can they allow the team to make such a stupid mistake?
So at the end of the game, the Washington Wizards defeated the Minnesota Timberwolves 108-94 on the road, firmly securing the victory.
Li Kaiming played 34 minutes and made 13 of 22 shots, including 2 of 5 three-pointers and 10 of 11 free throws. He scored 38 points, 11 rebounds and 9 assists, a near-triple-double.
The rest of the Wizards performed mediocrely, but Hinrich was still Li Kaiming's most trustworthy helper. He made 8 of 14 shots and scored 21 points, 3 rebounds and 11 assists.
Nick Young hit 2 three-pointers and scored 8 points, Sun Yue scored 8 points and 4 rebounds, and Lewis hit 3 three-pointers and scored 13 points.
For the Timberwolves, Love scored 24 points, 16 rebounds and 4 assists.
Li Kaiming didn't understand Love's rebound. Although the Wizards also had a few backcourt rebounds stolen by Love, they were still within the tolerance range. Love's 16 rebounds were really quiet!
After the game, Li Kaiming shook hands with the Timberwolves players, and Love shook hands last.
Although Love is a little fat guy, he looks very dignified and has a very kind attitude. He hugged Li Kaiming's shoulders and patted him twice, and then said sincerely, "Li, your performance is really great! You can definitely do it." Leave your name in history!”
After hearing this, Li Kaiming felt warm in his heart. Since entering the league, this is the first time that an unfamiliar player has encouraged and praised him.
The other celebrities don't know why, but they all seem to have a grudge against him.
So Li Kaiming also hugged Love and said, "Thank you, brother."
It's a pity that such a good person was selected by the Timberwolves. The ground is freezing and the weather is freezing. Li Kaiming feels a little pity for him.
After defeating the Timberwolves in the away game, the Wizards immediately left this cold place and returned to Washington without stopping for a point.
Although Washington is not at a low latitude in America, and the winter is not too hot, compared with Minneapolis, it is simply paradise!
The next opponent is very interesting, the Toronto Raptors.
This means that Kaiming Li is going to see his good brother Elliott Williams again.
After the Raptors beat the Wizards last time, this guy sent him a text message to laugh at him. This time he must give him an unforgettable memory!
