The Clippers' zone defense in the second quarter was like a summer thunderstorm. It came and went quickly. After a few rounds, the Clippers returned to their normal man-to-man defense.
It's not because the Thunder cracked the Clippers' zone defense, but because the Clippers coaching staff knows that zone defense is just a small means of changing the rhythm and cannot be used for a long time.
According to NBA rules, big centers cannot squat in the three-second zone, which determines that the power of zone defense is definitely not as good as FIBA rules.
When players take into account the three seconds of defense, it is difficult to maintain a zone defense formation for a long time.
In addition, the pace of NBA games is fast, and it is likely to be scattered after a few rounds, so it can only be maintained for a period of time.
But this period of time was enough. The Clippers used this defensive variation to beat the Thunder to an 11:3 offensive climax.
After 7:0, Kevin Durant received a pass from Westbrook at 45 degrees and hit a three-pointer.
But immediately after Randolph hit a mid-range jumper, Harden held the ball and made a breakthrough throw. 11:3, suddenly leading the Thunder by 9 points.
The Thunder called a timeout, and Brooks made tactical arrangements, asking Durant to take more shots and attack the Clippers.
Of course Durant would follow the coach's instructions, but he thought in his heart that he failed to break the Clippers' zone defense with organization and support.
Durant can do it by breaking through and passing the ball, simply moving the ball, and finding his teammates' point guards.
However, it is by no means an easy task to be like a commander and use one pass to discover loopholes in the opponent's defense and crack the opponent's defensive formation.
On the one hand, this requires a deep understanding of tactics. On the other hand, it requires extremely keen observation and vision on the court, and the ability to make accurate judgments on the ever-changing dynamics of the court.
Durant is not good at these two points. As a professional player, he must understand the tactics, but he needs to have a deep understanding and be able to draw inferences from one example to become a coach in the future. Durant does not have this ability.
Generally, only point guards can have as deep a tactical understanding as a coach - except for Westbrook.
As for observation ability, vision, reaction speed, etc., they are purely talents, and it is difficult to develop such things later in life.
When God opens a door for you, he will inevitably close a window. It is difficult for you to take all the benefits.
Durant already has epic wingspan, body agility and shooting touch. It is normal for him to be lacking in some aspects.
But Durant wants to be the best in history. Michael Jordan aside, he can at least reach James' level, right?
The most commendable thing about James is his passing vision and court observation. This is also a major reason why his ability surpasses Carmelo Anthony.
After the first round of training, Kevin Durant thought he passed the ball well.
He has been passing the ball in the first quarter of this game, and he also believes that he plays a role in connecting and organizing.
As a result, a simple zone defense made him "revealed", and Durant felt really unhappy.
After returning to the court after the timeout, Kevin Durant faced Leonard and hit a pull-up with a sudden stop, showing his superior ball sense.
The Thunder's defense also made changes. Perkins sat on the bench, Ibaka came to the center position, and Durant began to appear at the fourth position.
Durant defended Randolph one-on-one, but Durant used his long arms to successfully interfere with Randolph's turning hook shot.
Then Durant received a pass from Westbrook and hit a mid-range jumper. He chased for 4 points in a row and the Thunder closed in on the score.
"Sure enough, scoring is the only thing I'm good at? No..."
A thought flashed in Durant's mind, the Clippers' counterattack had come.
Jeremy Lin, who came on the bench, made a quick attack and drove to the basket with the ball, but was blocked by Durant with a big block from behind!
The ball flew out of the baseline, and it was still the Clippers' possession, but the Clippers' fast attack had been destroyed.
After a baseline pass, Curry caught the ball and shot quickly from mid-range, but failed to score. Ibaka got the backboard and gave the ball to Durant.
This is another adjustment made by the Thunder to hide Perkins' offensive and defensive deficiencies - letting Kevin Durant appear in the fourth position to increase his defensive role.
Despite Durant's thin body, he was like a stick when he first entered the league and couldn't do a single bench press.
After five years of training, Durant's weight is actually not small. After all, his frame and height are here.
When playing inside, weight is sometimes more important than height, because only with weight can there be confrontation.
Durant also has naturally long arms, and he is definitely not bad at concentrating on defense.
After the Sonics took Durant second overall in 2007, they focused on developing him into an offensive killer.
During his rookie season, Durant was given unlimited firepower to practice his offensive skills and shooting touch, which soon came to fruition.
But imagine if the SuperSonics did not follow this training route, but started with defense like Durant's idol Tracy McGrady did?
With Durant's physical talent, he might not be a top defensive striker.
It can only be said that the paths of many players are destined from the beginning.
Of course, the Thunder will not let Durant always support Randolph at the fourth position as a power forward, and will only occasionally let him appear in the interior to participate in defense.
In this way, the Thunder can play one big and four small. On the defensive end, they can move quickly and have few holes. On the offensive end, all five players can play four-on-five.
This move is indeed effective. Without Perkins holding back, the Thunder's offensive efficiency has increased.
Durant dribbled the ball across half court and passed the ball to Westbrook. Westbrook accelerated to the basket and made a jump shot... But when the opponent was on guard, he broke through and passed it to Iba who was cutting through the basket. Card, Ibaka caught the ball and dunked easily!
The Thunder continued to chase points, and the score was close to 5 points.
Jeremy Lin slowed down this time and continued to give the ball to Randolph in the low post.
This time Randolph turned around and walked to the baseline and rushed to the basket. His layup was interfered by Ibaka and missed.
But Milicic rushed up from the side and made a tip-in with a tap.
The Clippers now have an advantage inside and will definitely take advantage of it.
The two sides fell into a tug of war.
The Thunder's offense is much smoother without Perkins.
However, the corresponding inside line will suffer a loss. To weigh the lesser of the two, offense is more important.
The scores of both sides increased alternately, the game was extremely beautiful, and the pace was getting faster and faster.
Durant began to gradually forget his thoughts before the game, and gradually took out the passing key.
Whenever he gets the chance, he will use his singles skills to attack the Clippers' basket.
As for the Clippers, Curry, Harden, Randolph, and Gasol all participated in the offense.
Quick passing, agile movement, imaginative passing and amazing finishing.
Min Congda, who was sitting in the VIP room, had to admit that when the Clippers are in good offensive condition, it is a pleasure to watch them play.
The Clippers' precise coordination is different from that of the Spurs. The Spurs are like machines, a tacit understanding and subconscious habit accumulated through countless training sessions and more than ten years.
The precision of the Clippers is filled with a natural beauty, just like the nests built by bees and the webs spun by spiders. Although it has not reached the point where the antelope hangs its horns and cannot be traced, the genius imagination of these young people on the offensive end is reflected everywhere. force.
Obviously, the tough match against the Spurs in the first round allowed the Clippers' young people to get a sublimation.
This troubles Thunder coach Brooks.
In fact, the Thunder wanted to suppress the rhythm and use the efficiency of positional warfare to drag the game into the Thunder's familiar routine.
For example, if the shooting percentage of both sides is low and it enters the critical moment of the fourth quarter, Durant, Westbrook or Gordon come out to harvest the game.
In the first round against the Nuggets, Brooks used this trick when facing his teacher George Karl.
Durant and Westbrook led their teammates in front, passing more passes, being efficient, and the whole team played.
Then in the final stage, the superstar who had finished warming up used his personal ability to end the game, naturally and smoothly.
It's an ideal feeling to win a game.
However, the Clippers were clearly disrupting this order, forcing Durant and Westbrook to step up earlier and use their personal abilities to seize the score and struggle to catch up.
In the final stage, the players' physical fitness and status will be a problem.
But there was no way, it was impossible to let the Clippers lead too much in the first half.
Trailing by more than 10 points at halftime on the road, it would be difficult to play in the third and fourth quarters.
And the Clippers have always been good at breaking out in the third quarter, beating their opponents in waves.
If the Thunder are still lagging behind, they will be even more unable to fight.
Durant, who didn't score in the first quarter, made 7 of 11 shots in the second quarter and scored 18 points.
At the end of the second quarter, the Clippers led the Thunder by 7 points 63:70.
The Thunder have played quite well, scoring 33 points in a single quarter, which is a very high score.
But the Clippers scored 39 points in a single quarter, nearly 40 points!
The offensive battle between the two sides was quite beautiful, and the fans found it enjoyable to watch.
Griffin, Jordan and others who were sitting on the sidelines watching the game even murmured in their hearts.
If they meet the Thunder or Clippers, can they really withstand such an attack?
During the intermission, Anschutz and Min Congda continued to discuss financing issues.
Anschutz gave a suggestion and said: "If possible, I don't think the Clippers need to rely entirely on investment to build a new arena. The investment of US$1.2 billion is not a small amount. I think they might as well invest part of it and use part of it." Financing to the society by issuing bonds or designing financing products.”
Min Congda had not thought about Anschutz's suggestion. After all, he had also done corporate bond issuance work in a bank.
But he has never been exposed to how a basketball team issues debt, and what is used as the target?
As for financing products, he is even more out of ideas. China is still far behind the United States in terms of financial instruments, which is full of tricks.
Facing Min Congda's little doubt, Anschutz solved it with a simple sentence: "Fool, use the Clippers' box office revenue as the target and directly sell the Clippers' tickets in advance. For example, sell the Clippers' next 5, 10 Season tickets for the year are at a 20% discount or lower. This is also a way to raise funds to consume your future box office cash flow to build a new arena. If the Clippers' record is good enough, these packaged 5 Season tickets for one year, 10 years or even 20 years can be sold easily."
Min Congda understood the basics and thought that there are indeed many ways for Americans to raise money. As expected of an old capitalist country, everything can be securitized.
Even game tickets can be packaged and sold into financial products, raising large amounts of funds for real estate construction.
These multi-year season ticket packages may still be circulating in the market in the future, and the prices may even rise or fall.
For example, someone spent $20,000 this year to buy a Clippers regular season ticket package for the next 10 years. After a year, he no longer wanted to support the Clippers, or he wanted to move out of Los Angeles and wanted to transfer it.
If the Clippers have a good record, maybe the nine-year regular season ticket package will not only not depreciate in value, but also appreciate in value, selling for 30,000 or even 40,000 US dollars.
If the Clippers' record is not good and they become a weak team, the season ticket package will definitely depreciate. When the Clippers rebuild and become a bottom team in 5 or 6 years, then this season ticket package may be worth 2,000 or 3,000 US dollars. .
"In 5 or 6 years, the Clippers will definitely go bankrupt! Why do you think so far? But this is indeed a good financing method, and it can destroy the Clippers' cash flow for a long time in the future, which is a great benefit to bankruptcy. !”
Min Congda weighed it and thought it was a good way to raise funds.
For team operations, box office revenue has always been a very important source of cash.
This financing method will undoubtedly drain one-third to half of the Clippers' future cash flow at once.
This will be a huge test for the team's operation and debt repayment. Once the Clippers' operation has problems, the huge debt and shrinking cash flow will quickly bring the team to the edge of bankruptcy.
Min Congda suddenly became excited. Two-thirds of the US$1.2 billion became liabilities, and one-third reduced the team's cash flow. It was simply a combination of bankruptcy!
Because Shelly Sterling was also there, Min Congda did not immediately agree to Anschutz, but politely asked Shelly for her opinion first.
Shelly whispered: "Will there be problems with the team's cash flow?"
Min Congda had already thought of his words and said: "Although box office revenue is very important, I think the Clippers can obtain revenue from more channels in the future, and their reliance on box office will decrease. It is better to spend this large amount of money in advance. Moreover, once Once the new arena is built, we can sell more tickets."
Min Congda's words made sense, and the three of them discussed it together and believed that this plan was indeed feasible.
Anschutz is also very willing to help. As the owner of Staples Center, he has enough channels and teams in terms of ticket sales and publicity to handle such special work.
He also put forward a condition, "I hope I can get tickets to invest in the new arena, and some of my friends."
Anschutz gave such good financing advice and provided relevant help, of course, just to get a piece of the pie.
Xie Li and Min Congda both agreed.
Shelly is increasingly convinced that the construction of the new arena will be a great project that will change the Clippers.
And Min Congda started to be a little doubtful, "Damn, are these rich people all fools? Why are they rushing to invest in this arena? Are they so optimistic about the Clippers? No, they must be waiting for the Clippers to go bankrupt in the future, so that they can share the money. The assets of the Clippers! It seems that I have to spend the money wisely and build a high-quality stadium. It would be better if I can overspend."
The intermission ended quickly and the third quarter began.
In the Thunder's first offense in the third quarter, Kevin Durant caught the ball in the high post, broke through, and threw the ball high to Ibaka who was cutting in the pick-and-roll, and succeeded in an alley-oop dunk!
It can be seen that the Thunder and Durant have not given up their established tactical strategy, which is to use Durant's passing to drive the team's offense until the fourth quarter before turning on the unparalleled mode.
But Curry immediately received a pass from Harden from the top of the arc and hit a three-pointer.
Then Durant's pass in the offense was intercepted by Paul George.
The Clippers counterattacked, Harden passed a long pass to the basket, and Curry caught the ball and made a layup.
Harden and Curry, sometimes Harden is more like a point guard and Curry is more like a shooting guard.
Westbrook immediately hit the basket and succeeded in a layup, stopping the Thunder's bleeding.
Harden immediately hit a mid-range jumper and scored two points.
Durant also wanted to slow down and catch the ball in his ribs to provide support.
With his ability to support him, the Clippers made a double attack and the ball was rushed, but Gasol intercepted it again!
Gasol passed a long pass to the frontcourt, and Curry relied on his defensive position to rush to the frontcourt to catch the ball.
Holding the ball, accelerating, breaking through, withstanding Westbrook's defense, he easily picked the basket and hit the board, scoring two more points!
In just 2 minutes, Curry scored 7 points in a row, as if provoking Durant.
"Stop pretending, stop passing the ball, let's score and have a good battle."
"Basketball, isn't it just a game of scoring?"
(End of chapter)
