Chapter 873 Five against eight, kill without fail!
No matter how great the fans' response is, Coach Terry knows very well that they can only rely on themselves now.
In the next attack, Paul scored from mid-range in the frontcourt. At 85:92, the Lakers were only 7 points behind.
The Trail Blazers had the ball. Coach Terry stood up and called for a timeout before re-arranging the tactics.
"The whistle is on the opposite side tonight, but at times like this, you must control your emotions more and more, and you must not be fooled again."
"Now I announce that Damien and LaMarcus will be responsible for the main attack. Wang, you are obviously being targeted now. Just control the fouls and reduce your shots. Give more outside shots..."
After some gestures on the tactical board, the timeout ended and the game continued.
Trail Blazers offense.
Wang Zelin pulled out to catch the ball, and he deliberately pulled it to the right side of the penalty area. This position is still his effective offensive zone.
But his role is not to take action, but to attract double-teams.
Due to the home court bonus, Walton Jr. put the abandoned Hibbert back on the court. On the one hand, it was to strengthen the Lakers' ability to protect the basket, and on the other hand, it was also due to various considerations of experience and size.
Burt is indeed a better defender than Ryan Kelly.
Hibbert followed up, Gasol protected the basket while staring at Aldridge outside.
But at the same time, because Wang Zelin was only three meters away from Derrick Williams on the left wing, the latter decisively chose to double-team Wang Zelin.
This is the purpose of Coach Terry's new tactic, to have Wang Zelin move to this position and catch the ball mainly to attract double-teams from the Lakers forwards and create open opportunities for Batum.
He knew very well that judging from Wang Zelin's scoring output and efficiency in this series, the Lakers would never let Wang Zelin easily get a one-on-one opportunity.
The next moment, just as Derrick Williams pounced behind Wang Zelin, he distributed the ball to Batum, who was outside the right-wing three-point line and at a position of 50 degrees from the top of the arc.
After the breakup, Wang Zelin immediately rushed to the basket, preparing to grab the offensive rebound.
Batum took aim, took a shot, and with a bang, the basketball hit the basket and missed. After rebounding, Wang Zelin, who rushed in, caught it with one hand.
Wang Zelin didn't separate anymore, took advantage of the situation, and hit Gasol with a one-arm dunk.
With a bang, the ball hit the Lakers' basket.
"beep"
This time the referee finally blew the whistle, pointed at Gasol, and made a gesture of fouling the thug.
Gasol was quite self-aware and quickly raised his right hand.
As a veteran, he will be absolutely ruthless when it's time to strike. This is also Walton's order. Increasing physical confrontation is more beneficial to the current Lakers.
In the Tengxun studio, there was constant discussion.
"This time the offensive king did not go directly to the basket to cause damage, but chose to distribute the ball. When his teammates couldn't score, he came for the second attack. Has the Blazers' offensive tactics changed in this game?"
Wang Meng said with some doubts.
"This tactic of destroying the Lakers' laning has been successful twice, and has achieved extraordinary results. We have obtained match points. Logically speaking, we should continue to implement it?"
Yang Daodao.
Compared with the Tencent studio, Zhang Lili and Yu Jia from the Chaotingtai Sports Channel saw clearly.
Yu Jia analyzed: "It should be due to the excessive number of fouls committed by King. Tonight's punishment was affected by the home whistle. The Blazers' tactical change seems to be to protect King."
"It looks like this from this offense," Zhang Liyi nodded and continued: "As long as Zelin can be on the court, the Lakers must focus on him defensively. In this way, the Blazers and other players
The chances of finding an open spot will be greatly increased.”
Staples Center.
After sending this assist, Wang Zelin's assist data has reached 9 times. He is still one assist away from getting his first triple-double in the playoffs this season. This makes Wang Zelin feel frustrated from the beginning of the second half to now holding back a sigh of relief.
The Blazers fans started going crazy.
Even the Trail Blazers players next to him were shameless. Harrell led the substitutes and waved towels crazily, semi-stimulating the role of a cheerleader.
"Whoosh!"
Wang Zelin made a free throw and successfully hit a three-pointer. 95:85, the Trail Blazers' lead returned to double digits.
"The whistle was biased towards us tonight, so we will continue to strengthen the physical confrontation and try to get Trail Blazers No. 36 off the field early!"
When Wang Zelin imposed additional punishments, Little Wharton called Hibbert and gave instructions.
Lakers offense.
Paul holds the ball and organizes outside the three-point line.
"Fight back! Fight back!"
The cheers from home fans were overwhelming.
Although they share the same venue, the Lakers' influence in the Los Angeles area is by no means comparable to that of the Clippers in the same city. The enthusiasm of the fans quickly infected every Lakers player on the court.
However, the Trail Blazers players did a good job of defending on the court, and Kobe and Gasol had no chance of running and cutting.
There was not much offensive time left, so Paul finally called Hibbert to run a pick-and-roll. After breaking it up, he made a standard pull-up and then shot.
Relying on his stable mid-range output, he has scored 18 points tonight, second only to Kobe's 23 points.
However, he has made too many shots like this in this series, and this shot was predicted by Wang Zelin.
Helpless, Paul had no choice but to lean back in the air, adjust and then take action.
There are several big killers among the NBA's current giants, including James' breakthrough, Durant's jump shot, Kobe Bryant's fadeaway, Wang Zelin's Wang Skyhook, etc., among which Paul's mid-range is indispensable.
As one of the few active mid-range shooters, Paul, who is only 1.83cm tall, is unable to defend his opponents from mid-range most of the time.
Just because his timing was so perfect!
"Snapped!"
But this time it was obviously not the case most of the time. After Wang Zelin's prediction was successful, even though Paul tried his best to lean back, the old waist was defeated by his teammate Kobe and still could not escape his block.
With a clean shot in the air without any physical contact, Wang Zelin slapped Paul's shot back.
Seeing this, the referee had no choice but to put down his whistle. It would be really shameless to blow the ball again.
Of course, he didn't care about face or anything, he just looked at the excited Blazers fans in the audience...
Forget it, let him go this time.
Otherwise, the referees will have to worry about whether they can leave Staples Center standing upright tonight.
After this goal, Wang Zelin got his fifth block tonight!
After landing, he subconsciously glanced in the direction of the referee and saw that the latter did not blow the whistle. Finally, he couldn't help but roar to the sky, shouting out all the frustration he had suffered in the past quarter.
In the scramble for the outside floor ball, Kobe pounced quickly, but Lillard was faster than him. After grabbing the ball, he locked the direction of his teammates and immediately passed it to Batum.
The Trail Blazers pushed for a fast break. When Batum got to the basket, he didn't respond to Paul's harassment. Instead, he passed the ball behind his head and threw it into the air.
"boom!"
Wang Zelin got rid of Hibbert, took a step in from the free throw line, jumped into the air, grabbed the basketball, and violently smashed it with one arm.
97:85, the Trail Blazers lead by 12 points.
Wang Zelin's defense and offense at the critical moment directly shattered the morale that the Lakers had finally built up.
Seeing that something was wrong, Walton hurriedly called a timeout, hoping to cool down the Blazers.
However, this alley-oop dunk that ignited the audience had completely erupted in cheers from the surrounding Trail Blazers fans...