At 7 p.m., Toyota Center, the game starts on time.
Tony Allen was the substitute for the second-year team, and Lin Yu's opponent in the opening game was Ben Gordon.
Standing near the center circle, the two looked at each other.
Lin Yu and Ben Gordon can be regarded as old rivals. As early as the first few games when he debuted, he had played against Ben Gordon.
At that time, he still relied on his newly developed open three-pointer to gain an advantage in the direct confrontation between the two.
But obviously, Lin Yu has been making progress. Two months later, Lin Yu is no longer the same Lin Yu. Even without the attribute bonus of second-year Durant, he can still rely on top-level single defense and top-level defense.
His three-point long range shot continued to give him an advantage in the direct duel with Ben Gordon.
In the middle position of the center circle, Andrew Bogut faced Howard.
Lin Yu held a moment of silence for Bogut. The Australians were miserable in this game. Against Howard, who is about to reach his peak, Bogut will be mistreated.
Lin Yu was like holding a crystal ball in his hand, having already foreseen this scene.
The All-Star Rookie Challenge is like an appetizer for the entire All-Star Weekend. The atmosphere on the sidelines is very hot, and the star players participating in the main game will appear on the sidelines to make their presence felt.
Media reporters will also take this time to run to the sidelines and ask the star players who they expect to win today's MVP trophy.
The referee, Joe Crawford, walked to the center of the court in front of everyone's attention, blew the whistle in his hand, and threw the ball into the sky above the arena.
"In the opening jump ball session, Dwight Howard beat Andrew Bogut and captured the basketball first!"
Bogut lost without any suspense. Lin Yu retreated quickly, retreated to the backcourt, and stuck closely to Ben Gordon.
Devin Harris was in possession of the ball. The Mavericks' backup point guard held the ball for about two or three seconds, then directly found an opportunity and passed the ball into the penalty area.
Howard hit Bogut in the low post. He turned around and wanted to dunk. However, Bogut held his nerve for a rare moment and did not give up any space. There were boos from the sidelines. The fans were unable to see what they wanted from him.
Howard's dunk.
Howard failed to dunk, turned around again, threw up, and the basketball accurately bounced into the basket.
"Dwight Howard really treated this rookie game as an exhibition game, but obviously Andrew Bogut was very serious and wanted to prevent Howard from scoring."
"Unfortunately, Howard's power is too buggy. Boggart has withstood the first wave of Howard's explosion, but failed to withstand the second wave."
The second-grade team scored in the opening game, while the first-grade team could only serve from the backcourt.
Lin Yu and Paul were waiting in the backcourt together. Bogut, who was serving, gave the ball directly to Paul. Lin Yu didn't care. At the beginning, Paul always had to hit a few balls for fun. At least he couldn't disappoint the fans on the sidelines.
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Lin Yu knew this very well, so at the beginning of the game, he had already made preparations to temporarily play a supporting role and only play without the ball.
Rushing to the frontcourt, Ben Gordon stared at him.
With the experience of two confrontations, Gordon knew that Lin Yu was an opponent that could not be easily shorted.
Lin Yu didn't expect Ben Gordon to leave him alone. In the rookie game, everyone will only keep an eye on their opponents. Ben Gordon won't cover up the defense. What else can he do if he doesn't keep an eye on himself?
Therefore, he just tried his best to get rid of Gordon by running without the ball. Fortunately, Durant's attribute bonus also added to his off-ball attributes.
Durant's running was much sharper than Lin Yu's own real running, and naturally there were many opportunities.
But Paul didn't pass the ball. He controlled the ball for more than ten seconds. After breaking through, he succeeded in a layup against Devin Harris' defense.
After the top rookie from the 2004 class scored, the top rookie from the 2005 class also scored in response. At the beginning, the two faced each other like this.
For three or four consecutive rounds, Paul clung to the ball and played various singles, but his shooting percentage was not high because Devin Harris defended him very tightly.
"The first-year team's offense still has Chris Paul controlling the ball. He is looking for opportunities and has no intention of passing the ball yet."
Lin Yu had been unable to catch the ball, and Lin Yu was a little doubtful whether this guy Wuba was trying to trick him.
But he still did not stop running, bypassing the screen of Channing Frye, and then ran towards the penalty area. Bogut did not want to give him a ball-free pick-and-roll, but instead sideways blocked Lin Yu.
"This bastard!"
Lin Yu cursed secretly and stopped suddenly. He wouldn't pass by Boggart!
Unexpectedly, this stop worked wonders. Ben Gordon rushed so hard that he couldn't keep up when Lin Yu stopped and turned back.
Immediately afterwards, Lin Yu opened the distance between the two, made another emergency stop in the middle distance, and then received a pass from Paul.
"Lin Crazy received the first ball of the game, from the mid-range position, and he took the ball!"
Whoosh!
The basketball accurately got into the basket, and a burst of cheers erupted from the sidelines.
Dayao became the most conspicuous spectator in the audience. The 2.26-meter tall man stood up directly, blocking a large area of sight behind him.
With two points scored, Lin Yu made a good start for this rookie game.
Paul controlled the ball for two more rounds and quickly increased his score to 10 points. However, his efficiency was a bit low. He shot 4 of 9 from the field. For an exhibition game, it was obviously not qualified.
After reaching 10 points in the next round, he handed the ball to Lin Yu and started the game.
At this time, the first quarter of the game was already in the second half, and the first-year team was already 5 points behind the second-year team because of Paul's inefficiency.
When serving in the backcourt, Bogut still refused to pass the ball to Lin Yu.
Of course, Lin Yu still didn't care, because Paul controlled the frontcourt and then passed the ball to himself. Whether Bogut gave it to him or not would not affect the overall situation.
Lin Yu started to control the ball, which meant that he was going to play singles.
Ben Gordon's impression of Lin Yu was still the same as two months ago. Of course, Lin Crazy's reputation was so famous that Ben Gordon would only think that Lin Yu had bad luck during Lin Crazy.
Now that Lin Yu is no longer crazy, in Gordon's eyes, he is naturally not that scary.
"Come on, China Lin, let me see your crappy ball-handling offense."
Lin Yu's handling of the ball does seem a bit unnatural. In fact, Durant's offense with the ball has never been top-notch.
He used a second-year Durant's ball-handling offense, which naturally looked much worse, but this was not the reason for Ben Gordon to mock him.
Facing a shooting guard who is less than 1.9 meters tall, Lin Yu's offense with the ball is very simple and easy.
He directly forced a breakthrough, reached the mid-range, and made an emergency stop jumper to resolve the battle.
The basketball swished into the net.
Cheers erupted from the sidelines again, led by Dayao. Driven by the darling of Houston, Lin Yu should have received the highest cheers in the audience.
After making this shot, Lin Yu, who retreated to the backcourt, said something to Gordon: "I shot you with my crappy ball-handling attack!"
After getting the ball, Lin Yu, who was in a hot state, immediately started to exert his strength.
After making a mid-range shot against Ben Gordon's defense, he continued to shoot from mid-range against the defense. Throughout the second half of the first quarter, he shot a super-high 4-for-5 shooting rate.
Including Paul's assist on his mid-range shot, Lin Yu scored 10 points on 5 of 6 shots in the first quarter, as well as 2 rebounds and 2 assists.
His score is already tied with Paul's, both the highest scorers in the first-year team.
However, the first-year team did not erase the point difference between them and the second-year team because of Lin Yu's explosion, because Howard also broke out. He made 5 of 7 shots in the entire first quarter and scored 13 points with free throws. The efficiency was also extremely high.
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"No. 1 pick, have you let yourself go? Dwight Howard is asking for everything from you. You are like a little victim, unable to resist at all!"
As soon as he returned to the bench, Lin Yu started to spray.
He has not forgotten the episode in the locker room. If he were not afraid of causing public outrage, he would even want to say: Now do you still want to put me next door? Without me, the first-year team would be at least double digits behind.
Difference!
This sentence can be changed to Jimmy Butler's Bible...
Of course, Lin Yu didn't say this out loud, and his emotional intelligence was not that low.
But just the words Lin Yu spat out, Bogut couldn't stand it anymore. The Australian was completely embarrassed, but the performance on the field was there, and he couldn't refute it at all.
Boggart could only blush, and feebly shouted at Lin Yu to shut up...