A new season of sports
The game between the Nuggets and the Thunder is worth playing and thinking about. Both sides are remnants, the Nuggets are missing Mr. Yo, the Thunder are missing Jalen Williams, and the pros and cons after the loss of combat effectiveness can be seen at a glance. But the strange thing is that the Thunder, which has stronger combat effectiveness and a higher ranking, did not open an obvious gap in grade with the "broken arm" Nuggets in the whole court when they had the home court advantage.
The process of the Thunder winning the game was full of shit luck. 27In 9 seconds, Giddey miraculously picked up the frontcourt rebound he had lost, and in the chaos, he assisted Holmgren to hit an open three-pointer, which thrillingly gnawed the "hard bone" of the Nuggets. What does this game mean? Is the Nuggets stronger, or are the Thunder in vain?
To answer this question, you need to find a suitable reference comparison. And the reference is not difficult to find in today's game. Although there are slight differences in the details of the defense of the two teams, they are both "online defense changes combined with lower limit multi-person assisted defense", a classic small lineup defensive mode.
The Nuggets mainly play a small lineup, which is really a helpless move. Mr. Yoo was absent, Jordan Jr. was DNP by head coach, and the Nuggets did not have a big center who could really protect the frame, so they could only let Aaron Gordon in the No. 4 position go to the No. 5 position as a cameo. The center is the defensive core of a team, and the person who stands in the center position changes, and the defensive system naturally changes. The Nuggets' system of attacking from the center has become a system of Gordon's switching defenses. At 9 minutes and 21 seconds in the first quarter, the Thunder launched a block, Giddey and Holmgren played cover cooperation on the line, and Gordon lost Holmgren and stood directly in front of Giddey, which intuitively illustrated the change in the Nuggets' defensive strategy.
The change of defense in this year has not been a pure change of defense in the real sense. In order to emphasize the protection of the basket, every team that plays the change of defense emphasizes the release of fixed-point shooters on the lower line, ** restricted area, and multi-person defense encirclement. The Nuggets' No. 3 Porter and No. 4 Watson are both ready to defend the rim under the basket. Whether it is Giddey's breakthrough or Alexander's breakthrough, after the Nuggets' first line of defense was passed, Porter and Watson immediately became the second line of defense, encircling and suppressing the Thunder's ball carriers. The offense deals with three defenses and one defense, which becomes the key to the defense of the small lineup.
Oddly enough, today's Thunder also adopted a second defense.
One, three defense and one mode, defend the Nuggets' offense. This is the result of the Thunder's active choice. In the opening game, they changed their defensive alignment, and Holmgren did not defend Gordon, but went to defend Watson at the fourth position. Gordon's ability to handle the ball and his high quality cover make him an ideal target for Murray to initiate a pick-and-roll, and if he uses Holmgren to defend normally, he will inevitably be subjected to the Nuggets' crazy military training of "two-man turning". Now, use a forward line to defend Gordon and directly switch defenses, and you can remove the Nuggets' signature blocking. Holmgren let Watson empty, Watson has poor scoring ability and few response means, which can allow the Thunder to play a strengthening role in protecting the frame. Once, the Thunder's outside defense was broken out by the Nuggets, Holmgren assisted in the defense, and the players in the weak bottom corner were then in the restricted area, and for a while, the Thunder was in the restricted area, and also formed a three-defense and one situation for the Nuggets.
Both sides are three defenses and one, so how to deal with three defenses and one can see a player's ability level and the background logic of a team.
If the Nuggets ask teacher is in the middle of the line, the key ball, they will let the teacher sit in the low position, one hit two to eat the short man on the front line, non-key ball, the Nuggets use the teacher as a bait to attract the pinch, drive Porter and Gordon two wings, and constantly cut to the inside. But in the absence of Mr. Yoo, the Nuggets became weaker and became cliché. Today's Nuggets are nothing more than constantly breaking points, Murray breaks through one dozen threes, and throws it to the outside empty shooter after not being able to play, and the score all depends on the shooter's blind box-like feel. The blind box is naturally "European and non-European", and the Nuggets are quite accurate today, with a three-point shooting rate of 405%, 15 were thrown, but 22 were also lost. The missed 22 three-pointers were enough to frustrate the Nuggets' offense and turn it into a mediocre level of just 100 points per game.
The reason why Mr. Yoo is a supergiant is because he can play two on the inside and lead the team to constantly score points on the inside, so as not to rely on the erratic outside feeling. But whether it is Murray, Porter and Gordon, they don't have the ability to hold the ball and play two, and they can't score points inside, and the Nuggets are not a strong team in the true sense. But the Nuggets are a tactically literate team, and their offense retains the undertones of the defending champions.
Take a look at how Coach Michael Malone adjusts the Nuggets' offense. It's very simple and straightforward, since the cauldron of the Nuggets' offense is out of Watson, then remove Watson and replace it with Reggie Jackson, who is the most offensive on the bench. Reggie Jackson's arrival shook the Thunder's defensive plan, and Holmgren could only obediently defend Aaron Gordon. Holmgren will face the Nuggets and block and fall into a "situation where they are not human inside and out". If you step back and defend, you will be trained by Murray in the middle distance, and if you pounce forward, you will be dunked by Gordon.
In two cups of poison, Holmgren chose the latter, and in the second half, especially in the fourth quarter, he pounced very far away, handing Gordon's defensive duties to the frontline players who helped defend them. And then the famous scene of the game was born. At 1 minute and 36 seconds in the fourth quarter, Murray and Gordon blocked and dismantled, Gordon cut into the air, and in the face of Alexander and Aaron Wiggins, he directly dunked and knocked the two to the ground. Gordon can't play two with the ball, but he still has talent without the ball. This dunk basically announced that the Nuggets had taken the inside advantage over, and they played a wave of 8-0 in the two minutes of the decisive moment, and if there was no shit luck in the frontcourt rebounds, if the game could be extended by two more minutes, the Nuggets would have become the winner.
This game is enough to show why the Nuggets are the defending champions, and the Thunder are just one of the many challengers for the championship. The Nuggets will find ways to smooth the offense after the offense is blocked, and the Thunder have been loyal fans of the pattern all season, and they love to go black on the road to the pattern.
The Thunder's way of dealing with one-on-three is very vulgar, which is a long throw pass, handing it to a shooter who is open on the outside, and then entrusting his life to the shooter's crosshairs. The Thunder's life this season is very good, their shooters are accurate enough most of the time, most of the occasions, and today they also rely on enough accuracy, climbing the pit in the second quarter to recover the difference, playing a climax in the fourth quarter to open up the difference, and finally relying on the crosshairs to make a final decision. If one of the two three-pointers that Micic assisted on Wiggins didn't make in the second quarter, if Dort's 1-of-6 three-pointers in the fourth quarter turned into 0-of-7, and if Giddey hadn't picked up that rebound by magic, the Thunder would have been hard to win. The crosshairs of the thunder are just stuck at the key nodes one after another, and you can say that this is either luck or a kind of "hard" strength.
Behind the Thunder's crosshairs, it is questionable the level of competition of the top star Alexander. Statistically, Alexander scored a glossy 34 points, but when he looked at the plus/minus, it turned out to be -1, the only negative number in the starting line except for Giddey. Alexander does have a picture worth bragging about on the court, such as his ability to pick the ball out and pass it to the open shooter on the weak side when he plays three. But if it's a picture worth blowing, then backup point guard Micic can also blow it, and what Alexander can do, he can do off the bench. What Micic couldn't do was that Alexander won various whistles from the referee by "scratching his head", and he made as many as 13 free throws in the game. When no whistle blew, Alexander was hit by Porter in the first quarter, Murray completed the third quarter with a small win, and in the fourth quarter was directly defended by Gordon.
So, what conclusions can we draw from this game? The Thunder are far from being as strong as they imagined, and although the Nuggets are also weak, at least they have the desire and possibility to become stronger.