Chapter 885: 293: Brilliant Victory, Crisis Emerging (Seeking Monthly Votes)_3
Dream prepares to post up at the low block, the cheers in the arena keep escalating.
Just like people would wish for Carter to slam one even 20 years later, now they are hoping to see Olajuwon’s elegant moves.
Hawks’ center MacCulloch is utterly useless, him starting at center for the Nets is like Smash Parker starting as point guard for the Lakers. Both are the kind who wouldn’t even get a main rotation spot without these teams.
The Nets’ choices for the center position are really too scarce. Last season, MacCulloch just had 9.4 minutes of playing time with the Suns, but now looking around at the Nets, he’s the toughest one at center.
As Barkley said in yesterday’s preseason show: “That Canadian center is the Nets’ biggest weakness, every player in the league over 210 cm can easily defeat Todd in the low post.”
But the Nets can only make do, and thinking on the bright side, Todd MacCulloch is at least 213 cm tall.
So, even though Olajuwon, who’s almost 40, is about to post up MacCulloch, the Nets are still worried.
Keith Van Horn came up to double team, at this time Dream can still easily handle the weaker opponents in the low post, but facing a double team he really does not have the capability to fend off multiple people as he did back in the day.
Keith Van Horn quickly closed in blocking Olajuwon’s chance to dance.
At the moment of being completely trapped, Dream jumped up, turned around, and took a jump shot.
Keith Van Horn immediately tried to disrupt, but in mid-air, Dream turned his shot into a pass, swung his hand behind Keith Van Horn’s head, and with a forceful flick of his wrist, passed the ball to Shawn Marion far out at a 45° angle from the three-point line on the weak side! The crowd gasped in amazement, wondering how a center could do such an unbelievable thing!
Dream’s pass was as beautiful as his dance moves, because Van Horn was double-teaming him, Marion temporarily wasn’t guarded. He decisively took a three-pointer, and the ugly posture seemed particularly charming at the moment it scored.
This season, Marion’s three-point skills in training have made a qualitative leap forward. Lenny Wilkens predicted that his three-point shooting percentage would be at least over 36% this year.
Whether this prediction is accurate is still uncertain, but Marion has been quite precise today.
Sure enough, the basketball went straight into the net.
The New Jersey Nets had a tough time forcing the Hawks into a settled play, but the Hawks’ half-court offense still remains powerful!
Byron Scott’s expression turned from bright to dazed, the slowdown strategy he had high hopes for fell apart at the start of the second quarter!
The Hawks indeed were forced to slow down, but their half-court offense could not simply be locked down.
After the score, Olajuwon happily pointed at Marion, then actively fell back on defense.
Dream is really happy, he left the Rockets because he didn’t want to just sit and wait for dust to settle on him in Houston and then be forgotten.
He wants to go crazy once more, to experience the feeling of winning a championship again.
The Rockets, undergoing rebuilding, essentially have no complete system, it’s mainly Steve Francis going solo. Under such play, Dream can’t even feel the joy in basketball.
And just now, after attracting the double team in the low post and completing an assist, Dream felt immense delight.
He’s old, but at least he’s still in the game of winning basketball!
He’s old, but can still create value!
Matt Lauer saw the Hawks easily break the Nets’ defense and prematurely sentenced Kidd in his heart.
He couldn’t see any hope of winning for the Nets.
As the game continues, Kidd assisted Keith Van Horn for a successful mid-range shot.
It’s just that the Nets’ offense isn’t satisfying at all.
Because Roger received Dream’s back-screen coordination in the next round for a slam dunk.
Dream’s high post coordination can draw out the opposing center, while Marion’s drastically improved long-range shooting this season can spread the power forward.
This means that the zone defense has been dismantled by the Hawks to the point where it’s just a name now.
The league does allow zone defense, but facing the Hawks’ offense, you don’t dare use zone defense.
Olajuwon’s value was vividly displayed, from the start of the game until now he hasn’t successfully scored in the low post once, yet he still maximizes his presence.
Of course, Kidd’s defense on Roger is excellent, Dream’s pass was nearly grazing Kidd’s fingertips when it reached Roger. If it were an ordinary center passing this ball, Kidd would definitely have grabbed it.
But in basketball games, there is no “almost”, there’s only success and failure.
The Nets cannot effectively lower the Hawks’ offensive efficiency, so their own offense is playing terribly.
The Nets’ offense equally relies on fast breaks, which in turn depends on their strong defense.
When the Nets fall into half-court play, then you realize what’s truly a constipated offense.
From star player to role player, you can’t identify half a player in the Nets possessing ball-handling threat for solo plays.
The entire half-court game, the Nets have no tactical set that could solve problems.
Is Kidd strong in passing, Kenyon Martin explosively athletic, so play pick-and-roll into the lane?
Wake up, Kidd’s near-zero threat shooting makes him a guard who basically doesn’t use pick-and-roll to initiate offense. Because defending Kidd’s pick-and-roll is too easy, you just need to go around from behind the screener to solve all the issues.