Chapter 354 353. The collision between the old and new eras

After the official timeout, Zhang Yang returned to the court. His teammates were Felton, Pietrus, Millsap and Perkins.

Zhang Yang is very excited now. 10 points in half a quarter is very high even for him who has scored 60 points this season, but he played more easily than before the All-Star Weekend when he attacked hard every night to score five or six points in half a quarter!
"The only purpose of your tactical running is to find scoring opportunities. If you receive the ball and think it is an opportunity, shoot it. If you think it is not an opportunity, pass it to your teammates. Try not to hold the ball for too long to reduce the confrontation and consumption caused by holding the ball, and at the same time let the ball flow."

What Carlisle said to him privately yesterday opened the door to a new world for him... A bit like the tactical role of the Silver Horn King after he matured in back-to-the-basket attack?
There is certainly a gap between his shooting details and stability and the Silver Horn King in his strongest period, but he is confident that he will not lose to the Silver Horn King in terms of tactical awareness, and he is even more confident. His speed and ability to move with the help of screens are his advantages.

However, he felt that during this official timeout, the defense against him should do better.

The first half of the quarter was so easy, largely because it was the first time the Bulls encountered them after adjusting the tactical details.

On the other side, Yao Ming also continued to play. He certainly could not rest when he was 5 points behind at the start. When playing against most opponents, he only played 7-8 in each quarter, mostly 7. He played while conserving his energy so that he could play more when playing against key opponents.

The other four players on the Bulls are Chris Duhon, Sefolosha, Nocioni and Joe Smith.

The game continues and the Bulls attack.

Du Hong and Joe Smith cooperated in the pick-and-roll, and Joe Smith received the ball and passed it to the left side of the free throw line.

Yao Ming received the ball in a high position, and Pietrus was in position to defend, but Yao Ming had already lifted the ball, stood on tiptoe and shot a mid-range shot... and it hit!
The Bobcats are continuously optimizing their style of play, while the Bulls focus on traditional positional offense and defense, suppressing the tempo, and limiting the number of counterattacks by their opponents. Yao Ming, who is good at traditional positional warfare, came and made a seamless connection. Until the end of the season, there were no major adjustments to the offense and defense systems, but they have been optimizing and adjusting the tactical coordination details according to their opponents and adjusting the tactical roles of the players according to the matchup situation.

Yao Ming has passed the best physical stage at the beginning, and the person defending him has changed from the slightly lighter Brad Miller to the top meat shield Perkins. Du Hong decisively asked Yao Ming to move to a high position during tactical cooperation, and used Joe Smith's impact to press Perkins under the basket.

The opponent uses the forwards to defend Yao Ming in the usual way. Yao Ming will not be disturbed when throwing the ball towards the defense. He will retreat to the middle in advance. Yao Ming's passing ability is not for show.

This change was a tactical response made by Skiles based on the matchup situation after two games against the Bobcats, the Christmas game and the final game of the first half.

However, this change of the Bulls was within Carlisle's expectations. It can allow Yao Ming to leave the low post on the offensive end. Perkins has played his role. If Muhammad is replaced, Yao Ming can continue to easily call the shots in the low post.

This is also the reason why the Bobcats did not trade Rondo + Perkins for Artest after weighing the pros and cons.

As for deeper defensive coordination, they are currently unable to do so as they have focused on offense and tried to achieve perfection in one aspect this season, so they can only try their best to defend.

When the Bobcats started attacking, Zhang Yang went to the frontcourt and saw the opponent's defensive position, and he knew that the opponent had strengthened their defense against him.

He firmly moves with shooting as his primary goal.

Felton singled out Duhon and broke into the paint, and Millsap blocked Sefrosa for Zhang Yang on the left side of the free throw line.

Sefrosa and Joe Smith rushed towards Zhang Yang together, limiting Zhang Yang's movement and receiving the ball.

Millsap made a prompt decision and chose to go down and received the pass from Felton in the middle of the three-second zone. This was his shooting area, which attracted Yao Ming to step out and interfere. He made a high lob, and Pietrus cut in from the baseline. Perkins blocked the chasing Nocioni, and Pietrus received the ball and made a layup!
Carlisle said to Brad Miller on the sidelines: "Paul's movement and timing of passing the ball were great this time. Brad, you have trained Paul well. He has made great progress in the past two months."

Brad Miller: "Paul has a great talent for assisting. He has excellent athletic ability and a more comprehensive way of assisting than me. The reason why he has made such great progress is mainly because he works hard and is eager to learn. He talks to me after almost every game."

Carlisle: "He's always been eager to learn, but he wasn't improving nearly as fast before you came here, Brad, so you don't have to be so modest.

However, he was able to complete the coordination work on his own because his teammates’ roles were simple and fixed. He had a clear direction when coordinating, and rarely needed to respond on the spot. Raymond also helped with the control. He still has a lot to learn from you..."

On the court, the two teams continued to fight positional warfare. The Bulls put significantly more energy into the offensive end tonight than in the previous two encounters.

When the Bulls played against the Bobcats on Christmas Day, they kept the Bobcats' score in each quarter at just over 20 points and were able to suppress the Bobcats' offense very well. The Bobcats relied on Zhang Yang's 41 points in a single game to score over 90 points.

But in the final game of the first half, they could not suppress the Bobcats' scoring, and the Bobcats scored over 108 points steadily. However, Skiles was already prepared at that time. He adjusted the proportion of offense and defense, and targeted the Bobcats' weak team defense. He scored 104 points and defeated the Bobcats who scored points.

Tonight, Skiles’ offensive adjustments were more targeted, and he was glad that he made them.

The Bobcats' offensive coordination has undergone a fundamental change compared to the two encounters in the first half of the season.

Brad Miller, Okafor, Hill, and Mike Miller were not on the court, and Zhang Yang did not initiate the offense alone, but the Bobcats were still able to play smooth team offense and create scoring opportunities!

As Carlisle said, the roles of his teammates were relatively fixed, making it easier for Millsap to coordinate the offense, and he did it.

When the team's offense is blocked, just give the ball to Zhang Yang and someone will support him.

However, the Bulls withstood the Bobcats' offensive in the second lineup phase!
Firstly, Skiles anticipated this situation and made adjustments to strengthen the offense during preparation.

The other is the Bobcats' own problem.

The combination gives Millsap a relatively fixed player role, so he does not need to consider more changes when organizing the offense. When the team offense is not working, he passes the ball to Zhang Yang for a singles game, and someone helps him to support him.

Because of this, the upper and lower limits of this lineup's team offense are lower than those of the starting lineup. When the opponent performs normally, they cannot gain an advantage like they did in the starting stage.

At the end of the quarter, the Bobcats led the Bulls by 32 points with 28 to 4. More than 4 minutes after the official timeout, the two teams scored 12 to 13. The core combination of Millsap and Felton, coupled with Zhang Yang, barely maintained the lead.

In the last two minutes, Skiles called a timeout and replaced Hinrich and Luol Deng, who had rested for half a quarter, with Nocioni, Joe Smith and Yao Ming to launch a counterattack, trying to overtake the score in the first quarter.

The first in the league, that's how it is. The Bobcats also took advantage of the timeout to make substitutions, but it was just a regular rotation, Jarrett Jack, Alan Anderson, Hill came on the court, Zhang Yang and Perkins continued to play.

After returning from the timeout, Yao Ming played slowly for half a quarter and was only responsible for catching the ball and shooting in the high post, assisting and defending in the low post. Then he returned to the low post to attack and cooperated with Hinrich and Luol Deng. The Bulls scored 3 goals in a row and scored 6 points in a row.

During this period, the only player for the Bobcats was Alan Anderson, who was left open in the corner and made a three-pointer.

The score was 34 to 35, and the Bulls narrowed the gap to 1 point!
Just when the Bulls were about to overtake the score, Zhang Yang stood up, broke through Luol Deng, got to close range, faced Joe Smith's backup defense, made a quick stop jump shot, and was hit by Luol Deng who was chasing him, and was awarded a free throw!

Zhang Yang also made the free throw, 38 to 34, the score difference reached 4 points again!
In the last attack of the first quarter, Hinrich and Joe Smith started the offense with a pick-and-roll. Hinrich took advantage of the screen to break through to the right side of the free throw line and made a quick stop jump shot... but was slapped down by Zhang Yang who had shrunk from the 45-degree angle in advance!

The ball was fanned to the left side of the three-second zone. Players from both teams scrambled for it, and the long whistle sounded to end the first quarter.

Zhang Yang scored 3 points + blocked a shot, making the Bulls' counterattack in the last two minutes useless and maintaining a 4-point lead!
...

38 points in a single quarter, Skiles was stunned.

There is also Zhang Yang, who made 11 of 8 shots in a single quarter, including 3 of 2 three-pointers, plus 3 of 3 free throws, scoring 21 points!
If he remembered correctly, this was Zhang Yang's best single-quarter scoring performance this season.

就是靠着张杨的牵制力，山猫队其他人才能投出10投6中、其中三分球5中3、外加4中2的罚球拿到17分的表现。

The other players on the Bobcats did a good job of scoring, which in turn created better scoring opportunities for Zhang Yang.

When Skiles was expressing his admiration to his assistant coach about the Bobcats' team offense in the first quarter, he used one word to describe it - perfect.

He was once again glad that he had further adjusted the proportion of offense and defense when cooperating with the Bobcats. From the Christmas game to now, the Bobcats' offensive system has been improving and changing with every matchup.

If they could play two games in a row with the Bobcats like the Pistons did, and have experience and better defensive preparations for the second matchup, he was confident that they could defend better than the Pistons and would not have allowed the Bobcats to score so many points in the first quarter, nor would it have allowed Zhang Yang to score so many points.

But their game against the Bobcats is one of the most important games in the league, and there is a long time between each game... It's very uncomfortable, and every time they play, it's like playing against a new team.

He is now starting to have a headache about his farewell match.

Fortunately, the playoffs involve multiple games played consecutively, so Skiles is not too worried.

The Bulls' counterattack at the end of the first quarter was stopped by Zhang Yang's 3-pointer and block. The Bulls coach and players were very annoyed. They suppressed the feeling of mental breakdown and launched a counterattack again in the second quarter!

The Bobcats fell behind slightly at the start of the second quarter and were overtaken by the Bulls by one point. They started with a 1-9 lead and the score came to 14-47.

Although the Bulls were beaten badly by Zhang Yang in the first quarter, they did not gain nothing in the first quarter. They also scored 34 points and had a better understanding of what the Bobcats could do on the defensive end. In the second quarter, even though their touch declined as the game progressed, they continued their offensive firepower in the first quarter.

But correspondingly, the Bobcats also have a deeper understanding of the Bulls' defense tonight, and Carlisle's offensive adjustments are more targeted. He does not seek gains and losses in a few rounds, but looks at the entire quarter and the entire game.

After Carlisle replaced Felton, Brad Miller and Okafor who had been resting for a while, the Bobcats regained the initiative, scored 22 to 16 and regained a 69-point lead with 64 to 5.

In the crucial matchup at the end of the quarter, Hinrich missed an open three-pointer after receiving a pass from Luol Deng.

And with Zhang Yang being closely watched, Felton stepped back and made a three-pointer!
At the end of the first half, the Bobcats led the Bulls by 72 points, 64 to 8!
Zhang Yang's scoring in the second quarter was cut to the chest, nearly two-thirds less than in the first quarter. He played for 10 minutes and made only 6 of 2 shots, including 3 of 1 three-pointers, plus 3 of 3 free throws, for 8 points, but his role was no worse than in the first quarter. Every move he made attracted the attention of the opposing players, giving his teammates better conditions for attack.

After halftime, the two teams made completely different adjustments.

The Bulls fielded a combination of Hinrich, Nocioni, Luol Deng, Joe Smith and Yao Ming.

Yao Ming only played for 6 minutes in the second quarter, and the score gap was widened by the Bobcats. Skiles did not increase his playing time in the second quarter, so that he would have enough energy to play the entire quarter as the main attacking point in the third quarter.

Skiles' game plan for the third quarter was traditional -- a star-studded attack.

The Bobcats fielded a starting lineup of Felton, Zhang Yang, Hill, Millsap and Okafor. Mike Miller and Brad Miller rested first and came on as substitutes later. The team still focused on team offense and used two shooters to support the team.

This is a collision between traditional basketball led by the Lakers and Bulls and new-era basketball led by the four major offensive teams.

At the beginning of the third quarter, the Bulls had the upper hand again.

Star singles is the best tactic in the crucial stage, especially when there is a low-post giant like Yao Ming.

Hinrich gave people a completely different feeling in the third quarter. He missed the last attack in the first and second quarters, was blocked and missed an open shot, but that was only regular time. In the crucial third quarter, he shot decisively and accurately, just as he did when he swept the Heat in the playoffs last season and faced Wade.

However, the Bobcats insisted on using team offense to reduce Zhang Yang's unnecessary consumption. As the third quarter progressed, they started shooting under the leadership of Zhang Yang and Felton!
The Bulls scored 5 to 15 in the first five minutes or so, narrowing the gap to 10 points.

接下来的6分钟时间，山猫队回敬了一波16比12，将分差重新拉开到5分以上，98比91领先公牛队7分！
In the last attack of the third quarter, Zhang Yang slipped from the baseline to the right corner. When he received the ball sideways to the basket, he did not shake off the defense. He did not hesitate, facing Luol Deng who was chasing him, turned over and jumped. When he shot the three-pointer, his body had already floated out of bounds...

hit!

(End of this chapter)