Chapter 57 57. The Completely Released Demon Sword
"That boy is making rapid progress!"

Zhang Yang's two Euro steps made Ginobili exclaim in amazement.

He had already prepared to be changed in advance, and his training pants were half taken off, but he was suppressed by Zhang Yang's two goals.

McDyess, who was standing by, echoed in a muffled voice: "Jack is the hardest-working young man I have ever seen. He deserves the progress he has made."

Ginobili shook his head: "It's not just about hard work..."

The Eurostep is not a difficult move. To put it simply, it is a three-step layup. However, this move is very complicated. The upper limit is very high, so high that it is impossible to defend, and the lower limit is even lower than the ordinary three-step move.

The grasp of timing, the prediction of the opponent's movement, the sense of position, the balance... it requires very high comprehensive qualities to use them well.

Ginobili feels that he has made a profit by teaching the new player this time. Zhang Yang learned the Euro step from him. When Zhang Yang becomes successful in the future, he will definitely be mentioned when people mention Zhang Yang's Euro step.

At this stage in his career, he has no worries about honors and a stable salary. Isn't it just a little fame that he is pursuing?

It is Zhang Yang's blessing to meet Ginobili at this age. If it were Ginobili who was at his peak three or five years ago, he would be too arrogant to teach newcomers and would not even look at them twice... At that time, Ginobili thought that a leader was an arrogant person like Duncan, and Ginobili believed that the reason Duncan was arrogant was because Duncan would not say a few words to Parker in a season in the early years... Later, Ginobili realized that Duncan simply didn't like the French.

On the court, Zhang Yang was not afraid of the head-on confrontation with Paul who was out of control at the beginning of the game, but he could not hold on for long. At 6 minutes and 22 seconds into the first quarter, the score was 17 to 23, and the Spurs were trailing by 6 points. Popovich called a timeout and entered the official timeout stage.

Looking at Zhang Yang walking back to the bench with his hands on his hips and an unwilling look on his face, Popovich patted him on the back.

Popovich was very satisfied with Zhang Yang's performance. Paul scored 9 points and 4 assists in the first half. It was good enough that Zhang Yang could last until the end of the half quarter. He had successfully created two minutes of rest time for Ginobili.

Not only that, Zhang Yang also helped Ginobili survive the period when Paul was in a state of deterioration, or at least helped him survive part of this period!

After the timeout, Ginobili replaced Zhang Yang and led the team to a score of 5 to 17 in more than 13 minutes.

After the first quarter, the Spurs trailed the Hornets 34 to 36, narrowing the gap to two points!

张杨半节9分1板2助攻、吉诺比利5分多钟拿到8分1助攻，在需要人站出来硬扛对面超巨的时候，两人站了出来，让保罗的单节17分5助攻成了无用功！
...

The Hornets are truly a 'one-man team'. When Paul went wild, the entire Hornets team went wild. When Paul's performance declined, the Hornets also wilted. In the second quarter, Paul performed mediocrely, scoring 6 points and 4 assists. The Hornets also performed mediocrely, scoring 26 points.

The Spurs scored normally in this quarter, 25 points in a single quarter. Popovich did not continue to charge just because Zhang Yang and Ginobili were in high spirits in the first quarter. Instead, he controlled the rhythm, played tactics normally, and just kept stable.

At the end of the first half, the Spurs trailed the Hornets by 59 points, 62 to 3.

After the halftime break, Paul made another effort, scoring 10 points and 6 assists in a single quarter, leading the Hornets to score 29 points in a single quarter. In this quarter, Popovich increased the time GDP played together and increased output. The Spurs scored 28 points in a single quarter and kept the score difference close.

Paul fought hard for the entire quarter, but the score difference only widened to 1 point, leading the Spurs by only 91 points at 87 to 4. In the final quarter, he was already anxious and missed three shots in a row. Zhang Yang and Parker took advantage of the situation to launch a counterattack. The Spurs started the final quarter with 8-0 and overtook the Hornets 95 to 91!
The notorious villain Popovich is very good at using the stability of his own team to mess with the mentality of his opponents.

After gaining a 4-point lead, Popovich began to slowly consume the energy of the Hornets. The score was 8 to 16 in the next 16 minutes. The score was always close. The Hornets seemed to have a chance to turn the tables, but in fact they had no chance at all. With more than two minutes left, Paul's mentality exploded, and the Spurs ended the game with a score of 6 to 2 in the final moments.

Paul scored 41 points, 16 assists and 4 steals, but was defeated by the opponent's all-round performance!
张杨20分5板3助攻2抢断、吉诺比利24分3板5助攻、帕克16分7助攻、邓肯18分11板2助攻2盖帽……117比109，马刺队稳稳击败黄蜂队，大比分1比0领先！

Zhang Yang was very satisfied with his 20+ points in his first playoff game with the Spurs. When the final whistle sounded, he heard many fans shouting "Jack" and felt a sense of accomplishment. He still remembered being booed when he played in the AT&T Arena for the first time, and it seemed like just the day before.

After the first game, Zhang Yang felt that the strength of the Hornets was not much different from that of the Grizzlies. Both had a certain ability to overthrow the strong. Of course, their styles were completely different. The Grizzlies were strong as a whole, while the Hornets were strong in one individual. However, they had the same flaw - both the Grizzlies and Paul lacked someone who could raise the ceiling of the team.

In the first quarter tonight, Paul took on the role of raising the ceiling, and the Hornets played a dominant performance, but his style of play is not sustainable, and he needs a teammate who can raise the team's ceiling. If David West is not injured, he can take on part of that role.

Overall, it is easier to play against the Hornets than against the Grizzlies!

...Paul failed to lead the team to victory despite his 40+15 in the first game. On the 23rd, in the second game of the series between the Spurs and the Hornets, the Hornets players were listless and their morale was low.

保罗个人表现也‘一般’，拿到23分6板10助攻3抢断，黄蜂队全队只拿到98分。

马刺队这边，全面开花，张杨16分6板1助攻3抢断1盖帽、邓肯16分10板2助攻2盖帽、帕克28分11助攻、吉诺比利13分5助攻、乔治-希尔12分2助攻……

110 to 98, the Spurs won two games in a row, making the score 2 to 0!

When Paul did not go berserk and the Hornets returned to the strength of a normal playoff team, the French sports car made a brilliant appearance! He played this game as easily as in the 07 Finals.

After two days of rest, the Spurs switched home and away games and came to the New Orleans Arena in New Orleans to play the third game of the series against the Hornets.

The Hornets, trailing 0-2, had nowhere to retreat. With Fishing Beach behind them, they had no choice but to fight a desperate battle.

In the first quarter, the Hornets, led by Paul, scored 31 points and performed similarly to the first game.

But this time the Spurs were better prepared. They had a deeper understanding of the Hornets' weak defense and played better defense than in the first game, overwhelming the Hornets 33 to 31 in a single quarter!
第二节黄蜂队26比25缩小了1分分差，但到了第三节，马刺队还了一个单节26比24，三节打完，马刺队84比81取得3分领先优势。

In the final quarter, Paul's flaws were revealed. In the first quarter, he was able to score 13 points and 4 assists, but in the final quarter, when he needed to stand up and solve the problem by scoring, he couldn't be the C!
His technique and shooting are better than Zhang Yang, but the size difference is too big.

As long as Zhang Yang moves faster after the screen, he can ignore the opponent's inside switch defense and shoot directly. In the first 5 minutes of the fourth quarter, he made 4 of 2 shots, including 2 of 1 three-pointers, plus 2 of 2 free throws, and scored 8 points.

During this period, Paul was resting, and after playing the C role for three quarters, his physical strength had begun to decline, and his mobility was affected. After the pick-and-roll, he encountered Duncan or McDyess's switch defense and was repeatedly defeated. His effect was not as good as his whirlwind shots from the outside.

After Zhang Yang played for 5 minutes and was substituted, Ginobili took over and made 7 of 7 shots in 5 minutes, including 4 of 2 three-pointers. He did not take any free throws, but scored 12 points to win the game.

Duncan played his best performance in this series, scoring 32 points, 26 rebounds, 9 assists and 2 blocks in 3 minutes. In the first three quarters, the Hornets' defensive focus was on Parker, Ginobili and Zhang Yang. Duncan was so happy that he couldn't believe he could achieve this day during the offseason last year.

张杨17分7板2助攻1抢断、帕克15分8助攻、吉诺比利21分3板4助攻……

The score in the final quarter was 28 to 23, and the final difference was fixed at 8 points. The Spurs defeated the Hornets 112 to 104, with a big score of 3 to 0, and advancement is in sight!
The game was won and Popovich was very happy. What made him even happier was that he saw the 'completely liberated version' of Ginobili, but this also made him feel distressed.

It turns out that after the team has a shooting guard who can relieve the pressure on Ginobili, the demon sword who concentrates his physical strength can become so strong!

He recalled the nine years since Ginobili joined the Spurs. He didn't want to admit it, but that was the fact - Zhang Yang was the best shooting guard Ginobili had partnered with in the past nine years.

Before Zhang Yang, the best shooting guard Ginobili had ever partnered with was the 33-year-old Michael Finley. At that time, Finley could only score about 10 points per game, and he had to rely on his teammates to feed the ball...he only had the ability to shoot in open spaces.

At that time, Ginobili played as the sixth man, and the starting shooting guard helped relieve the pressure on the opposing starting player? Come on, every time Ginobili came off the bench, he was filling the hole dug by the starting guard.

Popovich let Ginobili play as a substitute because there was really no capable shooting guard on the bench. How could the demon sword who started in the 04-05 season not be very powerful?

With Zhang Yang, Ginobili truly became the '20-minute Jordan'!
Unfortunately, Ginobili will be 34 years old soon... Popovich doesn't want to repeat this "regret" again. He is determined to select that player back, even if it means using George Hill, whom he likes very much.

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(End of this chapter)