First in scoring

Chapter 421 420. King: Since I have an emperor, why should I have a fat man?

Zhang Yang advanced to the frontcourt and continued to force his way past Delonte West.

James didn't press so hard this time, but fought and retreated, interfering with Delonte West from the front and back, limiting Zhang Yang's quick stop jump shot and quick stop step back shot... Then he was passed by Zhang Yang with a Euro step at close range, and when he turned around, he saw Zhang Yang jump up and slam the ball into the basket with one hand...

King: I hate people who have so many different ways to score!
James has defended very well in the past two rounds, and his timing of help defense is just right. Zhang Yang's shooting space is severely limited from long two-point shots to the elbow area.

But at the most crucial second, James failed to defend. He was unable to keep up with Zhang Yang's changes when the defense was already at the end.

Just like on offense, James also has the problem of being single-skilled on defense.

This is also why he can't defend against players like Anthony and Pierce who have many offensive skills.

However, for the Cavaliers, the failure to defend in these two rounds is secondary. The important thing is that their established defensive strategy failed!
Although James has some obvious flaws in defense, overall, he is already one of the strongest defensive players in the league, with a good physique, strong athletic ability, and a wide defensive coverage area. After the Cavaliers acquired Marvin Williams, Mike Brown created a defensive system with two forwards as the core, with two active defensive guards on the outside, and a big center like Big Z or Varejao, the Cavaliers played the league's best defense.

In order to deal with the two-gun tactics of the Bobcats' starting lineup and the Princeton or triangle offense in the rotation phase, Mike Brown made targeted adjustments, trying to use James's ability to help defend and his ability to prevent breakthroughs in medium and short distances, combined with Marvin Williams's ability to help defend, to force Zhang Yang to pass the ball early.

It is impossible to defend the offense of the Bobcats with Felton, Zhang Yang and Okafor on the court at the same time. Even the Grizzlies with Gerald Wallace, Gasol and Milicic were beaten in the starting stage and could only resist with difficulty. Mike Brown is not so naive. He can let the Bobcats' double guns pass the ball at less suitable times and pass it to less suitable people, thereby affecting the Bobcats' team cooperation, which is already a very successful defense.

But Zhang Yang didn't fall for it! He shot the ball by himself. The Cavaliers' team defense was prepared for nothing, and Zhang Yang scored!

When the Cavaliers attacked, James came to the frontcourt and saw Pietrus guarding in front. He did not ask for the ball immediately. Whether to shoot or not was a problem.

Mo Williams saw James' hesitation and waved his hand decisively, signaling James to move.

Mo Williams played against Zhang Yang, broke into the right side of the three-second zone and shot a layup...which was blocked by Zhang Yang. However, James went around the basket to grab the offensive rebound and made a layup on the second attack!
This ball was Millsap's fault. Okafor blocked Marvin Williams tightly, and Millsap missed him.

He exposed this problem in the 06 Summer League. He did not do a good job of positioning when protecting the backcourt rebounds. Two and a half years later, there has been some improvement, but not much.

Rookie Ibaka also has a similar problem. When playing without a big center, the Bobcats have the defect of strong frontcourt rebounds but poor backcourt rebounding protection.

Carlisle was unhappy to see this scene, but chose to be patient.

Millsap has made significant progress in many aspects in the past two and a half years, but it is impossible to improve in everything. Last season, with a big center on the court most of the time, Millsap's poor positioning in defensive rebounds did not have much impact, so Carlisle did not emphasize it. Millsap has too many possibilities to be explored, and he must take care of the areas that are more needed at that time and seize the time to improve.

Now their core lineup is transitioning to a formation without a big center, and they will only play the traditional lineup during the rotation stage and key balls. This aspect needs attention, so it is best to start now and give the players time.

It was the Bobcats' turn to attack. Zhang Yang continued to attack with the ball, Big Z returned to the basket, James and Marvin Williams returned to the wings, gave up their defensive adjustments against the Bobcats, and played regular defense.

From the players' perspective, the Cavaliers players are more afraid of Zhang Yang going wild than letting the Bobcats open up their cooperation.

There are two very special players in active service. One is Kobe, who can score 81 points in a single game. Everyone is afraid of him when he is in high spirits.

Another one is Zhang Yang. Although his most points in the regular season were only 60+, he scored 82 points when he got the chance in the Rookie Challenge. With his style of shooting whenever he feels like it, everyone is sure that if he has the chance to surpass Kobe, he will definitely do it.

Zhang Yang successfully launched a team offense led by two guns. Although Pietrus missed the three-pointer at the end, the Bobcats coaching staff on the sidelines was very satisfied.

Paul Silas said to Carlisle: "It's not easy for our team offense to continue after Jack's consecutive singles."

Carlisle responded, "When we played the Pistons last season, we often needed Jack to step up and score singles, but after he played singles continuously, our team offense couldn't connect, and we were at a disadvantage in both the regular season and the playoffs. Now our main lineup uses Jack and Raymond to launch the offense singles, and the coordination is based on their singles, which has made up for this shortcoming."

Paul Silas: "Yes, but if Raymond or Jack, mainly Jack, is not in good shape, our overall offense will be affected more than before." Carlisle laughed: "If Jack is really not in good shape in a series, will it make any difference what tactics we play?"

Paul Silas also realized that his worries were unnecessary and smiled: "You are right."

The two mentioned this because the Cavaliers started by imitating the defensive coordination of the Bulls based on Big Ben, the Lakers based on Garnett, and the Jazz based on Kirilenko, trying to make James play the role of those three people, so they thought of this.

However, although James has the ability to maintain a very high lower limit on the defensive end this year, there is still a clear gap between his defensive ability in this regard and those three people. Zhang Yang's fierce attack in two rounds forced the opponent to give up this defensive plan.

Mike Brown's carefully prepared defense failed, but fortunately on the offensive end they had a real way to deal with the "Emperor Killing Tactics 2.0" - Mo Williams replaced James and became the main attacking point in the starting phase.

Zhang Yang had seen a statement in his previous life - Mo Buchuan was the only point guard who could "control" James. He really dared to take the initiative to ask James for the ball and attack, and he also really dared not to pass the ball to James.

It is difficult for others to guess whether James himself is happy about this.

But Mo Williams deserves credit for James's first real MVP-level performance this season. He greatly reduced many of James' wrong offensive choices. This is a bit like the period in the middle of last season when Larry Hughes stayed healthy and James was willing to cooperate and play simple balls. At that stage, James' scoring data and the Cavaliers' record were also climbing until Larry Hughes was injured again.

Compared to Larry Hughes, Mo Williams has a much better fit with James. The areas where the two move do not overlap. James has a wider space to move without the ball, and his efficiency when playing simple balls is even higher than with Larry Hughes.

Led by Mo Williams, the Cavaliers barely withstood the Bobcats' offensive firepower.

However, Mo Williams and Larry Hughes have a similar problem - the lower ceiling is not high and the upper ceiling is also limited.

When Mo Williams was resting, Delonte West had similar problems when he took over the ball and initiated the offense.

As the game progressed, the Cavaliers' lack of strength in the backcourt became apparent, and the Bobcats gradually gained an advantage in the score.

But it was okay at this stage. Halfway through the first quarter, the Cavaliers were only 12 points behind the Bobcats at 16 to 4. When the official timeout came back, Delonte West was replaced, Mo Williams needed a rest, and the ball returned to James, King's suffering and torture really began... In the second half of the quarter, the Cavaliers only scored 5 points in 9 and a half minutes!
The Bobcats' positional scoring also dropped after entering the rotation lineup, scoring only 10 points, but Zhang Yang scored 4 points in two counterattacks.

After the first quarter, the Bobcats led the Cavaliers by 30 points with 21 to 9!
In the last three quarters, the Bobcats scored fairly well, with 27 points in the second quarter, 24 points in the third quarter, and 26 points in the final quarter. The Cavaliers' overall defense was still very good, and they did not allow the Bobcats to score 16 points in half a quarter like they did in the first half of the first quarter.

But the advantage was maintained, and the score was 24 to 17 in the third quarter, widening the gap to more than double digits. At the beginning of the final quarter, the Cavaliers relied on Mo Buchuan, Delonte West and Marvin Williams to make 5 of 3 three-pointers to narrow the gap to single digits, but then Zhang Yang's chase three-pointer and Felton's close-range step-back shot 2+1 widened the gap to double digits again, and the Cavaliers had no hope of a comeback.

107比95，山猫队以12分优势击败骑士队，将战绩提升到4胜2负，终结骑士队的开局6连胜！

There are finally no undefeated teams in the league. Zhang Yang is very happy. He was very distressed when they started off poorly, but he was even more distressed when he saw other teams start off undefeated.

他今晚24投12中，其中三分球7中3，加上7中5的罚球，高效拿到32分6板5助攻1抢断1盖帽。

That's right, he couldn't help but wonder when he saw James' stats - how come he still had 27 points, 6 rebounds, 6 assists and 2 steals?

On the other side, James stood on the court in a panic, and he walked towards the player tunnel a long time after the long whistle sounded.

He is already so much better than last season. The MVP calls were heard after the first week, and the double-first-team calls were heard from the beginning. Why was there no difference when playing against the Bobcats?
He felt that Felton defended him very hard tonight, almost desperately, wasn't it just that he couldn't hold back his excitement before the game?

The image of Nelson and Howard combined also appeared in front of his eyes...the two of them would definitely learn Thomas Durant's new way of defending him!

King: Since we have a king, why do we need a fat man?

(End of this chapter)