NBA: The best team doctor in history

Chapter 197: The old man's tactics, a tiebreaker, another tiebreaker!

"The Trail Blazers are awesome! They can fight back and forth with the Spurs!"

"If the Spurs hadn't had air conditioning in the second game, the lead would be 3-1 now!"

"If you dare to pad me, Roy, we will pad Duncan!!"

"Right! Why bother with planes? Just fight normally if you can!"

Paul Allen is an expert in media warfare. In order to prevent the Spurs from being treated unfairly in Game 5, he hired a group of trolls to send out a signal to "intimidate" the Spurs:
If you dare to do anything to Roy and others again, we will not be polite and will deal with you, Duncan!

But in fact, Duncan is not the key member of G5.

Popovich's killer move finally came.

I don't know if he was really worried about Duncan being messed up or was just playing it safe, but in Game 5, Ginobili directly replaced Bowen in the starting lineup and scored 20+10 throughout the game, leading the team to a 13-point win.

"In good times, I can run a sports car; in bad times, I can be a Buddha; in desperate times, I can slay demons with a magic sword!"

The Pampas Eagles disrupted the Blazers' offensive deployment as soon as they started. The Spurs were at ease on the offensive end. Although Ginobili was a little worse than Bowen on the defensive end, he was smart enough in defense and got 3 steals in the game.

Jiang Ming watched the whole game very smoothly.

Both sides played very smoothly, and Manu, who started the game, dunked over Oden in the third quarter. Oden also dunked over Duncan and blocked Parker to vent his anger.

Why do I say smooth? Because when Manu is on the field, the focus is on offense.

Manu Ginobili is the most talented player on the Spurs' offensive end. He uses the most modern style of play, combining breakthroughs and shots, and he uses tiptoeing to shoot, so the triple threat plays a very important role.

As long as the opponent is not close, he will just throw the ball, which is very different from those jump shot guards.

Coupled with his foundation in the Spirit Snake Step, everyone knows that he is going to do the Spirit Snake Step, but no one knows which step he will take after the breakthrough.

This is a real test of Roy's defensive ability. Roy's personal one-on-one defense ability is already at a mid-level in the league. He has little experience and is a bit "clean". Of course, he can't be unclean.

If he makes too many defensive moves, he may be charged with several fouls if he is not careful, and his defense will be restricted.

The superstars of both teams must not commit too many fouls.

For example, after Oden had three fouls in the first half, he didn't dare to jump up to defend in the second half, which indirectly led to Manu's dunk. If Oden had one foul at that time, he would not have let Manu dunk in front of him even if he committed the foul, and he would definitely have been pulled down.

But at that time he had 4 fouls and could only jump on the spot, not daring to make any unnecessary movements.

In fact, what is most difficult to defend against Roy is not only Manu's shooting and breakthrough, but also his passing!

As the most ghostly passing master, he is one of the most underrated passers in the league. White Chocolate, who was sitting on the bench, couldn't defend him on the court, and couldn't help but gasp off the court, sighing that this kid's passing was in his own style.

Indeed, two of the top ten goals in the game came from Manu's passes.

The first ball was a pass error by the Trail Blazers. Manu immediately stole the ball and passed it directly to Duncan in the inside, who made an easy layup.

The second ball was the most exaggerated. It was a direct arc pass between the two bottom corners. The basketball reached Parker's hands accurately as if it had its own parabola. Parker also made his only three-pointer in this game.

This kind of precise guidance without looking at the person is always the coolest. According to White Chocolate:
“I can’t make a pass like that anymore.”

Some players become more aggressive as they get older, but Bai Qiao is the type who becomes more stable as he gets older. The older he gets, the less likely he is to do aggressive moves like passing the ball with the elbow. He does everything to win.

It is because Popovich allowed Manu, who can do anything, to perform these outrageous double-edged sword operations on the court.

Bowen's role as a substitute is that he can silence the Trail Blazers' substitute outside players, and because the Spurs' substitutes are led by the youngest Parker, Bowen has many three-point opportunities, and his fixed-point three-point ability is excellent.

So they didn't rely on Duncan at all, but relied on outside firepower to defeat the Trail Blazers.

"It's not possible to have such a good performance every time."

But the Trail Blazers are young after all.

When the Blazers returned to their home court for Game 6, they were much more energetic. According to Jiang Ming:
"Old man Ao, you have such professional physical therapy as us, and you are the youngest team in the playoffs, so we will outrun them!
"Director Jiang is right. We'll kill them even if we have to run!"

"rush!!!"

Oden was thinking today that even if his leg was broken he had to speed up his offense and defense, so he started the game with a round-trip run and began to train Duncan.

In fact, this is unnecessary, but because Oden accelerated again and again, in order to avoid losing his position, Duncan had to keep up again and again. If he couldn't keep up, it would be easy for Oden to beat him or leave him alone.

Mr. Big Basic's on-court sense and professionalism cannot be said to be bad, but the only shortcoming is that he is no longer at his peak.

After running wildly after Oden since the first quarter, he had little presence in this game.

He only scored 4 points in the whole game and the team lost by 21 points, which is a very rare performance in his entire playoff career.

Moreover, Duncan never had a good inside helper, which meant that he had to endure double-teaming from the Big White Bear and Ibaka in the fight with Oden and Ade, which naturally consumed a lot of energy.

Not to mention that the Trail Blazers continued with the point guard ball-holding strategy today, with several small guards harassing Parker in turns. Parker also seemed to have problems with his physical fitness, and his shooting percentage dropped sharply.

Yes, it’s not possible to open champagne at every event.

With the presence of Oden and Ibaka, it is actually not that easy for Parker to break through. Parker has been accurate in so many games in the series, but in this game, the pick-and-roll mid-range shot that they are good at finally didn't work.

He scored 21 points on 6 of 14 shots.

Both stars were restricted, so it was not surprising that the Spurs lost by a large margin.

The commentator spoke to Duncan with regret:
"Due to the decline in Duncan's form, although he still averaged 19.8 points, 8 assists and 3.2 assists per game, his influence has been visibly weakened.

Duncan, who is already 33 years old this season, can hardly dominate the entire game like he did when he was young. "

"Of course. The opponent is also a No. 10 pick. A second-year No. 15 pick is still developing. With points and rebounds, Duncan already looks a little tired."

"3:3, another tiebreak!"

"Game seven, another game seven!"

"The young Trail Blazers completed the massacre, 116:95!"

"I'm starting to get pessimistic about the Spurs."

"That's impossible. The Spurs are more stable than anyone else in crucial games."

"But I think the Spurs have serious problems this season!"

"The pace of this game is obviously slower than that of the Trail Blazers. So tell me how we can win!"

"For the second consecutive year, the Trail Blazers have had a Game 7 in the playoffs, which shows that this new team is really resilient and will definitely get through this hurdle this year!" "Let's get over this mountain and take revenge on last year's Lakers!"

"Climb over this mountain and let the world hear your voice, Portland Trail Blazers!"

"Don't be so childish. When it comes to Game 24 experience, the Spurs have more. The Spurs' home court is not so easy to conquer. It would be funny if they played with you for seconds for every ball."

"I also want to say that I have to pay tuition fees because I am too young. I feel that there is a high probability that I will have to pay tuition fees this year!"

"Go-spurs-go!"

Jiang Ming actually told the players about this issue at the post-match analysis meeting. Don't be afraid of going to the away game in Game 6. Just like today's Game , try to run them to death:
"The Spurs' lineup structure problem is more serious than expected. Duncan is young at 33, Michael Finley is 36, Oberto is 34, and Kurt Thomas is 37.

The former defensive stalwart Bruce Bowen is now 38 years old. Why do I say "once upon a time"? Because I feel that he is no longer as powerful as he used to be. His tight defense can only last for a few rounds.

From my perspective as a team doctor,
The important rotation players of this team are all at the end of their careers. The long 82 games in the regular season have consumed a lot of their physical strength, and it is difficult for them to withstand the huge physical consumption of the playoffs.

The players we brought in, such as Drew Gooden, Roger Mason, and George Hill, are either too young or not capable enough, and are far inferior to our bench lineup.

The third-highest scorer on their team tonight was Finley with 18 points. You have to know that he averaged 8 points per game in the regular season. This is enough to show that the Spurs were in a period of transition and a lineup reshuffle was imperative. "

Jiang Ming seems to be saying this from the perspective of a team doctor, but in fact most of his words are from the perspective of a fan, a president, or even a psychologist.

It's to relieve their pressure!
An important point in psychology is psychological suggestion.

People generate stress on themselves. Sometimes you feel it is difficult and you feel stressed.

But at this time, except for you, most people around you say that you have no problem, take it easy, and your opponent is weak. After such psychological suggestion, when the pressure really comes, you will deal with it more calmly and will not feel too much tension.

If there is too much tension, it can easily cause things that could have been easily solved to become complicated or even messed up.

The Spurs have the psychology master Duncan to do this, while the Trail Blazers have Jiang Ming to do it.

Because the players really believed what he said.

After so many games, Jiang Ming said that the players who were tired were basically really tired. In several regular season games, Jiang Ming also directed the team to attack a certain point on the opposing team.

But this time, Jiang Ming actually lied.

If he really saw that the Spurs' "muscular dystrophy" was not going to work in the future, he would have told the coaching staff who to deal with and who to target.

He can tell at a glance if someone can't jump with their knees or has sprained their ankle.

The reason why I didn't say it is because the physical condition of the Spurs players is actually very good. There is no obvious deformation of movements or tendency of deformation of body parts. They are very stable!
There are no new injuries, which should be closely related to Popovich's protection for them in the regular season.

The average playing time of the three GDP players of the Spurs was strictly controlled at 29 minutes during the regular season, which is much less than that of the main players of other teams.

Moreover, Duncan only played 65 games in the regular season, Manu only played 26 games at the end of the season due to injury, and Parker played a maximum of 72 games.

But there are 82 regular season games, and the Spurs stars are having a great time slacking off!

The main reason is that their management and team doctors helped each other to slack off and cheat the league.

So it seems that the Spurs have the oldest average age in the league, with a bunch of 30+ veterans on the team, but none of them have any major problems. During the regular season, even if they sprained their foot slightly, they would wait until it was completely healed.

Everyone was injured in the second round, but it was different for the Spurs. The Hornets put too little pressure on them, so they even rested their players, returned to their home court, sold tickets, and waited for the Trail Blazers to play.

It was because of the pressure from the Trail Blazers in these few games that the Spurs looked exhausted in Game 6.

But Jiang Ming was sure that by G7 they would have recovered to full strength with their recovery capabilities.

If it was just fatigue, it would be easy to recover. The Spurs team is really experienced. In the last 6 minutes, they found that they were still 20 points behind, so they just gave up and gave the main players more rest.

The main players of the Trail Blazers dare not rest. If the game is turned around because of their rest, there will be no games to play later.

Prior to this, the Trail Blazers' main players averaged 40 minutes of playing time per game in the playoffs.

As one side gains strength while the other loses strength, the Blazers and Spurs should start from the same starting line in physical fitness in the next game.

"I hope this will give them a psychological advantage. Good luck in the tiebreaker!"

However, only Jiang Ming knew about this. Having watched the Game 7 between the Lakers and his own Trail Blazers last year, he knew that physical fitness was not the key factor in the Game 7.

Even if they are not physically fit, they can hold on mentally, just like the Lakers and Trail Blazers last year, when they were keeping close to the score from the first second of the seventh game.

Unless the entire team has a mental breakdown like in Game 5 of the Hornets.

Otherwise, with everyone on edge, the outcome won't be determined until the last minute, and the fight will be extremely tense.

So Jiang Ming accompanied the players throughout the two days before Game 7. If they won, they would advance to the Western Conference Finals. Given the quality of the players in the Eastern Conference, it would be easy for them to win the championship.

Therefore, he suppressed his excitement and almost always performed physical therapy himself whenever there was a need for it.

Then he also found that the coaching staff had been focusing on giving chicken soup to one player these days.

This player is a starter who has not played much in recent series and is a bit invisible. He is power forward Aldridge!
Aldridge is only 23 years old this year. He entered the NBA in the same year as Roy and has grown very rapidly. Now in his third season, he averages 18.1 points and 7.5 rebounds per game.

Aldridge is the type of tall player that all team managers dream of, with an excellent mid-range shot. In fact, Aldridge actually has a similar mid-range shooting percentage in every game during the regular season, so you can imagine how stable he is.

but!

He has yet to carry a team in the playoffs.

In the seventh game, the coaching staff wanted him to be the X factor and stand up to save the team.

"Don't be nervous. I'm just telling you this. You haven't been shooting well in the past six games. So take a bold shot in the seventh game!"

Although the coaching staff said so, Jiang Ming frowned and pretended to measure Ade's pulse as if it was a routine check.

I found his heart was beating fast.
this.
Is the pressure so great?

You have to know that the coaching staff only said this to you, and did not say anything that would put pressure on you like “it’s your turn to carry the team now”.

Can this speed up your heart rate so much?
This kind of pulse condition shows that Aldridge does not have the courage to do anything and is not very resistant to pressure.

In fact, if Jiang Ming were the head coach, he would really want to use both Fernandez and Ibaka.

One of these two can control the ball and shoot, the other can steal the ball, just go up and praise them and that's it!!!

I'm asking for subscriptions these two days. The subscription on the 25th is very important. Thank you!!
Thank you very much!!!!!


(End of this chapter)