The Golden Age of Basketball

Chapter 966 Eavesdropping
At night, the Arco Arena was packed to capacity.

The team's mascot, a golden lion, runs through the center of the field waving a "Feel the Roar!" flag.

This season, Sacramento has seen an unprecedentedly hot market for basketball, thanks to the Kings' outstanding performance on the court.

With an outstanding starting lineup and a beautiful offensive style of play, they swept through the competition with ease. Even if it weren't a game between Forrest Gump and the Glorious Ones tonight, the stands would still be packed with fans.

With more than half an hour to go before the start of the match, Gan Guoyang strolled around and chatted with several old friends, including Adelman, Divac, and Carrel, on the sidelines.

Although his time in Portland was short, it was where Divac's dream began, allowing him to reach his peak early on. His experience with the Trail Blazers will be unforgettable.

In Boston, Divac and Hornacek briefly became the team's future hope, but the management quickly fell into chaos, with one going to the Jazz and the other to the Kings, finding places where they could truly make a difference.

Divac maintained contact with Gan Guoyang and consistently sided with Gan Guoyang in the espionage case because the Americans had bombed his country.

He didn't say it, but he was secretly pleased to see Forrest Gump score 74 points and beat the Spurs. All the Serbian players and young people regarded Forrest Gump as their idol.

After stints with the Warriors and Pacers, Rick Adelman also found his career resurgence with the Kings.

He looked much older than he had in Portland; his hair was whiter, his face was wider, and he no longer resembled the Führer as much.

"Rick, let me see your tactics board," Gan Guoyang made an impolite request.

"What are you looking at with your own tactics board? Don't you guys have your own tactics board?"

"I want to see yours and learn from you."

"What's there to learn? You know everything about Princeton! You know more than I do!"

“I watched your video, and there are some differences. The details are definitely different, right? Rick, don't be so petty, let's exchange ideas.”

"If you're willing to join the king, I'll teach you, how about it?"

"This is called recruiting in secret! I'm reporting you."

Adelman sighed. Forrest Gump, that guy, gets more and more irresponsible as he gets older.

There's nothing he can do; he's the number one player in the league, and he can do whatever he wants without overstepping the bounds.

Even the FBI can't do anything about him, so what can you do? Just go along with him and play along.

Gan Guoyang was half joking, and half genuinely wanted to learn from Adelman.

Tactical development is never static; in the previous two games against the Kings, Glorious lost without any chance to recover.

The offense was indeed fluid, achieving a good balance between teamwork and individual skill.

Compared to his time with the Trail Blazers, the Kings' Princeton offense incorporates more modern basketball tactical ideas, with richer tactical routines and more attention to detail.

Adelman knew that a key reason why the Trail Blazers were invincible in Princeton was that Forrest Gump was invincible. If you couldn't execute your tactics, just give the ball to Forrest Gump and he would solve the problem for you.

Chris Webber is a very talented forward, but his ability to cover for his teammates is far too weak.

Therefore, Webber is the core of the Kings' tactics, but not their absolute core.

Divac and Mike Bibby are not much less important to the team's tactics than Webber.

Gan Guoyang wanted to see how the Kings distributed ball possession and how they fine-tuned their tactics to suit the players' abilities.

Adelman spent several seasons with the Kings, how could he possibly tell Gan Guoyang these things? If you want to learn, figure it out yourself.

At 7 p.m., after the opening ceremony, the competition officially began.

The Sacramento Kings, riding a 12-game winning streak, are in formidable momentum and will be aiming for their 13th consecutive victory at home tonight.

Their starting lineup consists of Divac, Chris Webber, Christie, Stojakovic, and Mike Bibby.

With Turks like Turk Hedo Turkoglu, Pollard, and Bobby Jackson on the bench, it's clear this is a well-balanced and powerful team.

The Glory team, however, was missing a key player. Gilbert Arenas was on the injury list due to ankle soreness, forcing veteran Porter Jr. to start and compete against the young and strong Bibby.

Gerald Wallace will miss two weeks of games due to a leg strain, and Paget will start in his place tonight.

If Wallace was a fierce black panther, Paget was at best a dutiful sheepdog with a decent three-point shot, but otherwise mediocre, though still passable.

When finalizing the roster, Gan Guoyang chose him simply because the name looked familiar.

In Gan Guoyang's distant memory, he was once Yao Ming's teammate on the Rockets.

In another time and space, Yao Ming is the most watched basketball star in China. Every player on the Houston Rockets, from top to bottom, even the water boy, is thoroughly studied by Chinese fans and media.

Among Yao Ming's teammates, who were a bunch of hopeless cases yet were the ones Chinese fans pinned their unrealistic hopes on, Paget was one of the better ones, since no one had really placed any expectations on him to begin with.

In this timeline, fate has changed, and it's hard to say whether Yao Ming will go to the Rockets.

Since Paget joined Glorious, he has received much more attention than before.

As a three-point shooter, he made 55% of his shots last season with the Jazz, but of course, the number of attempts was too low to be a reliable indicator.

After joining the Glory this season, Paget has received more playing time.

Without John Stockton's passing support, Paget's 45% three-point shooting percentage makes him a decent three-point threat off the bench.

With Paget moving into the starting lineup, the Royals' roster composition is now more like the Kings', almost like a mirror image.

The Radiant team started the game very quickly and swiftly, and Tomjanovich asked the team to be even more agile in their attack.

So at the start of the game, after gaining possession of the ball in the jump ball, Porter and Gan Guoyang completed a pick-and-roll play at the high post, and Porter cut to the basket and made a jump shot.

The two old buddies had great chemistry; Gan Guoyang's pick-and-roll was solid, and Porter's stop-and-shoot was steady.

Porter thought to himself, "I should take advantage of my good physical condition now and shoot as soon as I can, or I'll get yelled at if I can't make the shot later."

This play exposed a problem with the Kings' perimeter defense: Mike Bibby's strong and broad physique is both his strength and his weakness as a point guard.

When chasing down the opposing point guard, Bibby has a hard time keeping up, and after a pick-and-roll, he has a hard time squeezing through, easily leaving himself open and getting punished by a point guard with accurate shooting.

Correspondingly, Bibby was quite formidable on the offensive end, successfully penetrating into the heart of the Glory's territory and drawing the defensive attention.

Then a pass was made to Stojakovic at the left 45-degree angle, and Stojakovic quickly launched a three-pointer, which went in!

Both teams made shots quickly at the start, and it looks like tonight is destined to be a scoring battle.

Both teams scored very quickly. Gan Guoyang received the ball at the top of the arc and hit a three-pointer during the offensive and defensive transition!

This season, Gan Guoyang's three-point attempts and shooting percentage have reached career highs, which is unexpected.

Then, Divac facilitated a pass from the high post to Christie, who cut to the basket. Christie received the ball, evaded Miller's block, and made a layup. This cut was very natural; he first crouched in the corner, waiting for a three-point opportunity.

Seeing the change in tactics, he seemed to be heading out, but actually ducked under the basket, received the ball, and made a layup, which was quite unexpected.

The Kings have clearly put a lot of effort into making their cuts more concealed, which is quite deceptive.

Gan Guoyang immediately received an inside pass from Miller on the left low post, and slammed the ball in with his left hand to score!
The Kings' defense is indeed average. Divac is getting old and moves relatively slowly. He can defend one-on-one, but he struggles with help defense.

Webber's defense, apart from his decent anticipation and protection of rebounds in the backcourt, was mediocre in other aspects.

Especially when facing Agan, he was hesitant to make any moves and was pushed behind by Gan Guoyang, losing his position.

But the Kings were able to respond on offense. When the Raptors suddenly switched to a zone defense, Webber hit a long two-pointer from the 45-degree angle.

After several rounds of competition, Glory, who was originally evenly matched with the King, gradually fell into a disadvantageous position.

Once both sides got into the game, Glorious's offensive options were clearly fewer than King's, and they were also short of troops.

The Kings have a full roster, everyone is in good form, and their bench is quite formidable.

Turkoglu and Bobby Jackson entered the game in the latter part of the first quarter; both are players capable of starting.

They are considered capable of starting because both players have strong problem-solving abilities on the field.

The game is unpredictable, plans often can't keep up with changes, situations change, problems arise, you have to be able to solve the problems, change tactics, or get the ball into the basket yourself.

Jackson and Turkoglu are both very good at this, and they have the same ability in the playoffs.

In contrast, the Glory team has very few players on their bench who can truly solve problems.

The Kings' bench mob, consisting of these two players plus Pollard, has been another key factor in the Kings' success this season.

The Kings took the lead in the first quarter, 33-27, a six-point advantage.

Both sides swung their arms and swung at each other, but the Radiant team couldn't out-swing the Kings, and their firepower was also very consistent.

The Glory responded in the second quarter by first guarding Raja Bell against Mike Bibby instead of Porter Jr. on defense.

Porter is getting old and can't keep up with Bibby. Moreover, Porter's strength advantage against most small point guards is no longer present when facing Bibby.

So, Porter was assigned to guard Christie, who was less offensively threatening, while Bell, who was better defensively and younger, was assigned to chase Bibby.

On offense, Tomjanovich asked the Glory to take more three-pointers and spread the floor further.

Meanwhile, Gan Guoyang needs to initiate more attacks from the low post, acting as the pivot to lead his teammates; this is the Glory team's last trump card.

At the start of the second quarter, Paget received an assist from Gan Guoyang and made his first three-pointer of the game from the right 45-degree angle.

With Bell keeping a close eye on Bibby on defense, the Kings' offense did indeed find it more difficult to operate than in the first quarter.

This is another feature of the Kings' Princeton offense: the pick-and-roll duo of Bibby and Webber on the perimeter is the team's core tactic.

Adelman knew that Weber alone could not bail out Princeton like Forrest Gump did.

Before Bibby joined the Kings, the Kings had never been able to become one of the top teams in the league.

Bibby's arrival truly changed the Kings, bringing about a qualitative change in the team.

Bibby's consistent long-range shooting ability on offense, coupled with his versatile pick-and-roll partnership with Webber, provided a great complement to the Princeton offense, and could even be considered the final piece of the puzzle.

The pick-and-roll between Bibby and Webber is different from the Malone-Stockton pick-and-roll. Utah's pick-and-roll was more about setting up Malone for points, because Malone had enough strength and impact, while Stockton's offensive ability was only average.

Bibby is even more offensively potent. After he and Webber run pick-and-rolls, he gets a lot of mid-range shots that are quick, accurate, and give him a high chance of scoring.

In addition, Webber's inside cuts and outside pops created a series of variations, enriching the tactical arsenal and putting enormous pressure on the opponent's defense.

Bell's tenacious defense caught Bibby off guard for a moment, and the Kings' tactical focus shifted to Divac.

Divac scored against Miller in the low post, but his subsequent attempt to drive through the middle was blocked by Gan Guoyang.

During the fast break, Gan Guoyang made a long pass to Paget at the right 45-degree angle. Paget received the ball and quickly launched a three-pointer, which went in again! The second three-pointer of the second quarter!
The Glory team is quickly closing the gap, but Adelman isn't in a hurry. The Kings still have the advantage of having substitutes, so it shouldn't be a problem for both sides to grind it out in the second quarter.

If they can wear down Forrest Gump's energy, the Kings will have a much easier time in the third and fourth quarters.

The clever Bibby drew fouls repeatedly on offense to break down Raja Bell's defensive intensity, then made both free throws to maintain the lead.

After a period of rapid ranking up, Glory's offense has stalled again.

This is the biggest problem facing Brilliant's offense right now, and it's also a dilemma for many mid-table teams: a lack of consistency in their attack.

At a certain point, the offense becomes incredibly strong, making it seem like any defense can be breached. But once that momentum fades, the momentum wanes.

Just like a national economy, if there is only one growth point, it will soon decline. Only if there is a second or third growth point can it continue to thrive.

Player ability is one aspect, but Guanghui simply doesn't have enough players. Gan Guoyang needs to save his energy for the second half; he can't afford to exhaust himself too early.

Another issue is tactics. Tomjanovich is not a master of tactical systems, and Glorious's tactics are rather fragmented, and there hasn't been enough time for them to gel.

Without a system, the result is a lack of variety, making it easy for the fighting to become chaotic. A few tactics can only work for a short time, and when the situation changes, everyone fights their own battles and leaves everything to fate.

In the end, it all comes down to finding the leader. That's how you can win. Many NBA teams play like that, though it's very difficult.

Gan Guoyang hopes that the Guanghui team will make more progress, operate better, and win more games.

The two teams were evenly matched in the second quarter, with fast and fluid offenses, diverse offensive methods, and skillful teamwork.

This kind of game is probably the most popular with the audience. It is offensively focused, but the defense is not lax either. The game is fast-paced but not chaotic. There are many three-point shots, but it is not just about shooting threes incessantly. Various offensive methods are used in a balanced way, giving fans a different basketball visual experience at all times.

Everything was going so smoothly that even the referees were reluctant to interrupt the game's progress, so they didn't call any fouls or timeouts.

Finally, the technical staff couldn't hold back any longer and called an official timeout, as the TV station needed to run commercials. Only then did both teams' players return to their benches.

Rick Adelman took out his clipboard, said a few words to the players, and then looked up and realized something was wrong... How come there's an Asian player on our team?
Forrest Gump, what are you doing here?!

"Sonny, did you come to the wrong bench?"

"I'm just here to learn, so please continue, Rick!"

“Our next tactic, Vlad, in the low post, elbow Forrest and knock him down.”

At this moment, the referee realized something was wrong and quickly came over to ask Gan Guoyang to leave, thus the tactical eavesdropping failed.

(End of this chapter)