Chapter 779: Chapter 17 Breaking a Sweat
Charles Barkley and Gan Guoyang have known each other for many years, from the Olympic selection training camp to today, and he knows very well that Gan Guoyang’s basketball skills are one to two levels higher than other stars.
In Barkley’s view, only two people in the League can come close to matching Ah Gan.
One is Michael Jordan, half is Hakeem Olajuwon, and the other half is himself.
A complete one, plus two halves, makes two people, all of whom are the elite from the 1984 draft.
After being outscored again by Gan Guoyang with a 7:0 run, Suns called for a timeout, making adjustments in the second half of the quarter.
The main players returned to the court, and Kevin Johnson began to exploit his speed and jump shots to attack the Blazers’ guard line.
Since it was the regular season, both sides’ defenses were not very targeted, mainly sticking to regular one-on-one defense, with occasional double-teaming.
Bobby Beelman has always been an advocate for man-to-man defense; he doesn’t like too much fake zone defense or complex schemes, especially when you have Ah Gan, the best defender, Sabonis the towering center, and above-average defenders like Reggie Lewis and Porter on the perimeter.
Back at Beiqiao High School and Gonzaga University, implementing zone defenses was a reluctant choice, as aside from Ah Gan, the talent of the others was indeed lacking.
You have to rely on the overflow from Ah Gan.
Now it’s different, he has excellent defensive resources, man-to-man defense can maximize the player’s individual defensive abilities and mitigate the effectiveness of the opponent’s tactics.
Theoretically, if you have five players who are excellent at individual defense, who can always stay close to their assigned opponent and can still hold their own after screen switching and coverages, such a defense can render any tactic ineffective.
The opponent will not find any openings during set plays.
This is the ideal form of man-to-man defense, but in practice, loopholes will inevitably occur due to various reasons.
Currently, the Blazers’ starting lineup has very few holes in their man-to-man defense.
The Suns, who felt scoring was rather easy in the first and early second quarter, felt the intensity of the Trail Blazers’ defense in the latter half of the second quarter.
The staunch, close man-to-man defense of the Trail Blazers made it tough for the Suns to find suitable opportunities to shoot, no matter how they moved.
There were only two options before the Suns: to play isolation, or to play a fast break.
The pace of the game was gradually slowed down by the Trail Blazers, a capability of the Princeton System.
Charles Barkley tried to speed up by pushing for a fast break right after grabbing the rebound, but he was consistently intercepted and disrupted by Reggie Lewis rushing over.
An excellent defensive team has strong harassing ability; they never let the opponent’s playmaker comfortably pass the ball.
When you’re dribbling the ball upcourt, your attention has to be on protecting the ball, and this reduces opportunities to observe teammates and open spots.
After several back-and-forth plays, the Trail Blazers were widening the point gap as Porter and Reggie Lewis continuously hit their jump shots in the offense.
Meanwhile, the Suns, through repeated coordination in set plays, couldn’t find good opportunities and were forced to take unsuccessful shots, with Gan Guoyang firmly controlling the rebounds in the three second zone.
The gap began to approach double digits, with Barkley being the only one really standing out for the Suns.
He continued one-on-one plays on the wing, scoring once with a mid-range pull-up jump shot, and another time by utilizing his speed to penetrate, followed by a difficult fadeaway jumper from the middle.
The ball bounced twice on the rim before falling through the net.
Sabonis found it challenging to defend Barkley, who is fast and shorter, as a forward.
Barkley’s fadeaway jumper tonight was on par with Michael Jordan’s, his hard work over the summer was not in vain.
But this time he didn’t dare to be too arrogant anymore, worried that Ah Gan would power through another 7:0 run, and just aimed to get through the first half.
Sabonis’s three-point shot from the outside did not hit, and Barkley got the long rebound and pushed forward on a counterattack.
Finally seizing a fast break opportunity, he shook off the defender, and dunked the ball with an explosive one-handed jam!
Barkley helped the Suns recover some points at the end of the second quarter, and at halftime, the Suns were trailing the Trail Blazers by 6 points, 61:67.
Barkley scored 21 points, grabbed 7 rebounds, and dished out 5 assists in the first half, performing quite well.
Gan Guoyang had 19 points, 8 rebounds, and 3 assists, slightly less outstanding than Barkley.
However, it was clear that Gan Guoyang was playing with ease, while Barkley had already given his all; otherwise, the Suns would have lost by even more in the first half.
Kevin Johnson’s performance was still average, with 4 out of 11 shots in the first half, only scoring 10 points and 4 assists.
Every time facing the Trail Blazers, Johnson couldn’t capitalize on his speed advantage.
With high and strong guards on the perimeter and Ah Gan and Sabonis anchoring the inside, the Blazers are very difficult to breach.
There’s no way around it: on the basketball court, being shorter is a huge disadvantage.
If Kevin Johnson were over 190 centimeters tall while maintaining his current speed, he would definitely be a top-three pick in the draft.
A small guard like Isiah Thomas has to rely on being tough and robust, as well as playing with a bunch of strong forwards, to form a championship-level team.
Currently, the Suns seem to lack a sufficiently tall and tough big man in the frontcourt to assist Barkley and Kevin Johnson.
Mark West is an excellent center with high defensive abilities and shot-blocking skills, contributing 2 blocks per game on average in his 20-plus minutes on the court.
His ability to intercept opposing guards and forwards storming the inside is very strong, and he is the defensive pillar of the Suns’ three second zone.
