Pat Riley didn't expect Adelman to be so bold. He suddenly changed to the newcomer Sabonis who had never been on the show before. It's not garbage time now.

After becoming the head coach, Adelman has never been known for his bold innovation, but is known for his stability and rationality, and has even been criticized as stubborn.

But Adelman is still very good at judging people and exploring players' potential. He can see that Sabonis is different from most NBA centers, and it is not particularly suitable to use him as a substitute for Gan Guoyang.

Sabonis does not have the physical fitness of both flexibility and strength as Gan Guoyang, and the two's playing styles are very different. At the same time, Adelman is not optimistic that Sabonis can make up for Gan Guoyang's defensive loopholes and control of backcourt rebounds after the game.

Therefore, letting Sabonis play a substitute for Gan Guoyang is a test for the team's tactical adjustment. Outside players must have more runs on the defensive end, so that the team's counterattack speed will definitely decrease, and the consequences are obviously a series of consequences.

The best choice is to let Gan Guoyang and Sabonis be on the court at the same time, so that Gan Guoyang can be the power forward and fully exert his energy.

"Sabonis looks a bit slow on the court, but he is really tall. Sabonis catches the ball at the top of the arc and passes the ball to Gan, and Gan jumps! The ball goes in!"

After Sabonis came on the court, he immediately contributed an assist. He pushed all the way from the middle. After receiving a pass from Porter from the free throw line, he turned around and threw a hook. Gan Guoyang happened to go around from the outside and received the ball at the horn position and jumped directly.

A standard, smooth catch shot, extremely standard posture, perfect shooting curve, perfect hand shape, and hollow ball into the net without touching the basket.

After the ball entered, Gan Guoyang stepped forward and slapped Sabonis with high fives, then pointed at Sabonis and said, "There is a beautiful guy!"

Sabonis also smiled happily. He has been looking forward to his first game for many games. After he really came on the court, he stood under the huge NBA stadium dome. The feeling was even more grand than participating in the Olympic finals, but this was just a regular season game.

However, Sabonis's nervousness disappeared as Gan Guoyang told him "I want to catch the ball in the middle, I want to shoot in the middle", and the two made a skilled small cooperation. Gan Guoyang hit a jump shot. This was the cooperation routine that the two practiced many times in the team's training. Using Sabonis' huge figure and Gan Guoyang's flexible footsteps, the two inside players can cooperate in the outside, and it is too difficult for the opponent to defend.

At this time, others realized that Sabonis's arrival was not to equip Gan Guoyang with an inside bodyguard who could grab the ball, repair the defense, and block the block, but to come an inside point guard who could pass the ball to him and cooperate with him.

In the past few seasons, an important issue that the Trail Blazers have to face is that at critical moments, the danger of feeding Gan Guoyang to the ball is too high.

Gan Guoyang is not as tall as Jabbar, and the Trail Blazers are not as tall as the inside player as the Magic. The price that Gan Guoyang has to pay for receiving the ball at a low post is often extremely high. Last year's Lakers seized this weakness of the Trail Blazers and used Sampson's attack to reduce Gan Guoyang's offensive efficiency and defeated the Trail Blazers.

There are two ways for the Trail Blazers to solve such problems. One is to equip Gan Guoyang with a large number of outside shooters to open up space. This is a direction that the inside teams are gradually trying in the environment where three-pointers are becoming more and more important. However, the disadvantage of this is that the front line will be relatively weak, and the current Trail Blazers are teams that rely heavily on the front line.

The second is that Gan Guoyang changes his playing style and tries to catch more from the outside and improve his offensive ability to hold the ball on the outside. This is also the reason why Gan Guoyang loses weight in the summer and further improves his ability to middle distance.

However, Adelman saw a better solution in Sabonis, which was to let Gan Guoyang come to the power forward position. Sabonis assumed the center responsibility in the center position, and Gan Guoyang could freely choose and switch on the front line, giving him more freedom.

Adelman couldn't guarantee whether such a platoon would work. After observing several games and carefully observing and thinking during training, he decided to try such a combination in this eye-catching key game.

Adelman succeeded.

After completing the first cooperation with Gan Guoyang, Sabonis quickly integrated into the game and did not feel timid because it was the first NBA game. After all, he had been preparing for this game for a long time.

In defense, Sabonis sits in the three-second zone one-on-one Jabbar, and Gan Guoyang comes to the power forward position and becomes a scavenger between the three-second zone and the three-point line. His defense range even expands beyond the three-point line and begins to interfere with Magic Johnson's passing ball.

After the threat of Jabbar's low post was greatly reduced, the Lakers' positional offense was increasingly dependent on the Magician's offense. When there was a 6-foot-10 guy in front of the Magician always blocking his passing route with his teeth and claws, the time he used to observe and think would undoubtedly be less.

Moreover, the Magic has never been a low-turnover point guard. His average turnover average is around 3.8 years, which is related to his height and sometimes comes from his overly bold passes.

"Johnson walked in the middle and passed the ball behind him, and was cut off. It was Gan, the Trail Blazers' fast attack again! The Lakers' retreat was fast, and the Trail Blazers' pace slowed down."

The Trail Blazers' middle lane has been blocked by Gan Guoyang and Sabonis. It is extremely difficult for Johnson to open a breakthrough from the middle. In addition, Gan Guoyang's steal level has risen sharply, and this difficult pass from behind was cut off by Gan Guoyang with one palm.

Porter, who was controlling the ball, saw that the counterattack opportunity was not good, immediately stopped to play the position. Gan Guoyang fell to the low post very quickly. After hesitating for a while, he handed the ball to Sabonis first, because AC Green was defending Gan Guoyang, and he was desperately moving around.

Sabonis was holding the ball in front. He was too tall. He saw his hand tremble slightly, and the ball flew straight into the inside line, and a back-hanging!

Gan Guoyang made a small move at the basket, gently pulled AC Green with his hand, then threw away Green and ran back into the inside line. After receiving the ball, he scored a strong slam dunk with both hands! He easily added two points for the Trail Blazers.

"48:38, the Trail Blazers widened the gap to 10 points. The Lakers had some problems on the defensive end. Bad problems, they had no way to cooperate with Gan and Sabonis. Gan had already scored 17 points, and the Lakers must come up with some solutions."

The sudden change in the Trail Blazers' style of play made the Lakers very uncomfortable. They could only rely on the personal abilities of Johnson and Worthy to get points. The outside players did not have the opportunity to shoot at open spots. The inside players were shrouded by Gan Guoyang and Sabonis, and the empty cut completely lost its effect, and Johnson's ball could not be inserted.

Pat Riley immediately called a timeout, and a hint of anxiety appeared on his face. The reason was very simple. Although he called a timeout, there was no way to solve the problem on the field in his mind.

Riley looked around and found that the only inside line that could be used on the bench was veteran Mark McNamara, a 6-foot-11 white center. Riley didn't think he could solve the current problem.

For Riley, the only solution is to attack Gan Guoyang on defense, and leave the magicians to deal with the offense, further speed up the offensive rhythm and quickly chase points.

However, when there was Sabonis on the field, Gan Guoyang's receiving range became larger and his positioning became more erratic. It would undoubtedly cost a huge price to attack Gan Guoyang, and it may not be effective.

On the other hand, Sabonis has made three assists in just over six minutes on the field. As a big axle in the inside, he has greatly liberated Gan Guoyang. He has no need to limit himself to the low post or the top of the arc. He can make choices based on his understanding and reading of the game.

"Avidas is beautifully done, but the Lakers will definitely speed up the offensive rhythm, and the defensive pressure will also increase. Be prepared to be double-teamed." Adelman reminded Sabonis in this way.

Of course, Sabonis also exposed some problems. His speed in returning to defense is still a bit slow. Riley will definitely speed up the offensive rhythm further and amplify Sabonis's weakness of slow return to defense.

"Gan, put more energy into defense. The offense is now controlled by Porter and Clyde, keep our advantage and suppress them." Adelman also ordered Gan Guoyang to say.

Gan Guoyang nodded. So far, he has been "playing" enough. He tried all kinds of scoring methods, and basically he will be successful if he gets another three-pointer.

However, after two playoff defeats under the Lakers, they also lost more than they won against the Lakers in the regular season. Gan Guoyang understands the terrible things about the Lakers. They can play extremely strong defense in a short period of time and rely on this defense to achieve an offensive climax.

In the fourth game of the playoffs in Portland last year, the Trail Blazers, who had a 2-1 lead, scored 13 points in the first half. As a result, in the last two minutes when the second quarter was about to end, the Lakers scored a 10:0 wave, and the gap narrowed to three-pointers.

Then in the second half, the game situation was reversed by the Lakers. The Lakers' harsh double-team defense and windy offense overwhelmed the Trail Blazers. In the end, the Trail Blazers lost the fourth game, lost the great opportunity to lead 3:1, and also lost Tianwangshan.

The key point of that game was that the Lakers suddenly used powerful double-team defense, which made the Trail Blazers mess up, and was led by Magic Johnson to attack a wave, causing the Trail Blazers to lose a good balance.

This time, Gan Guoyang decided not to let the Lakers and Pat Riley succeed easily.
Chapter completed!