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Chapter 341 - 163. The Last Truth - Iverson

Chapter 341: 163. The Last Truth - Iverson

After a night’s rest, on December 2, the Bobcats came to the Verizon Center to challenge the Wizards.

The Wizards, currently with 8 wins and 8 losses, ranked seventh in the Eastern Conference.

Although their record was mediocre, averaging 105 points scored and 105.5 points allowed per game, their defense was exceedingly poor. Still, they were a headache for anyone who faced them.

Last week, they played back-to-back away games against the Suns and the Mavericks, defeating the Suns 144-139 in overtime with a surprising performance where Arenas scored 54 points; against the Mavericks, Arenas scored 35 points and recorded a career-high 16 assists, Jamison and Butler both scored over 20, and they upset the Mavericks 124-118, showing a tendency to rise to the occasion against strong teams.

When Zhang Yang watched the Wizards play the Mavericks, he saw that initially the Mavericks wanted to play tight defense, but after Arenas missed a few shots, he entered an unreasonable scoring mode, and the Mavericks began to double-team him aggressively, which opened up the Wizards’ offense.

Of course, the Mavericks’ reaction was of limited reference value, probably because the Silver Horned King and his men were likely suffering from PTSD.

The game was quite exciting, and after Zhang Yang finished watching it, he didn’t have any other time to watch more videos. After all, it was just the regular season, and preparations couldn’t be as thorough as they would be for the playoffs.

Nevertheless, the Bobcats’ preparation to engage in a scoring duel with the Wizards wasn’t wrong, and sure enough, as tonight’s game progressed, both teams started scoring spree.

Arenas, with his league-leading pull-up jump shot, successively exploded Felton, Rondo, Alan Anderson, and Gerald Wallace, leaving Bickerstaff no choice but to put Zhang Yang on him, with similarly limited effect.

In the past two years, Arenas was truly unguardable, not just by secondary defenders like Gerald Wallace but also by premier defenders like Kobe, Bowen, and Artest.

However, the Bobcats’ offense was also performing well. In the opening stages, Zhang Yang took the lead and went straight to work with consecutive one-on-one plays.

Arenas and Butler’s defense was terrible, one worse than the other. Arenas had an attitude and stamina problem, playing 40 minutes a game and focusing on offense, which was energy-consuming. His defense was actually decent when Larry Hughes was still around, but after Hughes left, his defense collapsed completely.

Caron Butler’s defense was about on par with Nash’s—good effort, but it didn’t stop anyone.

No matter which of them was guarding Zhang Yang, he kept attacking vigorously. Though his touch wasn’t as hot as it was against the Jazz Team, it was still quite good. After a few rounds, the player guarding him began to stick to his shots, and when he drove inside... the whole team’s offense opened up.

Having just scored 53 points, he might have been more cautious against a different opponent, but facing a terrible defensive team like the Wizards, a simple double-team was all it took.

The Wizards also had Stevenson, who was a strong perimeter defender, but he was assigned to guard Gerald Wallace.

If Caron Butler were to guard Gerald Wallace, Jamison and Haywood in the interior would be hammered to tears.

The first quarter ended 30-31, and the second quarter 33-32, wrapping up the half tied at 63 each.

In the third quarter, Arenas scored 10 points on 4 of 7 shooting, including going 4 for 4 from the free throw line, along with 5 assists, 4 of which were three-point assists to Jamison.

Jamison didn’t make any other shots in the third quarter, didn’t even attempt to, and if one had to speak frankly about their frontcourt’s strength, he felt that only Okafor could be considered on his level, the rest were average. But those guys were too tough; he was afraid of getting knocked dead. However, his touch was indeed wonderful tonight, hitting 4 of 6 three-pointers and scoring 12 points in the quarter!

Together, they led the Wizards to a 36-31 score in the third quarter, finishing the period with a 99-94 lead, five points ahead.

But come the final quarter, all Wizards players except Arenas had gone cold.

The Bobcats’ shooting also cooled down, but their long-range scoring was not a significant part of their game to begin with. If they couldn’t hit from the outside, they could still hammer inside, which wasn’t the case for the Wizards. With Arenas scoring an average of 29 points, Jamison 20, and Butler 19, all three had scoring areas mainly on the perimeter, with more than 60% of their points coming from outside the three-second area. Once their touch went cold, they were of no use at all.

Arenas played desperately in the final quarter, shooting 5 of 11, including 2 of 6 from three, and making both of his free throws to get 14 points, but the Wizards managed only 22 points as a team.

Okafor and Felton went on a tear attacking the inside during the last quarter, combining for 23 points and leading the Bobcats to a final quarter score of 35-22.

Zhang Yang played 35 minutes tonight, making 9 of 17 field goal attempts, including 1 of 2 three-pointers, and 4 of 5 from the free throw line, scoring 23 points along with 3 rebounds, 8 assists, and 1 steal.

Felton had 32 points, 4 rebounds, and 4 assists, Okafor had 23 points and 15 rebounds, and Gerald Wallace contributed 14 points, 7 rebounds, 5 assists, 1 steal, and 1 block.

The four combined for 92 points, leading the Bobcats to a comeback victory over the Wizards with a score of 129-121, improving their record to 13 wins and 4 losses!

Zhang Yang was overjoyed to have set a new personal record for assists in a single game.

He was astonished by the scoring ability of the opposing Big Three; Arenas with 36 points, Jamison with 25, and Butler with 20, and that was with Jamison and Butler cooling off in the last quarter. They were indeed super scorers who could dominate the Mavericks in a scoring match.

It was just that their defense was too shoddy. Once their offense faded, this team couldn’t even beat the Celtics.

Even the Mavericks, with a sieve-like defense, had to buy so many centers to patch their holes, while the Wizards simply hoarded three at once.

While Zhang Yang was internally critiquing the Big Three, someone else was quietly criticizing him.

Bickerstaff, watching Zhang Yang’s performance of 8 assists, was certainly happy. His concern was unwarranted after all; Zhang Yang didn’t play erratically just because he had scored 53 points previously, he was as cool and collected as before.