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Chapter 465: The gap is even bigger than last year.

Chapter 465: The gap is even bigger than last year.

No one felt it was abnormal for the Mountain Cat Team to lead by 6 points at the end of the first quarter, not even the Knight fans watching on TV.

But the Mountain Cat Team had made it look too easy in the first quarter!

Indeed, public opinion generally believed the Knights couldn’t beat the Mountain Cat Team. Even most fans of the Knights thought the chances of victory were slim, with only a small fraction of die-hard fans irrationally convinced the Knights would definitely dominate the Mountain Cat Team and had various excuses at the ready in case of a loss.

Even fans of the Mountain Cat Team didn’t think it would be as easy as last year; they were certain the Knights wouldn’t be as powerless as they were last season.

This match-up received the most attention out of the four second-round pairings. Its popularity was higher than the other three combined, so naturally, there were more media and analysts covering it.

The media pointed out several key factors.

James had plenty of experience dealing with the defensive duo of Felton and Perkins.

James’s style of play had changed considerably since last season, unlike the minimal changes from the season before that. He reduced his ball-handling time during the regular season, increased his proportion of off-ball offense, stepped up his defense, and the Knight team’s offensive strategy was noticeably richer than before.

The James-Hughes combo shined in the first round against the Toronto Raptors, completely dominating their outside players with their exceptional performance.

’America’s Son’ still had many supporters, with media and fans holding high expectations for James and the Knights—not expecting them to defeat the Mountain Cat Team in a series, but hoping they would perform better than last season.

Since it was a face-off between the backup goat and the New Bad Boys Legion, expecting them to win at least one more game than last year didn’t seem unreasonable, right?

However, once the Knights actually squared off against the Mountain Cat Team, they played even worse than last season.

The Mountain Cat Team’s defense was more targeted, and their offensive coordination was better, breezing to a 9-point lead at 26-17 within the first 11 minutes.

During this time, Zhang Yang’s performance was particularly outstanding.

It mainly had to do with the fact that before the game started, the commentators used data to predict how well the James-Hughes pair had defended mid-range shots in the regular season, increasingly limiting Zhang Yang’s mid-range catch-and-shoots with each game. Going into the playoffs, where physicality could increase, they predicted an even better defensive performance.

This prediction wasn’t wrong; other than his opening one-on-one mid-range shot, Zhang Yang didn’t make any mid-range shots for the rest of the quarter.

After his initial one-on-one attack, he avoided the mid-range area unless catching and shooting was the only option; he focused on shooting long two-pointers and three-pointers around the arc, cutting in, or going on the fast break!

This style of play was very familiar to the fans who had been watching the Knights’ first-round games—it was Jose Calderon’s style!

When Rondo was on the court, his speed allowed him to drive in and attract the defense of James and Hughes. Zhang Yang would move to the top of the arc for the catch-and-shoot. This coordination was like a copy-paste of Ford and Calderon’s playbook.

Zhang Yang’s shooting wasn’t as precise as Calderon’s, but he was much faster. By the time he got to the arc, he was open, and the opportunities were better. The outcome was almost the same.

Moreover, this style of play was easier for Zhang Yang and required less energy than his previous approach.

At the end of the quarter, the James-Hughes combo sparked a 6-0 run for their team. Zhang Yang halted the Knights’ comeback momentum with a buzzer-beater three-pointer.

Zhang Yang played the full 12 minutes of the first quarter, shooting 5 out of 9, including 2 of 3 from beyond the arc, with no free throws. By constantly shooting, he scored 12 points, leading the Mountain Cat Team to a 6-point lead over the Knights at 29-23!

If it weren’t for that burst by the James-Hughes connection in those few seconds, the point difference for the quarter could have easily reached double digits!

Most commentators were exclaiming, "Oh my God," "Unbelievable," "Blah blah blah"... but some were professional.

At the TNT sports commentary desk, Charles Barkley, who usually prattled on, got serious now, "When I saw someone say that the Knights were going to play better against the Mountain Cat Team this year than last season, I disagreed. James seems like he has made a lot of adjustments and changes, and that’s true for most teams, but against the Mountain Cat Team, those changes hardly make a difference. In the end, the Knights’ tactics are the same two patterns, James driving and distributing, Hughes driving plus James playing Easy Ball. Of course, for last season’s Knights, this is already a significant improvement, and their teamwork has changed with James being willing to share the ball more. But the underlying tactical logic remains the same.

The way the Mountain Cat Team counters James isn’t about those details; it’s about fundamentally restraining James’s style of play..."

Kenny Smith, sitting beside him, privately marveled at how Barkley had become the highest-paid commentator in the nation after a few years of commentating, not falling short of experts like Hubie Brown when he got serious.

After his internal appreciation, Kenny Smith immediately got into work mode, started nitpicking, and Barkley returned to his boisterous antics, once again playing the role of the clown...

...

In the first quarter, the Mountain Cat Team held absolute initiative. Before the last shot, Zhang Yang had scored 9 points, and the team tallied 26, so his scoring accounted for a high percentage but remained within normal range given that he played the entire quarter and took 40% of the team’s field-goal attempts, while he usually played 8-9 minutes in the first quarter of regular games.

In the second quarter, the Mountain Cat Team continued the first quarter’s approach, and when Zhang Yang was on the court, he maintained the same style of play.

In the regular game time, he looked for shooting opportunities within the tactics, minimized unnecessary expenditure, and kept shooting.

He caught passes when it was his turn.