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Chapter 712 - 300. First place in the early stage!

Chapter 712: 300. First place in the early stage!

Zhang Yang scored on a counterattack, and after two more rounds, the Bobcats failed to score.

Yao Ming dominated under the basket, with Joe Smith defending him closely at mid-range. Duhon, Sefolosha, and Nocioni actively switched and helped on defense. On the Bobcats’ side, Okafor and Hill wrestled with Yao Ming, but their shooting accuracy was dismal. Rondo also couldn’t score as he drove in... Falling into positional warfare, already having scored 14 points in the quarter, Zhang Yang was almost enjoying the treatment of being double-teamed off the ball.

On the counterattack, after several rounds, the Bobcats could no longer press forward.

After all, they weren’t a fast-break team; the tactics were improvised, the coordination purely dependent on understanding and individual skills. The players lacked experience in fast-break play, and there were unnecessary movements when running fast; their stamina distribution wasn’t good...

Especially since they were fully committed to retreating defensively, trying to ensure solid basic defense, which ruled out the possibility of them becoming a purely offensive team like the Suns.

Fortunately, the Chicago Bulls also didn’t score in those two rounds. Yao Ming, weighing 137 kilograms, labored through five rounds in the latter half of the quarter and was a bit hurt; even his open shots missed.

As the quarter ended with Zhang Yang’s buzzer-beating three-pointer missing and going out of bounds, the Bobcats led the Bulls by 6 points, 24-18!

Skiles was really cracking!

Trailing by 6 points wasn’t a big deal; facing the Bobcats, their strategy for the evening was to wear them down, which inherently made it tough to gain a scoring advantage.

The effects of the wear-down strategy...

Using Yao Ming’s one-on-one scoring to force Zhang Yang, who had already taken 7 shots in the early half, to keep shooting and wear down his touch... that failed, as the Bobcats accelerated their fast breaks, negating the impact of Yao Ming’s three consecutive scores.

Using Nocioni’s rough play to wear down Mike Miller’s shooting touch... that also failed. After Mike Miller entered the game, the Bobcats seldom fell into positional warfare, and Nocioni obviously couldn’t seek contact during offensive plays.

But the strategy couldn’t be said to have completely failed, as Okafor and Hill, usually steady shooters, each missed in the final two rounds.

Though this fell short of the ideal, it could still be exploited; with both players missing mid-range shots, the rim protectors could feel more at ease staying under the basket, and the perimeter players could afford to help defend others more, ignoring these two.

So at the tactical level, Skiles really didn’t have much to complain about; the players performed very well.

The point where Skiles cracked — in the 4 and a half minutes after the official timeout, Yao Ming played one-on-one for five rounds, shooting four times and missing one catch-and-shoot.

Zhang Yang made 6 out of 9 shots, plus 2 out of 2 free throws for 14 points in the quarter; Yao Ming made 5 out of 8 shots, plus 2 out of 2 free throws for 12 points, both playing the entire quarter.

As a center, being able to contend with an elite outside scorer in scoring, one-on-one, Skiles felt there was no better big man in the league than Yao Ming.

But Yao Ming was already this tired—

Although the opposing bad boy Jack shot about 10 times and was also exhausted, he definitely wasn’t as tired as Yao Ming.

An ancient proverb says, to harm the enemy a thousand, one must lose eight hundred, is considered an inferior strategy.

Their performance in the first quarter wasn’t even an inferior strategy, at best it harmed the enemy five hundred while self-damaging a thousand!

Skiles looked to the opposing bench: did you not only catch Bickerstaff’s baldness but his coaching style too?

...

Trailing by 6 points at the end of the quarter really wasn’t an issue for the Bulls; as they entered the second quarter with the next wave of lineup changes, they played very aggressively.

The Bulls, having traded for Yao Ming and only losing Ben Gordon from last season’s main rotation, with Yao leading the weakest starting Nocioni, as well as reserves Duhon, Sefolosha, and Joe Smith, managed to trade blows with a Bobcats team that also had Zhang Yang and Okafor on the floor, only losing by 3 points in half a quarter, had its effects—

Hinrich, Luol Deng, and Ben Wallace could rest together. When Yao Ming took a break in the second quarter, all three could come on together!

Hinrich enjoyed what in previous years only Wade had enjoyed... In Hinrich’s view, the opportunity to partner with the Big Shark should have been his.

The Bulls’ strategy of wearing down the opponent in the first quarter had its effect; the Bobcats had to put either Hill or Okafor on, to ensure the ability to shoot mid-range and pass on the front line, but with both unable to score, Bulls players could more confidently protect the basket and block three-point shots.

Under the leadership of Hinrich and Ben Wallace, the Bulls scored 13-9 in 6 minutes and 11 seconds.

Halfway through the second quarter, the Bulls narrowed the gap to 2 points, 31-33!

But coming back from the official timeout, with Yao Ming still off the court, Zhang Yang scored with a Euro step layup.

Then Zhang Yang, shrinking on the wing and switching with Felton, successfully completed a steal against Luol Deng!

Zhang Yang led the break for a layup, also drawing a foul from the chasing Sefolosha, and scored the additional free throw... 38-31, the gap widened to 7 points!

The Bulls, who had chased for half a quarter and finally narrowed the gap to one ball that could tie or take the lead, saw it slip away right after the timeout; just as Hinrich slowed down his offensive efforts and started to use pick-and-rolls to create mismatch opportunities for Luol Deng, Zhang Yang scored 5-0!

Hinrich had no choice but to redouble his efforts on the offense to counter the momentum Zhang Yang’s team was building.

By the end of the second quarter, Skiles was even more frustrated.

After resting for 9 minutes of game time, Yao Ming, even as he took off his warm-up gear, still looked tired. Skiles tasked him with protecting the basket.