(The original text was published on April 21, and The author is Tim Athletic of The Kawakami website. The content of The article does not represent The translator’s point of view)
The Warriors were ready to win the game the day before the start of G3 in the first round of the playoffs. To be precise, after the league informed warrior general manager Bob Myers of a decision to ban the match and chase dream Green, Myers called Green and told him the amazing news, the Warriors are well prepared to win the game that will win.
Myers told Green, Cole and Curry to seize the key points and not focus on attacking the media and the league’s decision to ban green, because they had a game to win next and wanted to save the whole series. Then Green made a brief speech in the Warriors, emphasizing Miles’s views, and Miles repeated the same words at the press conference after the team’s training.
After listening to the coach team, the Warriors also took these words to heart and the whole team United. Even after knowing that the defensive sharp soldier Peyton II would be absent from the game due to illness, the Warriors still became United and won the King 114-97 in the home Chase Center, chasing the big score of the series to 1-2, the fourth contest between the two sides will begin on Sunday.
If warriors want to fight for the chance to defend their titles, or even avoid the embarrassing ending of being eliminated in the first round, then there is still a long way to go in this round of series, and so is the playoff journey. But if the Warriors feel sorry for themselves and G3 can’t raise their fighting spirit, then everything will soon end. On the contrary, the Warriors successfully walked out of the shadow of two consecutive defeats at the King’s home court and found the most familiar state again.
The Warriors all found themselves, fought hard to win, and they were forced to the desperate situation to show to the outside world. At present, these are not enough to knock them down. Coach Cole said in an interview: “The general manager’s speech at the press conference milestone set the tone for us. He attended the coaching staff meeting and talked about the importance of conveying this message to the players. Then he found the media again. I think his way of handling things like this is very wise. It is not good to complain and complain about the alliance’s decision blindly. You just need to look forward. The same is true for me and Dream Green. We just need to compete in the game. We can’t do anything else. Fortunately, the Warriors responded well.”
This is not to say that there is not much anger in the Warriors, but everyone did nothing until G3 started to fight. No one in the team expected that the league would ban green, thinking that it was all punishment for green G2 to be expelled directly after stepping on Sabonis’s chest in the fourth quarter. As a result, the league banned Green, partly based on “those behaviors without sports morality in Green’s past history”.
The Warriors felt the same way and responded with the performance on the court. The G3 series was like this: the whole team played 12 steals in crazy defense and Luni grabbed 20 rebounds, it almost made up for the rebounding ability of Green’s lack of war loss by himself. In addition, divencenzo, Moody’s and cuminga also made significant contributions. Of course, there is also the guy wearing the No. 30 jersey. He walked through every peak and trough side by side with Dream Green. After the game, Curry said in an interview with TNT: “They are all talking about the history of Dream Green, which is the history of all our warriors.”
This is the spark of warrior anger, and this is the strength of the team. However, Warriors make good use of this energy rather than letting it lose control. An obvious example: Warrior G2 made 20 mistakes, followed by G3 only 11. They deal with it by keeping rational and calm adjustment. Although they can’t make up for what Green brings to the team, they can win the game for Green. Curry said at the press conference: “I know Miles said here yesterday that we can’t do anything about it, and there is more important work to do. Therefore, we should lock in the immediate task and realize that we have made enough achievements on this stage to retrieve the team’s state and comfort zone. When the team is united, there will be this performance tonight. This undoubtedly adds a lot of vitality to the team, and it is also a good response to the past 48 small things.”
Warriors won the game without Green, which was their response to the league and others. Now Green is coming back to play G4. Clay Thompson said: “This kind of thing is very frustrating, but as long as you accept it, you can move on. All together, we know that we can solve the problem of Green’s absence, and we will do it tonight.”
Luni said: “I am proud of the team’s performance. When we are forced to the corner, we know how to deal with it and can always play elegant demeanor. I believe Green also knows this. He knows that he can’t play tonight. He knows that I will respond. He also knows that we can guard the home court when he is absent, I am very happy that Green will return to the next game.”
Coach Cole also had to make some strategic adjustments for this game. It was not surprising that he took Poole to the start and filled the vacancy of Green’s ban. However, many people, including King Coach Mike Brown, had served as Cole’s teaching assistant for six years and believed that Warriors must fight regional joint defense to make up for the sharp decline in defense strength. After all, the warrior’s best single-soldier defender Peyton II can’t fight. The king also has a deadly and creative scorer. Naturally, Warriors must fight regional joint defense. Is that true?
Of course not! “You are wrong, Coach Brown!” Clay Thompson said with a smile, “we do play some joint defense from time to time, but I think we did a good defense tonight, especially one-one-one defense.”
The Warriors almost completely adopted the defensive tactics of man-to-man, and tried to limit Fox (26 points in 22 shots), Sabonis (6 mistakes) and monk (1 in 9 shots). Coach Cole said that the key was the two games that the Warriors lost to the King before, and the team’s one-one-one defense was not very bad. They only need to reduce mistakes and not give the king the chance to attack the basket easily. Coach Cole said: “We have performed very well in the half-time battle so far in the series. The fatal problem in the first two matches is that the mistakes and cards are not enough. I always think that unless the tactical arrangement doesn’t work, there is no need to make any adjustments, because those fatal problems are the most basic things. Therefore, we do not need to make any adjustments, but only need to solve some basic problems. Grab the backboard and control the mistakes. This is what we have done. The first two matches performed well in the half-squad, but due to mistakes, we did not find the state, so the king got a lot of offensive opportunities. I think tonight we play more physically and smarter.”
Cole also made a considerable adjustment to the rotation of curry. It is no longer a game that only replaces Curry once (usually the first and third sections end soon, and the second and fourth sections return to the court after playing for a few minutes), cole asked Curry to change the first section after only 6 minutes. The first section was almost finished and Curry returned to the field. The same was true in the second and third sections. In this way, Curry can play the whole fourth quarter until the match enters garbage time.
One of the benefits of this adjustment is that at the beginning of the second and fourth sections, Curry can play with a substitute lineup on the court, helping cuminga, Moody’s and dichenzzo play. Of course, this is usually a dream Green’s job. Coach Cole said: “I think it is very important to adjust the situation that is 0-2 backward, so that the team can play a little more stable in different lineups. I went to Curry yesterday and he said no problem can be done. This adjustment is great. One thing we want to make sure is that Curry sometimes looks for the game status in the first quarter. I think Bruce Fraser, the teaching assistant, should have told Curry to be more aggressive, because the first one would end up in six minutes, so he had to shake off his arm in the first six minutes. However, for curry, there is nothing he can’t do.”
The outside world always pays attention to when Curry will end up and when he will return to the court. Curry feels it is quite interesting, but he also knows how important it is to do it well. G2 library played a total of 37 minutes and got 36 points plus or minus +24. If warriors want to win the championship, they must make full use of Curry’s playing time, and G2 warriors will do it. Curry smiled and said, “considering that someone asked me this question in G1, I want you to continue to guess my rotation and playing time. Maybe G4 will change again. Let’s see.”
Warriors found themselves again. Even if Green did not improve morale, of course Green would occasionally ignite the league office. Warriors may not eliminate the king, or even if they can eliminate the king, they cannot go further in the playoffs. However, through G3 competition, Warriors hope that the outside world will know that even if they are treated unfairly, they can go against the trend. At this time, warriors are almost invincible.
Original: Tim Kawakami
Compile: Li Taibai
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