NBA's King of Talking

Chapter 263 Trying to Replicate the Heat's Success

Cavaliers head coach David Blatt stood on the sidelines directing the game. A renowned coach in Europe, he also coached the Russian national team, boasting an impressive resume. However, in the NBA, he's still a rookie coach.

Coach Blatt wasn't handpicked by the Running Man cast; he was hired by the team. It's said that the Running Man cast didn't like this academic-style coach and preferred the team's lead assistant coach, Tyronn Lue.

Tyronn Lue is a protégé of "motivational guru" Doc Rivers and won a championship with the "OK combination." While playing, he was a role player, but he possessed high emotional intelligence and was adept at managing relationships with star players, earning him the respect of his Cavaliers teammates.

The Cavaliers were on offense. The player on the running man was dribbling the ball at the top of the key and directing traffic. He held the ball for a long time, and with less than 10 seconds left on the shot clock, he suddenly bounced the ball off the ground, which looked like a brilliant pass!

However, Milutinovic saw through the play and intercepted the ball that the runner had passed to Love by half-circling around him!

The Hawks launched a counterattack. Jia Fei received the ball in the middle and launched a three-way fast break. With a fake pass, he passed the ball to Korver, who was making a run down the left wing!

Korver received the ball, and the running man was already preparing to chase and block it, but the person he was guarding was already wide open!

Korver wasn't about to let this opportunity slip by. He launched a three-pointer, the ball arcing beautifully through the air before finding the back of the net!

10-2, a 10-0 run, the Hawks forced the Cavaliers to call a timeout.

Cavaliers fans at Quicken Loans Arena were a bit embarrassed. The game was called out so soon? No, it seems like the home team was called out, but the opposing team didn't seem to be attacking very aggressively. How come their defense has so many holes?

Kenny Smith smiled and said, "Charles, you just said that Sean could shut down Jia Fei, but it seems to me that Sean can't keep up with Jia Fei at all."

Barkley stubbornly insisted, "The game has only just begun, nothing is certain yet. Jia Fei is the type who starts strong but then slumps, so don't have too high expectations for him!"

Instead of immediately returning to the bench to receive tactical guidance from the coach, Running Man went to the referee to argue that Mi Shen had committed a foul when he intercepted the ball.

The referee was also dumbfounded; there was no foul on that play! The Running Man member said there was, and he thought so too, otherwise how could his brilliant pass have been intercepted?

The referee ignored him and even reminded him to stop babbling or he'd get a technical foul!

The Running Man cast suffered a setback and had no choice but to leave the field and go to the bench.

Seeing this, Jia Fei secretly shook his head. Back in David Stern's era, when he was still with the Cavaliers, Running Man was a superstar heavily promoted by the league. He received a lot of calls for fouls back then, much like Harden now. Otherwise, why was he rarely called for traveling violations? It was because the league was so enthusiastic about promoting him. But when he started forming superteams during his peak, disrupting the league's balance, the league stopped favoring him. His free throw attempts decreased, traveling violations started to be called, and he complained about getting technical fouls. Now he's back with the Cavaliers, still trying to form a Big Three. Does he expect the league to promote him like it did back then? The league commissioner has changed; Adam Silver won't promote Stern-era stars anymore. He has his own management philosophy.

The Running Man cast always prides themselves on being smart, but would a smart person look down on the league's actions? The league's last hope is the emergence of oligopolistic teams, especially artificially created ones. Whether it's a Big Three or a Big Four, the emergence of such teams will inevitably disrupt the league's balance. Once the balance is broken, a large number of teams will be unable to watch games during the regular season due to insufficient strength. These teams, seeing no hope, will resort to tanking. With many tanking teams, many regular season games become garbage, severely impacting the league's viewership. Since broadcast contracts constitute a large portion of the league's revenue, this directly affects the league's interests.

The league's ideal scenario is a balanced competition between the East and West, with several teams vying for the championship, fierce competition for playoff spots, highly entertaining games that fans love to watch, sponsors are willing to spend money on, and broadcasts from other countries and regions.

There's not much to say about the Hawks' timeout; they should just stick to their pre-game strategy.

After the timeout, the Cavaliers made some adjustments. Irving continued to attack with the ball, while Love and Marion spread the floor, creating offensive opportunities for Irving and the running man.

The coach wanted to transfer his championship experience with the Heat to the Cavaliers, so he asked the management to trade for Kevin Love, who can create offensive space. In this way, Kyrie Irving is essentially playing the role of Dwyane Wade for the Heat, while Kevin Love, who can rebound and create offensive space, is playing the role of Chris Bosh.

The offensive problem was quickly solved. The dual-core drive-and-kick and one-on-one offensive tactics were simple, direct, and didn't require much practice. The others only needed to focus on defense and receiving and shooting the ball.

However, reality often differs from the ideal. While Kyrie Irving is indeed younger and has a better shot than Dwyane Wade, their basketball IQ, defense, and ball-handling ability are simply not in the same league. Irving is more of an offensive weapon than a true playmaker. As for Kevin Love, his rebounding is far superior to Bosh's, but defensively, whether it's rim protection or help defense and switching, the two are simply not in the same league.

Even on Running Man, he's not the same person he was when he won MVP. Now he has injuries and is getting older. His offense may not have declined significantly, but his defense and stamina have definitely declined.

The Cavaliers' offense improved, they controlled their turnovers, and finally started scoring again. But their defense still couldn't contain the Hawks.

It was obvious to the naked eye that the Cavaliers couldn't stop the Hawks' team offense. Marion couldn't keep up with Jia Fei, and when they double-teamed him, he left open shots. The Cavaliers' own rotation speed wasn't fast enough, and they couldn't cover the gaps at all.

Midway through the first quarter, the Hawks led 15-8. The Cavaliers made their first substitution, bringing on Dion Waiters and Tristan Thompson for Shawn Marion and Anderson Varejao.

Waiters and Tristan Thompson were both high draft picks at the power forward position. Waiters was once called "Little Wade" because of his talent. Tristan Thompson was also a rebounding fanatic and very durable. He had a dark, thick, and hard body.

The Cavaliers have not only acquired many number one draft picks over the years, but also a number of high draft picks, which is an important reason why Running Man values ​​them. Without these potential stars, the Big Three alone cannot win games.

With Tristan Thompson and Dion Waiters on the court, the Cavaliers immediately came alive. It has to be said that Varejao and Shawn Marion are getting old; their legs aren't keeping up. Regardless of whether Waiters can actually guard Jabeur, he's tireless, constantly marking Jabeur from start to finish, providing full-court coverage – something Marion simply can't do. As for Thompson, he loves doing the dirty work, his obsession with rebounds is comparable to Harden's fix on Jabeur's physique, making things quite difficult for the Hawks.