The attention of the Men's Basketball World Championships is far less than in previous years, and it even feels like tasteless. NBA superstars such as Kobe Bryant and James "withdrew" from the World Championships collectively, while core players from teams from various countries such as Parker and Nowitzki also did not participate in the World Championships due to various reasons. Without stars, there would naturally be no driving force for attraction.
Professional basketball clubs have always resisted the World Championships, especially the American NBA teams. The regular season of more than 80 games in a season has already made the players very tired. If the playoffs are added, Even those players with super physical fitness will feel exhausted physically and mentally. In order to allow the stars to compete in the new season at their best, and to avoid injuries to the stars, NBA teams require international players not to participate in the World Championships, which has become the NBA An unspoken internal rule.
Clubs can provide players with generous wages, compared to what the World Championship can provide, only patriotic enthusiasm and the desire to win. Foreigners have never paid much attention to "dedication", and the Chinese have also passed the age of "dedication". Nothing makes players feel more secure than the colorful banknotes given by the club and the series of "zeros" in their bank accounts. As the saying goes, it is understandable that athletes take the club's money and spend all their attention on the league.
Under the pressure of reality, this World Championships is like Shandong cuisine without salt and Sichuan cuisine without spicy food, bland and tasteless. Even the American Dream Nine team does not have a top NBA star.
In fact, this Dream Nine team is not without top superstars. If it is placed three years later, it will be able to find several NBA superstars. At least the three names of Durant, Curry and Westbrook are representative figures in the future NBA; besides, Rose has now grown into a first-line point guard in the NBA; second-year Love will also start his own career next season. "Travel to brush up data"; veteran Billups can bring enough experience to the team; Odom has not been wasted by Kardashian yet; Granger just played his most comprehensive season; Chandler LeBron James and Iguodala can make the team's defense tougher; Rudy Gay and Eric Gordon are also good additions to the team's backcourt.
But it is a pity that it is still only 2010, and these future superstars are still young. Among the entire team, only Billups, Durant and Rose have been selected as All-Stars. They are all substitutes. Durant, who had just won the NBA "scoring title", became the tactical core of the Dream Nine team.
Because of this, this Dream Nine team is generally looked down upon. Whether it is the domestic or European and American media, they are not optimistic about the Dream Nine team's performance in the World Championships.
…
The group matches of the Turkish Men's Basketball World Championship are held in four cities, with Group A in Kayseri, Group B in Istanbul, Group C in Ankara, and Group D in Izmir. After entering the knockout rounds, all games will be held in Istanbul.
The national team is placed in Group A, so it will be held in Kayseri. Kayseri is a city in central Turkey. The population here is not large, not even as much as some counties in the east of the country, but it is a famous tourist destination in Turkey. resort. The Temple of Artemis and the Mausoleum of Mauselo are both here, as well as the Yalova Hot Springs and Lake Kush, as well as the famous Cappadocia Stone Forest.
After the national team arrived in Kayseri, they did not bother to visit the scenic spots at all. On the second day after arriving, the national team entered intense training.
“According to the rules of the World Championships, the top four in each group qualify. In the first round of the knockout rounds, the first in Group A will play against the fourth in Group B, the second in Group A will play against the third in Group B, and the third in Group A will play against the second in Group B. The fourth in Group A will face the first in Group B. The U.S. team is placed in Group B. In the same group as the U.S. team are Slovenia, Brazil, Croatia, Iran and Tunisia, so the U.S. team’s qualifying for first place in the group should be guaranteed. ” Coach Deng Huade said, raised his head, and continued: “If we want to go further in the knockout rounds, we must not get fourth in Group A, otherwise we will have to meet the American team. "
Everyone nodded, no team expected to meet the United States before the finals.
"In Group A, the strongest team in our group is undoubtedly the Argentine team. In the latest world rankings given by FIBA, the Argentine team beat the US team and became the number one in the world. Although this time Ginobili did not participate, but they still have NBA players like Scola and Delfino in their team, and they are still strong. The Serbian team has had a strong rise in the past two years. After all, their predecessors were Yugoslav men. Basketball, the former hegemon of the international basketball world, is normal for recovery. In the latest world rankings, they are also ranked fourth." When coach Deng Huade said this, he looked at the crowd and continued: "It can be said that we want to It's very difficult to win against Argentina and Serbia."
"If we want to ensure third place, we must defeat the German team, Angola and Jordan, the most important of which is the game against the German team. Nowitzki also did not participate in this year's World Championships, so We have a chance to win against Germany. As long as we defeat the German team, we have great hope of locking in third place in Group A."
Deng Huade said, took out the schedule, and continued: "Our first game is on August 28, against Jordan. Jordan's overall strength is not as good as ours, so this is a good warm-up for us. Chance."
"Our second game is against Argentina on August 30, and then we have a back-to-back game on August 31, and the opponent is Germany. The game against Germany will be our most important game in the group stage. , and the back-to-back schedule is also a big test for us." Deng Huade continued: "On September 1st, we will face the Serbian team, and on September 2nd, we will play the Angola team. . In other words, starting from August 30, we will have games for four consecutive days, so you must be mentally prepared."
…
The match between the Chinese team and the Jordanian team did not receive much attention from the locals, and the match time was in the local afternoon. Many people had to work, and there were more Chinese and overseas Chinese in the audience.
"This time both Zhang Guan and Dayao came to Turkey. The performance of the Chinese team is really exciting! In the Olympics two years ago, they led the Chinese team to defeat the United States and win the championship. Maybe this time You can also win the championship!”
"It's probably impossible to win the championship. Dayao has undergone such a major operation and has been recuperating. He hasn't played basketball for several months. Zhang Guan is even more outrageous. The last time he appeared on the basketball court was the Olympic Games two years ago. I don’t know how much strength the two of them have left. I think that instead of relying on the two of them, it would be more practical to rely on the United Arab Emirates."
"I think the possibility of winning the championship is also low. Although the American Dream Nine team is not favored, Durant was the NBA scoring leader last season, and there are also Spain and Argentina. The Chinese team can win a medal. Even that’s a pretty good result.”
"No matter what, Jordan is a weak team, perhaps the weakest among the 24 teams. In today's game, there should be no suspense for the Chinese team to win!"
This is the first time for the Jordan team to participate in the World Championships. They got the ticket to this World Championship by virtue of their third place in the Asian Championships. In terms of overall strength, the Jordan team is naturally not as good as the Chinese team. If nothing else, The Jordanian team is at a disadvantage in terms of height. The tallest center in the team, Zaid Akas, is only 2.08 meters tall. He can only be completely overwhelmed when facing China's tall insiders. Except for Akas, there are only two people in the Jordanian team who are 2.05 meters tall. It is no exaggeration to say that the Chinese team's small forwards can compete with the Jordanian team's center.
However, the Jordanian team's backcourt strength is stronger than that of the Chinese team because it is believed that the Jordanian team has an American naturalized player Raheem White.
Raheem White was born in the United States and later naturalized in Jordan. He is the leading scorer and tactical core of the Jordan team. He is 191 centimeters tall and weighs 95 kilograms. He can be said to be a very strong defender. He was once the leading scorer at the University of the District of Columbia and was also a well-known figure in the NCAA's second-level league. In the 2009 Asian Championships, White once caused a lot of trouble for the Chinese team. It can be said that he defeated the Chinese team's backcourt players. White's most offensive weapon is to break through with the ball, and he is good at pulling up the stick to reverse the blue. This can effectively prevent inside players from blocking shots, and his strong body is very lethal to defenders. But his shooting ability is very average, and even his free throw shooting percentage is only barely adequate. It can be said that White is a typical American defender. And this kind of American defender, even if he is not ranked high in the United States, can indeed beat the Chinese defenders in terms of strength.
In addition to White, Jordan's forward Said Abbas is also familiar to the majority of Chinese fans because he is an Asian foreign aid in the CBA League and will enter the starting lineup of the CBA All-Star Game in the future. Due to CBA regulations, only the top five teams in the league can introduce Asian foreign players, so Abbas has been playing for weak teams in the CBA, but whichever team he joins will enter the playoffs. However, the rules Forced, he could only join another team in the bottom five, so his CBA career would involve changing teams every year. Since 2009, Abbas has helped Shanghai, Beijing, Fujian, Shandong, Tianjin and other teams reach the playoffs. This is also nicknamed "Abbas' Law".
Apart from these two people, it is difficult for the Jordanian team to find a third scoring point, and for the Chinese team, as long as they can suppress these two people, it is equivalent to controlling the entire game.
In fact, meeting the Chinese team in the first game was not good news for the Jordan team. The world doesn't know much about the Jordanian men's basketball team. If it were another opponent, they wouldn't know the Jordanian team's tactical arrangements or the characteristics of the Jordanian team's players. The Jordanian team could take advantage of this and catch their opponents off guard.
However, the Chinese team and the Jordan team are both Asian teams. They have competed with each other many times and know their respective players better. Even if the Jordan team uses some surprise tactics, it will not have any effect. But what's worse is that the first game will completely expose the Jordan team's player characteristics and tactical arrangements. Other teams can also make targeted adjustments and arrangements when they meet the Jordan team again.
Similar situations are very common in sports competitions. The most recent example is the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. The North Korean team faced Brazil in their first game and lost 1-2. They only lost one goal against Brazil and were able to score one goal. The big reason is that the Brazilian team at that time didn't understand North Korea at all. But in the second game, the North Korean team was crushed by Portugal 0-7. Is Portugal better than Brazil? The answer is definitely not this. The game between North Korea and Brazil exposed the tactics and the characteristics of the players. For Portugal, as long as they focus on the following, they can easily crush North Korea.
…
In this game, the five starting players for the Chinese team were Su Da, Arab League, Wang Shipeng, Sun Yue and Liu Wei. Both Zhang Guan and Dayao sat on the bench and had no intention of playing, which disappointed many fans at the scene.
The Jordan team also felt like they were punched in the face. In the preparations before the game, most of the Jordan team's preparations were directed at Zhang Guan and Dayao. After all, the two are the "double core" of the Chinese team. The Jordan team prepared various tactics to deal with them. . But the two did not start the game, which wasted more than half of the Jordan team's pre-match preparations.
Parma, the head coach of the Jordan team, looked very ugly and his pre-match preparations had no effect. The two main players of the Chinese team are also deliberately retaining their strength, which makes Parma feel despised.
Since both sides knew each other relatively well, there was not much testing, and the fight started in earnest from the beginning of the game. The Chinese team relies on strong inside play to score consecutive points. It is roughly the same as the UAE's inside duo, and they have quite a lot of experience in beating the Jordan team. The Jordan team also uses White as its main attack. In last year's Asian Championships, White caused a lot of trouble to the Chinese team. So at the World Championships, coach Parma repeated his tactics and prepared to continue to use White's strengths.
White's memory of the Chinese team still remains in last year's Asian Championships, when he single-handedly turned the Chinese team's perimeter players upside down. At that time, Sun Yue was sent off for five fouls, and Wang Shipeng also committed four fouls, but he still couldn't To prevent White from getting everything he wants, White today is ready to copy last year's successful experience. However, White soon discovered that his tricks are not as effective as last year, and the Chinese team's defense is much tougher than last year.
Although Deng Huade's tactical skills are not brilliant, the "beating chicken blood" strategy has an immediate effect on improving the national team's defense. Especially in the first game, the players' physical fitness is relatively abundant, even if they are roughly the same as veterans. Liu Wei also works very hard on defense, which greatly limits White's personal abilities and frequently blocks his breakthroughs with the ball.
And Abbas, another core member of the Jordanian team, was also very out of shape today.
Abbas, who plays in the CBA, is very familiar with Chinese players, so no matter who he faces, he will feel at ease, except for Dayao, Zhang Guan and A Lian, because these three people have not played in the CBA . In the game, Abbas, who is the power forward of the Jordanian team, directly faced the UAE.
Abbas and the Arab League had played against each other in last year's Asian Championships, but the current Arab League is an NBA player after all. Growth in the NBA and growth in the CBA are completely different concepts, especially for young players. The NBA seems to be a completely different person in one year, and UAE, who is one year older, is more mature and stable than last year. Because of this, Abbas did not perform at a normal level when facing the UAE, especially in terms of secondary rebounds, and was completely suppressed by the UAE.
In the first quarter of the game, the Chinese team led by 7 points 21-14. After the start of the second quarter, the Chinese team replaced several young people, and the effect of "beating the chicken blood" became more obvious. Although the young players also made several mistakes, they always maintained the score gap. At the end of the first half, the Chinese team led the Jordan team by 10 points 41-31.
After the start of the second half, the score between the two sides always hovered around 10 points. White's attack was blocked, Abbas couldn't perform well, and the game began to become less suspenseful. In the last two minutes, the eight-point gap also let the Jordan team know that this game was no longer possible.
The score was finally settled at 81-73. The Chinese team defeated its first opponent without any surprises.
(End of chapter)