Traditional behemoth becomes fire and wins the victory and defeats Cole "cuts" 8 times reveals despair

Sports Weekly All-Media Reporter Kong Dexin

Go back to last summer. If someone said that Steven Adams, who had just been reimbursed for one year in the season, would become the Rockets' series winner against the Warriors, you would definitely not believe it. In this small ball era when Stephen Curry set off a wave, traditional big centers were once considered to have no room for survival. Big guys either need to have three-point shooting ability, or they need to be a good player in the basket protecting and eating at the basket like Gobert and Gafford. Adams does not belong to the above two categories. How could he do something when facing the team led by Curry?

But when the Rockets defeated the Warriors 115-107 away in Game 6 of the series and forced a tiebreak final, everyone realized how important Adams is.

17 points, 5 rebounds, 3 blocks and 0 mistakes. The Rockets center contributed quite excellent data in this game, but compared to these data, what is more important is his 31-minute playing time - this is Adams' single-game playing time this season. During his appearance, the Rockets beat the Warriors 15 points. If you look far and watch this whole series, when Adams is on the court, the Rockets beat the Warriors 53 points, and when he is not there, the Rockets lose 39 points.

"In this small ball era, he was like a cave giant from ancient times. This old giant beat everyone to the point of falling, and we will keep him fighting until he dies there." Van Vleet, who scored 29 points, praised Adams after the game.

Although it is hard to imagine, the Rockets locked the Warriors with double towers. As of this game, when Adams, Shin Kyung and another tall forward Jabbarri Smith Jr. were on the court at the same time, the Rockets beat the Warriors 48.8 points in a hundred rounds. This seemingly mobile combination has become the Rockets' trump card. They played joint defense and dominated rebounds, leaving the Warriors with shortcomings in the space at a loss. In fact, in the series G4, the Rockets had already used Adams to enjoy the sweetness. Although the Warriors narrowly defeated the Rockets 109 to 106, the Rockets won 16 points in the 26 minutes of Adams' presence. After the game, Warriors coach Cole once bluntly said: "They 'lost Adams', which puts us in huge trouble." A large part of the reason why the Warriors won the G4 was that Uduka lost the bet when facing Cole's strategy of cutting Adams.

G4 with 4 minutes and 58 seconds left in the final quarter, Cole replaced Looney to perform a shooting operation to cut Adams (deliberately fouled Adams who was not in the ball and allowed him to stand on the free throw line), because the latter's free throw percentage was only 46.2% in the season. During that period, the Rockets had been in the joint defense of the two towers, and Shin Kyung's physical strength was overdrawn. As a result, Kohl's strategy allowed Uduka to replace Adams. After that, although VanVleet made another three-pointer, the Rockets could only return to the man-marking defense. As soon as they came up, they were penetrated by the cross-running position of "Chasing Dreams" and Curry. Then Shin Kyung attacked the iron and retreated and shot a three-pointer by Hilde, and the Warriors overtook it.

In today's battle, Cole still used his strategy to cut Adams, and even started from the third quarter, but Uduka did not waver anymore. The Warriors performed 8 intentional fouls on Adams, who made 9 of 16 free throws, and two other two missed free throws. Shin Kyung completed a second offensive tip-in or rebound to cause a foul. So in these 8 rounds, the Rockets scored a total of 13 points (162.5 points in 100 rounds). Uduka won this bet, and won a lot.

"I really hope the referee can brag about Adams' defense three-second violation, but he did perform impeccably," Draymond Green said after the game.

Adams seemed quite calm when talking about his performance. "I feel good. As long as the coach needs me, I will always be on the court, just do my job well. If my influence drops, of course I will replace me, but no matter what, I will do what the coach says." Adams said, "We guarded a strange area defense, a weird joint defense, but it works."