Chapter 766: Chapter 766

Brown tried many kinds of methods, but until the end of the game, he did not succeed.

If it were just Hansen, or just Jokic, then he could try to force the ball out from their hands, but now these two are on the same team...

More often than not, the situation when the game started reappeared, with both players having the chance for mismatched one-on-one plays.

You defend one person, and the other can quickly complete a mismatched one-on-one play.

This is what’s famously known as mutually setting up a "chicken legs and cheese" situation.

Brown also tried to let go of the Cavaliers’ other three players and focus fully on defending Hansen and Jokic, but both Korver and Covington were shooting decisively from the outside tonight, and their accuracy was quite good.

Or you could say, Malone’s training over the past half month, the arrangement for role players, is simply to put the accurate shooters on the court.

In the end, Brown could only engage in a duel, seeking breakthroughs from the points of Korver and Jokic.

But the embarrassing part was that when Simmons was on the court, Hansen completely ignored him, making the offensive side of the 76ers increasingly appear like four against five.

Originally, with Butler there, the 76ers, although playing passively, could still maintain the situation, and were only trailing the Cavaliers by 13 points at halftime with a score of 43 to 56.

However, once the third quarter began and Malone replaced TT with Kuzma in the starting lineup, the Cavaliers had more space on the court, causing the 76ers’ defense to be so stressed that they collapsed.

In summary, the 76ers had two areas where they couldn’t beat the Cavaliers in response to the sudden tactical adjustments: the offense couldn’t beat them, and the defense couldn’t beat them.

The Cavaliers finally won overwhelmingly at home with a score of 118 to 96 against the 76ers, securing an important positioning match.

In the postgame statistics, Embiid on the 76ers had an ineffective 26 points and 12 rebounds, while Hansen on the Cavaliers scored 33 points, six rebounds, and six assists through three quarters, and Jokic scored 28 points, 11 rebounds, and six assists.

The 76ers were entirely beaten to death by the two of them.

Because of Embiid’s impressive performance and flamboyant character, he is quite well-known even among East University basketball fans.

So right after the game finished, fans were already enthusiastically composing poetry on the forums.

"In the second year of Bede, the Great Emperor personally campaigned in Cleveland, slaughtered lions for sacrifice, vowed to break the city, but encountered Han Emperor and his front general Nikola in a massacre, greatly defeated, the Emperor only barely escaped back to Philadelphia alone."

In the postgame press conference, reporters asked about Hansen and Embiid’s provocative remarks before the game.

Hansen read that article and knew Embiid didn’t mean what the reporter asked.

However, at such times, he couldn’t go and explain for Embiid; he smiled and replied:

"I have an African lion at home."

Embiid hunted lions to complete his coming-of-age ceremony, but Hansen keeps a lion as a pet, clearly showing who is superior.

Not to mention that most of Embiid’s tales were fictional, while Hansen is actually real.

After finishing the game with the 76ers, the Cavaliers subsequently defeated the Thunders and Raptors, achieving a three-game winning streak.

The opponents were clearly unaccustomed to the Cavaliers’ sudden adjustment in tactics, or rather, there are not many teams in the League that have the defensive resources to simultaneously restrict Hansen and Jokic.

However, the Cavaliers lost to the Rockets afterwards, giving other teams some inspiration.

After Antony took charge of the Rockets, the Rockets started playing Magic Ball, which pursues breakthroughs and threes, but apart from this, also constantly creates mismatched one-on-one opportunities against the opposing center, commonly known as "military training."

So essentially speaking, the playing styles of the two teams have significant similarity.

Even in that game, not only Harden, but Paul and Gordon also took turns in pinpointing Jokic.

Due to the physical exertion on the defensive side, Jokic’s performance was ultimately affected on the offensive side.

So this provided other teams with a thought process: rather than thinking about how to defend against the Cavaliers, it might be smarter to think about how to exhaust the Cavaliers.

Hansen is hard to exhaust, considering his defensive capability, dueling him would just be no fun, but Jokic’s defense, especially mismatched defense, is his weakness.

Malone’s final response plan was to replace Korver with Kuzma in the starting lineup.

Even if Jokic’s ability to defend smaller players could be enhanced to a certain extent, the more effective response is to strive to improve the ability to maneuver around outside screens. For more chapters visıt 𝔫𝔬𝔳𝔢𝔩~𝕗𝕚𝕣𝕖~𝙣𝙚𝙩

In this regard, Hansen and Covington are masters, and Kuzma, because of his Little Dog Steps, is a candidate.

Originally, if JR were in good form, these problems would actually never arise.

Even if Powell were still with the Cavaliers, he could shoot and defend; this starting position would also be his.

But now, Malone can only use Kuzma to cover up.

This effect is ultimately only decent at best.

Kuzma still has a forward body type; his speed stops when he encounters a fast shooting guard and the effect is not good.

However, another impact of Kuzma starting is that JR was pushed out of the team’s rotation.

This also made JR feel quite dissatisfied.

Originally, he finally managed to get past Irving last season to start, but it took only half a season for the start to be gone again.

His way of expressing dissatisfaction also felt familiar to others; in the fourth quarter garbage time against the Phoenix Suns, he directly untied Monroe’s shoelaces on the court.

This quickly led him to receive a massive fine of 25,000 US Dollars from the League.

Just after the game with Phoenix Suns, Malone found Griffin and discussed JR’s issue.

Malone has always practiced a coaching principle of treating everyone equally, so his handling of JR will still involve suspension, like before.

Just that he still has some concerns.

Because times are different now, JR is now a contributor to the team’s consecutive championships.