The Way of Basketball: Never Talk Shit to Him!
Chapter 273 - 166: Is This Still Su Wan? Is This Still Su Wan?_2

Chapter 273: Chapter 166: Is This Still Su Wan? Is This Still Su Wan?_2

Bucks: Shoot, Barkley is coming at us tonight!

"No worries, no worries, keep defending like this!"

Reid missed his shot and it was the Pacers’ turn to attack again. Terry still believed that Su Wan’s catch and shoot was a fluke.

Hmm...

He had to think so!

Otherwise, big trouble would ensue!

And then...

Big trouble did ensue!

Su Wan circled out from the wing again, catching and shooting immediately, and this time, it was a three-point shot.

"Swish!"

"Wow!"

Su Wan, scoring 5 points consecutively, made Barkley jump straight out of his chair.

He couldn’t just sit and watch anymore, couldn’t just sit and watch anymore.

Su Wan was about to bring him another surprise.

How could he stay seated!

Ford drove in and scored, temporarily stopping the bleeding for the Bucks, then it was the Pacers’ turn to attack again. fгeewebnovёl.com

This time the Bucks tightly guarded the three-point line around where Su was moving. Su immediately made a gesture to Calderon, incomprehensible to anyone but the two of them, and the Spaniard quickly exploited the other half’s open space for a breakthrough.

He passed the ball to young O’Neal under the basket.

This round, Jamal suddenly became a bit more proactive, causing young O’Neal to miss the first opportunity to dunk.

"Ball!"

Hearing the familiar call for the ball, young O’Neal quickly found the familiar 99 of the Pacers and passed the ball to him.

Bogut realized too late when a man appeared in front of him, he could not avoid it and just had to stand there and take the hit.

"Bang!"

An "explosion" sounded overhead, and Bogut, along with the massive impact, sat down hard on the ground.

"Wow!"

This time not only Barkley, but the entire Bradley Arena let out a huge gasp.

Su Wan, who had dunked Bogut to the ground, roared loudly, like a war god.

He was slightly surprised that Bogut hadn’t played "dirty."

Was it because of the rookie status being restraining, or had this crooked tree not completely turned crooked yet?

It’s well known that Bruce Bowen didn’t start playing "dirty" until he joined the Spurs and gradually learned to do so. The growth environment is self-evident for a player’s development.

Of course, this didn’t mean Su Wan would change his view of Bogut.

What was going to happen would still happen, at most now Su Wan wouldn’t act out against him.

Ah, what a pity, he was ready to give Bogut a good kicking tonight.

"Your Bucks’ interior has really changed with you, I’ve never dunked so easily before!"

While dropping some "trash talk," Su Wan walked towards the free throw line and scored the bonus shot. At that moment, Terry called for a timeout.

There was no choice, Su Wan had scored 8 points in a short span of time, and if he didn’t call a timeout soon, the point difference would be stretched out immediately.

"Is this still Su Wan? Is this still Su Wan?" Barkley shouted excitedly from the studio.

Initially thinking that the Bucks starting to double-team would reduce Su Wan’s presence on the offensive end, the Pacers needed to think of something else, but the result...

Why think of something else when Su Wan’s off-ball playing was equally ferocious now.

Kenny Smith started to revisit Su Wan’s past performance statistics, the more detailed ones, and continued until the Bucks’ timeout ended. Just as the players returned to the court, he said, "Su Wan had gradually started to increase his catch-and-shoot ratio since last month, it’s just that we hadn’t paid much attention to it..."

There were many reasons, such as Kobe’s 81 points, and the All-Stars starting lineup among other distractions that required their attention, which made them focus more on off-court activities rather than on-court play.

As a result, Su Wan’s style of play had quietly changed, becoming more skilled in off-ball plays, yet they were still viewing him with old perspectives.

Actually, Su Wan was also surprised by how well he played today.

After accumulating so many zone values in previous games, his potential value for three-point shooting increased to 95 points, and he had also improved his potential value for catch-and-shoot.

Now, both abilities had seen a very noticeable improvement, with three-point shooting rising to a main player level of 70 points and catch-and-shoot reaching 81 points.

However, he was still more accustomed to various attacks after holding the ball and was not very used to shooting three-point shots.

Okay, compared to three-point shots, mid-distance and breakthroughs are his sharper weapons.

People are more confident about the aspects where their ability values are higher, and Su Wan was no exception.

Moreover, if he kept shooting three-pointers from outside, no one would continue to put pressure under the basket, forcing the opponent to shrink their defense.

This season, O’Neal relied more on a ball-handler to "feed" him before making impactful plays on the basket, and defenders could either anticipate in advance or not react at all, so they would not shrink the defense specifically for him.

Only when the Pacers missed outside shots and contested for rebounds would O’Neal under the basket make the opponents shrink their defense.

"Second Attack Threat" was his most notable improvement this season, besides his explosive power under the basket.

But he had almost no role in attracting double teams at the low post, a part that needed to be supplemented by Su Wan.

Perhaps due to reduced ball-handling, O’Neal had a lot of energy invested in the defensive end; otherwise, how could he maintain such long periods of concentration and high quality on defense this season?

O’Neal was initially not very used to it, but as his stats gradually increased—with this season’s stats reaching 21.4 points, 11.3 rebounds, and 2 blocks—he started enjoying it.

And if he knew that losing weight had prevented injuries that would have occurred this season, he would probably be even happier.

Thus, Su Wan’s ball-handling performance this season became increasingly eye-catching.

This was also why the improvement in Su Wan’s off-ball offense didn’t attract much attention or discussion.

Of course, scoring 8 straight points would definitely cause a frenzy of discussions after the game.

The Bucks’ extremely targeted defensive setup allowed him to fully demonstrate his scoring ability without the ball.

Just look at how excited Barkley was.

His streak of scoring 8 points, how surprising that was!

This meant that, starting now, in order to restrict Su Wan, you had to consider not just when he had the ball, but also when he didn’t.

What?

Could it just be that he was in good form, which is why he shone so brightly off the ball tonight?

There’s nothing wrong with that idea.

But you ask those teams who faced the Pacers in the playoffs—should they bet on Su Wan having a bad off-ball day at critical moments of the game?

For a player like Su Wan, the day he delivered an outstanding off-ball performance meant, from that day on, other teams in the league couldn’t underestimate his off-ball capabilities.

Of course, from Su Wan’s perspective, there’s another reason that can’t be overlooked.

That is, the Bucks’ defensive quality was really poor.

If someone else had executed the same tactics, he probably would have been restricted, especially since he hadn’t opened "The zone" yet.

Michael Reid, perhaps stimulated by Su Wan’s consecutive scoring, received a pass from Ford and scored against Su Wan right after the timeout.

Amazing, truly amazing!

Originally, Michael Reid would score a career-high of 57 points on November 11 next season, and given the date, Su Wan had reason to suspect something had spurred him on to unleash full firepower in that game.

This meant that, starting from this season, Reid had already reached his absolute peak, and when he was in good form, he was indeed hard to limit.

However, with that being the case...

Su Wan had one more reason to aim for a high score tonight.

Both were new-generation two guards who had broken through an average of 25 points per season; there was no reason Su Wan couldn’t outscore Michael Reid.

Therefore, right after Reid scored, Su Wan actively asked for the ball, and facing Michael Reid, after continuous fakes, he scored with a signature mid-range shot.

In less than 10 seconds, on the other half of the court, almost in the same position, Reid received a pass from his teammate and also scored directly with a mid-range jump shot.

The cheers in the venue gradually intensified.

Such a strong performance from Michael Reid delighted them immensely.

This was why they traded away Ray Allen and promoted Michael Reid!

Search the lightnovelworld.cc website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.