NBA: No. 1 Forward

Chapter 16: University of Oklahoma Clippers

On November 8, USC will play away against the University of Oklahoma Clippers in the Big 12 league.

The Oklahoma Clippers are one of the famous traditional basketball schools in the United States. The Oklahoma Clippers have continuously entered the National Championships since 1983. They also entered the National Army Tournament in 1988, but eventually lost To the Kansas City Jays led by Larry Brown. But in the 2001-2002 season, under the leadership of coach Kelvin Sampson, he once again reached the national semifinals, but lost to the Indiana Hussels led by head coach Mike Davis in the national semifinals Team. In the 02-03 season, he reached the top eight in the country. But after that, the results fell all the way.

The addition of Blake Griffin, a talented high school student in the previous year, allowed them to break into the national championship again after a year.

Their head coach, Jeff Capel, joined the Oklamaho Clippers in 2006. He is a young coach in his early 30s. He entered the national championship this year in his second year of joining. But fell in the second round of the national championship.

This year they retained the team facelift from last season, intending to make a comeback.

This game is the eighth game of USC's preseason game, and the Oklamaho Clippers are also the strongest of all their preseason opponents.

In the previous two games, Tim mentioned Lian Dao to the starting lineup and achieved good results. In two games, he averaged 25 minutes per game, scored 19 points, 6 rebounds, 8 assists, 1 steal and 2 turnovers. He shot 49% from the field, 52% from the three-point range, and 70% from the free throw line.

Since the beginning of the preseason, USC has won a wave of seven consecutive victories, which is the best result USC has achieved in recent years.

After these seven games, Lian Dao became famous in California. He was affectionately called "Mr. Key" and "Three-Point Killer" by the fans. Since his last appearance on the cover of the "Sports Illustrated" basketball section, he has also risen to fame in the United States. Many NBA scouts and media also set their sights on him.

The basketball stadium of the Oklahoma Clippers can accommodate about 18,000 spectators. Today, their stadium is full of seats. Lian Dao actually saw a small number of Chinese in the arena auditorium holding up slogans supporting him. There were also several female spectators wearing his current No. 1 jersey, which surprised Lian Dao.

"I didn't expect that I would get such a big reputation in the preseason." Lian Dao really thought about playing for fame, but at the time he thought about achieving results in the national championship, but he didn't expect to be famous in the preseason, and even more so. I didn't expect to have my own fans in the away game.

After Lian Dao came out, he waved to the fans in the audience who supported him. Several female fans at the scene screamed excitedly, and at the same time gathered the slogans in their hands higher, and shouted words of support for Lian Dao.

This caused the surrounding Oklahoma Clippers fans to turn their angry eyes away, but when they saw that it was a beautiful girl, they turned their heads back one after another, but they looked at Lian Dao with more bad points. at the same time. They chanted cheering for Oklahoma, as if this could convey strength to the Oklahoma team, and then blow up Lian Dao.

"Blake will smash the handsome face of the boy with the No. 1 jersey on the opposite side, oh, hell, I actually think he is handsome." This is the voice of the Oklahoma Clippers fans who just turned back.

The starting lineup of the University of Oklahoma: point guard: Willie Warren (193cm); shooting guard: Austin Johnson (190cm); small forward: Tony Crocker (198cm); power forward: Taylor Griffin (201cm); center: Blake Griffin (208cm).

Is it a bit awkward to look at Oklahoma's lineup, the point guard is taller than the shooting guard, and did not expect Griffin to play center in college. In fact, this is the real lineup of Oklahoma. Willie Warren and Austin Johnson are combo guards, both of whom have certain organizational passing and scoring, but Willie's organizational passing is even better. .

And Oklahoma has no center that can take shots, so only the 208cm tall Blake Griffin is on top of the center, but don't underestimate the center Blake Griffin, his strength is even in the center position He doesn't suffer at all, on the contrary, his flexibility and speed are beyond the reach of traditional centers. The most important thing is that he has an excellent low-post scoring ability. Griffin's post-up is very good, but his wingspan is a bit short, which makes turn-around jump shots easy to be blocked. At the same time, Griffin's ball control is also very good, and he is also one of the few centers in the NCAA who can attack with the ball.

Look at the starting lineup of USC: point guard: Daniel Hackett; shooting guard: DeMar DeRozan, small forward: Lian Dao, power forward: Ty Gibson, center: Keith Wilkinson . USC's starting lineup has not been adjusted much.

Daniel Hackett was the starting point guard before, and his organizational passing is second only to Lian Dao in Southern California. In this case, it is equivalent to having two players who can organize passes on the field, which will make USC's outside play more flexible and changeable. The overall strength of USC’s outside line is better than that of the University of Oklahoma. The height of the inside line also has an advantage compared with the opponent, but the flexibility of the inside line is much worse than that of the opponent. Therefore, in this game, the opponent must be prepared for a defensive counterattack.

This is also what coach Tim is worried about. Tim scanned the players on the bench, glanced at Vucevic, and sighed.

Vucevic is flexible enough, and he has trained with Lian Dao for a summer vacation, his weight has continued to increase, and his confrontation ability has also been greatly improved. Compared with his previous life, Vucevic is definitely stronger. In his freshman year, he was mostly on the bench to practice leveling, and now Vucevic definitely has the strength to play as a starter. However, the sky failed as people wished, his non-professional player investigation has not been completed, and he will not be able to play until the next game at the earliest.

Today's game attracted a lot of NBA scouts and media reporters. There are 5 players in the two teams who can participate in the NBA draft, Blake Griffin and Taylor Griffin from Oklahoma; On the USC side, DeMar DeRozan, Ty Gibson and the rising star Lian Dao from California.

Although this game is a preseason game, the strength of the two teams is not weak. For NBA scouts, UU Reading www.uukanshu. com can better reflect the real strength of the players.

"This game is not easy to play, maybe they will explode each other." Lian Dao looked at Griffin who was warming up and muttered softly.

Lian Dao is not worried about the opponent's outside line, he is confident to blow up the opponent's outside line, what he is worried about is whether his team's inside line can keep up with the opponent.

At the beginning of the game, Wilkinson and Griffin made a jump ball. Wilkinson used his height and wingspan to get the ball into the hands of point guard Daniel. Daniel saw Lian Dao and passed it directly to him after halftime.

Lian Dao didn't make any adjustments, and just pulled up two steps outside the three-point line and shot, and the basketball drew a beautiful arc. .

"Brush" and fell straight into the basket.

The small forward Tony Crocker on the opposite side didn't even react. He didn't expect that Lian Dao would dare to play so big on the first ball.

In fact, even if he reacted, Lian Dao would still shoot the opening three-pointer. In this game, USC must establish an advantage on the outside, which can also relieve some pressure on the inside. If USC can't open the outside line in this game, then this game will basically be over.

The first three-pointer was Lian Dao's offensive horn.

Next, the inside line was also as predicted by Lian Dao, and Griffin could not be guarded at all. He was like a berserk monster, rushing into USC's inside line, his legs were like springs, and then he jumped up with his hands He dunked the ball heavily into the basket through Wilkinson, who raised his hand to block him, and saw that the basket was crumbling. Wilkinson was knocked out two or three meters by him, and then sat down on the floor.

"Beep", Wilkinson blocked the foul, Griffin's goal was valid and a free throw was added.

2+1, Wilkinson defended the ball perfectly, but he still couldn't resist the runaway monster.