Rockets reverse Bucks: Durant: Giannis, Lao Li, meet again!

The Rockets beat the Bucks, is this their first win against a strong team this season? And indeed the first major reversal: this season's rite of passage for the Rockets.

A question mark for a strong team is that although the Bucks are fourth in the Eastern Conference, I can't tell whether it's Giannis's miraculous power or Lao Li's teaching skills.

The assists per game are in the middle of the league, but the passing rate is 278, which is the bottom three in the league: Giannis + Rollins + Anthony are the three ball handlers who take turns to take over. Giannis averages 33+13+7 in 32 minutes per game. Rollins and Ke'an are on the line and play alternately. There is no front board. No matter what is interspersed, the whole team shoots 54 three-pointers. This is the Bucks.

Old Li: Hey, that’s not enough!

But also because of Li Shicheng, the Rockets were able to turn around.

The Rockets trailed by 8 points with 4 and a half minutes left in the fourth quarter, and they set up a five-man team of Shepard/Okogie + Durant + Jabari + Shen Jing + Amen, and then, here they come.

Durant broke through Kuzma and fed Amen to the basket for a three-pointer.

——Durant is afraid of the iron threshold and is not afraid of long forwards, but the Bucks have no iron threshold: Holiday? Tucker? No longer exists.

Amen Longjinghu hit a three-pointer. The beauty of this goal was that Giannis was involved in the bottom corner by Jabari and could not make up for it.

Jabari: Seven Feet in 3D.

The next goal is Jabari's counterattack until Kuzma fouls. This is the second meaning of Jabari: seven-foot 3D, and he can also run fast breaks with long strides! Race to the finish line!

The Bucks relied on Gary Trent to trap Durant, but failed in a double attack; Durant made a jump shot: Trent was 196 centimeters away, but the bottom plate was not hard enough, allowing Durant to take off from the mid-range, and nothing could be done.

Durant: You are not Tony Allen!

Then, in my opinion, Durant's best goal of the game.

Trent cut out, jumped Durant, and broke through; Durant was already out of position and pursued relentlessly. He interfered with Trent three times in one round and finally prevented Trent from throwing the ball.

Starting from this ball, the Bucks' offense was cracked: who has the ball and who plays in isolation, it is clear at a glance without burning your brain; Durant goes out to defend, how much encouragement does it give to his teammates?

In the next round, Durant took Giannis alone, and the enemy was extremely jealous when he met, but he was on the weak side: Trent had realized that Durant would look for Jabari, but he was 196 centimeters long and could not block the seven-foot Jabari long shot.

Jabari: Seven feet 3D, have you seen it?

Giannis still wanted to entangle Durant, but Durant named Turner and pulled the ball to break through the mid-range shot-it is still an old topic: the Bucks have no iron threshold that can buckle Durant. As long as Giannis is restrained, Durant can hit whomever he wants.

The Bucks continued the same old routine: Trent cut out, Okogie didn't give him a chance; Giannis attacked Durant, Shen Jing was waiting for him under the basket, and Giannis missed.

Then Shen Jing hit the ball with the highest golf quotient in the game:

First get close to Durant, then move away, and sign "not in a hurry, not in a hurry".

Giannis rushed over, and Shen Jing directly broke through Giannis, then turned around and passed Turner for a layup: the time difference, the rhythm, including that "not in a hurry, not in a hurry", are full of worries.

Such a reversal is clear:

Shen Jing scored 23+11+7 in the game, the team's second-highest +21: The Rockets were behind for most of the time, but he was able to +21. In the fourth quarter, he scored 10 points on all 4 shots.

Jabari Smith's team-high +25: Of course he made 5 of 15 shots, but in the last few rounds, his meaning was very clear:

Seven-foot 3D, pulling Giannis, counterattacking and drawing fouls, and receiving three-pointers from the weak side. Drawing, running, pulling, and a team-high 8 defensive rebounds.

Okogie scored 0 points in the game, but he basically played the role of a weakened version of Tucker: Back then, the Bucks used Tucker to entangle Durant, and today the Rockets use Okogie to consume Giannis.

Shepard is the biggest surprise: He scored 16 points in the past two games. He was occasionally chased as a weak point, but he has gradually become able to stand firm in high-intensity games.

Lao Li played against Udoka's Rockets in the Bucks, with 2 wins and 4 losses.

Uduka is a tough horse and a bridge, but he can't beat Cole's tricks; but it seems suitable to deal with Lao Li's stubbornness?

At the end of the fourth quarter today, Lao Li asked Giannis and Trent to go back and forth with Durant.

Durant: Oops! Singled out, right? Nothing else, right?

When Durant is not flanked by the center circle or blocked by the iron threshold, he can shoot 31 points on 15 shots. And as mentioned above, his most critical performance today was not his 7 points and 4 assists in the fourth quarter, but his blocking of Trent and Giannis. After all, Durant can give you 20 points even if he sleepwalks, but at the last moment today, when the Bucks insisted on attacking him, he stood still.

The triple interference in Trent's round was particularly moving: he was jumped, old, out of position, and pursued relentlessly.

Durant: It's just a one-on-one, it doesn't involve going around the screen to block the wheel and look around, right? You can't use any brain-burning tricks to get me, can you? Old Li is truly an honest man!

After all, Durant’s career-high 50 points in the playoffs came against Lao Li’s Clippers in 2019.

The second-highest score of 49 points was scored against the Bucks.