One Year Left to Play-Chapter 71 - 23: Clocking Out at Halftime?

In the eyes of these professional scouts, just this one shot is enough to see how solid Zhang Hao’s mid-range shot skills are!

The players on the court felt it too. Team A quickly realized that as long as Zhang Hao got a chance to receive and shoot, they definitely couldn’t defend against him!

And this is exactly what Bibi and Garnett wanted.

These geniuses all know that this game is not like their high school league games. In the high school league, at most each team has one or two geniuses at their level... Most schools don’t have any, having one is rare, having two, like Inglewood High School, makes them unbeatable in the state.

The biggest difference is defense. In the high school league, aside from facing compact defenses, they do not encounter too much defensive pressure because there is a huge difference in physicality. The biggest difference is the ability to compete, ordinary high school students cannot compare physically with this group of people. But here, competition is just the basics.

Bibi and Garnett’s goal is to get Zhang Hao into his shooting rhythm quickly to become a threat, so they can play more easily.

However, Zhang Hao, who was running back in transition defense, was a bit frustrated, feeling that his positioning was really bad.

Even though, if he’s asked to do what Corey Benjamin or Raheem are doing, he wouldn’t be worse than them. Plus, the other players’ off-ball movements are not much different from his, except Hamilton, who is the main focus of the opening tactics, and teammates surround him, so he needs to perform better.

"Fortunately we have Garnett, although this guy is annoyingly arrogant, playing with him as a teammate is really comfortable..."

Zhang Hao doesn’t force himself to be the best immediately, now with Garnett, he can utilize Garnett’s abilities, so he will do just that.

After Team B retreated to the backcourt, Marbury quickly pushed up. Although Marbury’s fame was only on New York’s street at the time, his skills were strong, he was definitely a top-tier high school basketball player. He pushed to the frontcourt and faced Corey’s defense, and a beautiful crossover left Corey Benjamin behind, who couldn’t even react before being bypassed!

However, Team B’s overall one-on-one ability is weaker compared to Team A, but their team defense is stronger. Bibi anticipated this point, despite being silent and sharp-tongued, he’s incredibly focused on whatever he does, continually observing all the opponents’ guard lines at the training camp. For Marbury’s breakthrough, his evaluation during team discussions was — high school’s number one in breakthroughs.

After being blocked by Bibi, Zhang Hao and Garnett respectively cut off the passing and receiving lanes along the baseline. Marbury quickly passed to Odom, who came out to receive. Odom, after getting the ball, broke through like a point guard, and at the same time, Kobe, who had cut in along the baseline, ran back out.

The distance for this defensive shift... Zhang Hao and Garnett exchanged a quick look, then simultaneously shifted over to Odom’s position...

Odom passed the ball to Kobe at the top of the arc, Kobe received the ball and shot a three-pointer... Scored!

This moment was quite awkward for Zhang Hao and Garnett, although their defense was overall quite successful, that last action made all the prior successful defense effort turn into futile effort.

"Why didn’t you go up?" Both shouted at each other.

"I thought you would go up!" Again, simultaneously.

"..." Speechless at the same time.

Although they didn’t see eye to eye with each other, they seemed to respect each other and truly trusted each other’s skills...

Zhang Hao definitely trusted Garnett’s abilities. Garnett is the type who can support an entire defensive system in the future and is one of the top defensive cores in NBA history, an extremely strong defensive connector, with ridiculously strong auxiliary defense capability and vast defensive coverage. So Zhang Hao felt that the far defensive shift should be left to Garnett.

But Garnett was equally confident in Zhang Hao’s speed, even though his explosive acceleration was slightly faster, Zhang Hao’s maximum speed was a notch stronger.

Hence, this awkward scene unfolded.

The crucial point was Garnett assumed Zhang Hao was unwilling to confront Odom, who at not yet 16 years old, already had the frame of a top-tier high school center. So, Garnett advanced for the block, not expecting Zhang Hao to be not only tough in words but also tough in action.

Garnett gained a bit more appreciation for Zhang Hao, but after passing the ball to Bibi and running towards the frontcourt, he still couldn’t stop talking: "I’m taller, I mainly protect the rim, you guard your perimeter and don’t drag me down at the perimeter!"

"Don’t drag me down in the paint either!"

With a mutual comeback, the two reached the frontcourt and started their "tacit" positional cooperation, which involved Zhang Hao following the positioning route he felt was best... Garnett viewed it as rubbish, running like nonsense, and then Garnett found the right time to screen for Zhang Hao, needing Corey Benjamin and Raheem’s positional cooperation as well as Bibi’s passing.

This was a treatment that can only be received on the basis of Zhang Hao’s persuasive mid-range shot.

Most importantly, the offense time was 35 seconds, giving Zhang Hao plenty of time to position himself.

The tactics revolving around Zhang Hao’s mid-range shot by Team B were very effective at the start of the game!

Team A was being suppressed!

Despite Kobe’s positionless firing capability already becoming apparent, Marbury’s unbeatable breakthroughs, Odom’s frightening versatility, Hamilton’s excellent mid-range when he receives the ball, Jamison’s impressive solo plays...

But Team B was playing true team basketball, whereas Team A was doing their own thing individually.