In the face of Zhejiang, one of the current top four teams, Guangdong suffered another crushing defeat, a complete and utter defeat! The reason it's described as such a disaster is that the opponent let go of the big and small kings in this game and won a decisive victory with just four twos!
In the previous game, Wu Qian was unexpectedly injured, and the big foreign aid, Bass, was also absent due to personal reasons! Before the game, I thought Guangdong could have won this game with two absolute core players from Zhejiang missing. However, they were unexpectedly overwhelmed by Zhejiang from the second quarter onwards. Moreover, it can be seen from this game that there is indeed a significant gap between Guangdong's current lineup and strong teams, especially the frontcourt players Zhang Wenyi, Zhang Haojia, and Du Runwang, who are simply not reliable in high-level games! With Hu Mingxuan absent, only three players had the ability to compete with strong teams, and on this night of defeat, only these three could leave with their heads held high!
The first name without any suspense is Xu Jie! It's no longer necessary to count how many games Xu Jie has played for more than 40 minutes because since the second stage, he has only played less than 40 minutes in three games, including the last game! Before this game, Guangdong finally announced that Les had completed registration and also entered the 12-man roster for this game! Perhaps Xu Jie thought his helper had finally arrived, but he didn't expect the helper to come but not be of much help!
Those who watched the game should have noticed that during a substitution, when Les stood on the sidelines, Xu Jie went down very consciously, but was pushed back by Coach Du Feng! Xu Jie probably didn't expect that Les wasn't coming up to replace him! In the end, Xu Jie played for 44 minutes and 25 seconds in the whole game, scoring 31 points, 3 rebounds, 9 assists, and 3 steals. Whenever Zhejiang started to gain momentum, it was always Xu Jie who stood out. However, it's a pity that one person can't fight against four, and facing Zhejiang's multi-point attack, relying solely on Xu Jie is far from enough!
The second name is Morand! The biggest helper for Xu's repeated scoring through his own layups is Morand! As Guangdong's most reliable inside-out combination at present, Morand will attract a lot of defensive attention after setting screens with Xu Jie, which is when Xu Jie gets opportunities. Once the opponent's big man comes to help defend Xu Jie, Morand will follow up for an easy alley-oop! Although Morand didn't seem to attack much in this game, he made 8 out of 12 shots! He scored 19 points while grabbing 12 rebounds, dishing out 5 assists, and blocking 5 shots! It can be said that he completely supported Guangdong's defense with his own efforts!
The third name is Jilunwote! Some friends may think Jilunwote didn't play well in this game because he only made 6 out of 17 shots, 1 out of 6 three-pointers, and scored only 19 points! But you have to see how much defense he attracted on the court. He was a key target for Zhejiang's attention! Moreover, his efficiency value for the whole game was -2, which proves that he almost guaranteed not to lose when he was on the court!
The reason why the "three giants" still couldn't avoid a crushing defeat despite exerting all their efforts is that I think Du Feng's omission of Ren Junfei is the most direct cause! The last time Du Feng did not register Ren Junfei for the game against Jiangsu, he gave Jiangsu their first win of the season! Some fans might say Ren Junfei isn't that important, but I want to say that he really is!
Firstly, the reason Du Feng did not register Ren Junfei is that he thought Guangdong could win this game because Zhejiang was missing two main players! However, this mentality is contagious, and the whole team would have this idea. The result of mental relaxation is that Jilunwote made only 1 out of 6 three-pointers, Xu Jie made only 1 out of 7, Du Runwang made only 1 out of 3, and the whole team made only 6 out of 28 three-pointers, with a dismal 21.4% shooting rate! Is Zhejiang's defense very fierce? It's not entirely true; many missed three-pointers are due to mentality issues. Relaxation is easy, but it's hard to tighten up on the court!
Secondly, Guangdong had no way to deal with Zhejiang's zone defense in this game, and the fundamental reason is still Ren Junfei's absence. In previous games, whenever the opponent set up a zone defense, Guangdong would immediately switch to Ren Junfei, but Du Feng did not register Ren Junfei for this game, and everyone saw the result: the offense stalled directly!